Overview

The 4th annual Puchon Fantastic Film Festival is set to open the 9-day Horror movies showcase. Puchon festival has become a first-rate event drawing together a wide panel of Horror movies from all over Asia and an eager international audience in a beautiful small town near Seoul. Chairman of the festival, Mister Song Seung-Yung, wants it to be a festival for the masses, a wish he may get, because more than 500 000 people from all around the world are expected. This Korean festival provides a wonderful opportunity to get a fuller view of Eastern and Western fantasy cinema.

The chairmain of the Jury of official competition feature film is Shin Sang-ok, a great director of action and historical films. Appointed Shin as a chairman this year bears great significance. Shin Sang-ok is a living symbol of the new relations between North and South Korea. Shin's North korean film Bulgasari is now on every screen on South Korea for the first time. In the competitives feature films and shorts films sections, several films already stand out among the list including Black Hole by Kim Kuk-Hyung starring the best korean actor Ann Songgi, "The Isle" by Kim Ki-duk which is already a popular success in Korea and A Higher Animal by Bong Jun-Ho and Deep in the wood by Lionel Delplanque from the new wave of horror films from France. In addition to the competitives feature films and short films line up, the festival will organise various seminar to examine digital filmaking in Korea and "How are we going to watch the slasher film?"

The first seminar, sponsored by KOFIC (Korean Film Commission) will examine digital filmaking both in terms of aesthetics and production. The second seminar, (Youngpyung symposium) with featured scholars, film critics and film directors, will try to establish the concept of "Slasher film". The festival will dedicate a tribute to Choi Moo-Ryong (1928 - 1999), a great actor from Korean melodrama and a star in Korea since he plays a part in one of the best Korean film ever made: An Aimless Bullet (Obaltan) by director Yu Hionmok (1961). The festival will dedicate a special section to feminism activists. It is now an usual section in Korean festivals since April's Chonju film festival. Those feminists sections are unusual and in contrast with Asian confucianism tradition.

The festival will also spotlight Finland. Ten short and feature films from the Helsinki International film festival "Love and Anarchy" will be screened. In addition, there will be a special screening of Yamada Yoji's film : "A class to remember - part 1" and "Tora-san Meets the Songstress Again - Part 15". The Japanese director was one of best low-budget filmmaker of the well-known Shoshiku Cie in the sixties.

Unfortunately, there are no shorts films screened in 16mm in Puchon competition.Typically only poor and/or inexperienced filmmakers use 16mm print.Thus, at a festival like this, which wants to speak to the masses of young people, 16mm are pushed aside. The second unfortunate programming choice regards Japanese films. Since last year, Japanese films can't have a commercial exploitation in South Korea. However, a few days before the opening ceremony of the festival, the organization decided to screen two of Yamada's films -- but Yamada is not representative of the Japanese new generation of film-makers. The festival must do something to bring Horror films from Japan next year.

The grown-up face of Korean cinema potentially offers a rare opportunity to experience, here in Puchon, the emergence of Horror films from everywhere in the world.

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Wrap Up

This year's Puchon drew an extraordinary audience; most of the films from Germany, Spain or Denmark will never have such a wonderful audience again in Europe.

The festival wrapped with the top prize awarded to The Ugliest Woman in the World from Spanish filmmaker Miguel Bardem. The award for Best Director went to Japanese filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda for Owl's Castle and the Audience Award went to Tuvalu by Veit Helmer from Germany. Pascal Greggory won Best Actor for his role in Why Get Married the Day the World Ends from Belgian filmmaker Harry; Sara Dogg Asgeirsdottir won Best Actress for her role in the Icelandic film Witchcraft from Hrafn Gunnlaugsson. The Grand Prize for short films went to The Perwig-Maker by Steffen Shaeffler from Germany and the Jury's Award for Short films went to The Countess of Castigleone by British filmmaker David Lodge. The audience award for the best short went to Black XXX-Mas by Peter Van Hees. Last but not least, the special Lifetime Achievement Award went to The Late Choi Mu-Ryong .

The feature films jury was headed by the Korean director Shin Sang-Ok, and included the Korean actor Park Joong-hoon; the Delegate General of the Clermont-Ferrand Festival, Antoine Lopez; the composer Claudio Simonetti; and the actress Kayoko Kishimito. The successful films The Ugliest Woman in the World, Owl's Castle and Tuvalu are moralistic tales less dangerous for the cinephile's mind than the majority of the other films in Puchon. The Ugliest Woman in the World is looking for a genetic revolution and the eternal struggle between "Beauty and the Beast" behind a classical thriller story. Owl's Castle is an ambitious recreation of a genre: the historical fanta-drama. The famous Hideyoshi have to face the revenge of a Japanese warlord in 1581. Tuvalu is dealing with idealism and pragmatism: two brothers closed in a world of decadence are looking for a new future, but those futures are different and antagonistic.

Even though the Asian films stood no chance of winning a prize (except Owl's Castle) the audience always wanted to see them first. Black Hole by Kim Kuk-Hyung was a good surprise and the horror-thriller was representative of the current psychological wave passing through Korean cinema. The Isle by Kim Kiduk began slowly with beatiful backdrops but the film slowly deteriorated to a bad barrage of military jokes.

A Higher Animal felt like a Tati film converted to the horror genre: in the film, everything is very logical becuase the main character Hyun-Nam, who works at the apartment administration office, thinks that a homeless man, Choi, is a dog thief and reports him to the police. Eating dog (a traditionnal food ) can be very difficult in the new and modern Korea. Everything can change when a small detail, like a dog, can focus light on a hypocritical and cruel yet modern way of life

The short Flying On Wind by Bong Keun-Woong successfully combines elements of philosophy and fantasy. A girl and a boy in a field try to feel the wind, which is enhanced by the filmmaker via a well-designed sets, tense camerawork and a good cast. The now famous trilogy of Rings: Ring 1, 2, and 0 from Japan, drew a large audience in this festival looking for some thrills. Ring 1, 2 by Hideo Nakata and Ring 0 by Norio Tsurata are traditional Japanese films in which ghosts visit everyday Japan. Ring 0, as a prequel, is more romantic, looking for a new fantastic version of the Phantom of the Opera inside a well.

The Puchon festival has become a first rate event drawing together a wide panel of Horror movies from all over Asia and an eager international audience. In the words of Puchon's Chairman Song Seung-Yung, "Pifan 2000 is a successful Korean festival for the masses."

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Antoine Coppola