The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The extravagance of the sets and costumes increases the theatricality; Chunhyang is an almost childlike delight for the eyes.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Korea · 2000
Rated R · 2h 0m
Director Im Kwon-taek
Starring Hyo-jeong Lee, Cho Seung-woo, Kim Sung-nyeo, Hak-young Kim
Genre Drama, Romance
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Mongryong marries the beautiful Chunhyang without telling his father, the Governor of Namwon. When his father is transferred to Seoul, Mongryong has to leave Chunhyang and finish his exams. Chunhyang, being the daughter of a courtesan, is also legally a courtesan. She is beaten and imprisoned when she refuses to obey the new Governor Byun, as she wishes to be faithful to her husband. After three years, Mongryong passes his exam and becomes an emissary to the King. He returns to Namwon, disguised as a beggar, just before Chunhyang is to be flogged to death at the governor's birthday celebration.
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The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The extravagance of the sets and costumes increases the theatricality; Chunhyang is an almost childlike delight for the eyes.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
This astoundingly beautiful Korean production is poignant, original, and engrossing.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
A three-ring circus of visual pleasure, showing us the beauty of Korean garment, custom and national character.
It's sweeping yet intimate, stately yet impassioned, stylized yet immediate.
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
All the backing-and-forthing between olden and modern days intensifies the emotional impact of a compelling story, and underlines the enduring power of narrative itself.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Im Kwon Taek's exquisite Chunhyang brings to the screen one of Korea's most cherished folk tales, a timeless romance in which the lovers are challenged by differences in class.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Im's movie approaches a seething, primitivist beauty that evokes Makhmalbaf and parallels the contrapuntal textual investigations of Resnais.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
A spectacular, engrossing, big-hearted film based on one of Korea's great national epics and made by that country's top filmmaker.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
The Korean director im Kwon-Taek has made more than 90 films since his first in 1962, and perhaps this explains why his latest, Chunhyang, seems so effortless and masterly. Based on a highly popular eighteenth-century Korean folktale, it's a movie that, stylistically, mixes the traditional with the avant-garde; the narrative may be ritualistic, but there's a let's-try-it-on-for-size friskiness to the filmmaking.
Miami Herald by Sara Wildberger
As magical as "The Wizard of Oz," the film leaves its spare setting and blooms into action in a colorful springtime world to tell the story of an epic romance lush with silken costumes, giggling courtesans, comic servants and rulers cruel and compassionate.
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