Shin-ae (Do-yeon Jeon) and her son Jun (Jung-yeop Seon) move to the small town of Milyang - also known as "Secret Sunshine." Rating. First she converts to Christianity despite being a fairly ardent atheist and then later she appears to fall back to atheism, or at least becomes so angry with god that she's willing to commit crimes and even kill herself just to get back at him. It is this sense of proximity and distance, the subjective and the objective, belonging and separation, exterior and interior that will profoundly characterise the rest of the film. However, Shin-ae walks into the pharmacy and seduces the pharmacist's husband, but he is unable to perform, and she misses the date. Miryang/Secret Sunshine (2007 South Korea 142 mins), Prod Co: CJ Entertainment/Cinema Service/Pine House Film Prod: Lee Hanna Dir: Lee Chang-dong Scr: Lee Chang-dong, based on the novel by Yi Chong-jun Phot: Cho Yong-kyou Ed: Kim Hyun Prod Des: Shin Jum-hee Mus: Christian Basso, Cast: Jeon Do-yeon, Song Kang-ho, Jo Yeong-jin, Kim Mi-kyung, Kim Yeong-jae, Ko Seo-hie. The kidnapper asks for money because he presumes that since she can buy land, she must be rich. Sin-ae moves with her son Jun to Miryang, the town where her dead husband was born. The kidnapper is swiftly captured, but Shin-ae doesn't seem to be vengeful and sheds no tears at Jun's funeral. Their conception of god and Christianity is very basic and uncomplicated. He understands that grieving is intensely personal, not some sort of assembly line where you if you put your emotions together in the right order you can get over you husband dying and your son being murdered. On the journey home she walks past the clothes shop of a woman someone she has gradually struck up a friendship with to whom she had given unwanted decorating advice earlier in the film. Eugene holds his dead friend hand and asks how this happened. Jeon Do-yeon won the best actress prize at Cannes for her emotional performance. But Shin-ae is crushed by gods indifference to her pain and agency. Shin-ae happily swaps pain and suffering for love and fellowship, but these new emotions are cheap and shallow. The initial, if superficial hope of change and cleansing offered by this routine action is undermined by the fact that her young hairdresser turns out to be the daughter of her sons murderer, herself recently released from juvenile detention. Blood Type: O Movies. After the funeral scene, the rest of Secret Sunshine plays out as one womans descent into purgatory, an arc that places Jeon Do-yeons exposed nerve of a performance in the company of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence, Isabelle Adjani in Possession, and so many other great roles that flirt with ideas of female hysteria.But what makes Jeons work here so satisfying is the matter-of-fact way she and Lee navigate Shin-aes whiplash moods. Related Articles. As she tries to come to herself and set out on new foundations, another tragic event overturns her life. Once she arrives with her young son, Jun, in Miryang (which translates roughly to the "secret sunshine" of the title, a mysterious phrase that wonderfully embodies the elusiveness and the ultimate privacy of true joy), Shin-ae sets up her own piano-teaching school. When she delivers less than the amount required, the boy is killed. The movie opens with her on the road, in the process of relocating herself and her young son, Jun, to the small town of Miryang. Tony Holden, who turned himself in to authorities, was arrested for allegedly murdering rapper, Lil Snupe, seen here in his June 25, 2013 mugshot. Dropping off the other daycare children, Shin-ae witnesses the girl being bullied but doesn't intervene. Welcome toThe Great Performances, a bi-weekly column exploring the art behind some of cinemas best roles. This entry spotlights the award-winning performance given by Jeon Do-yeon in Secret Sunshine. But open displays of melancholy were nonexistent in my household, to the point that I would have been about as shocked to witness an adult family member weeping as I would have been to stumble on one of them having sex. Active in theater, Lee is also known for his supporting roles onscreen, notably in the blockbuster epic The Admiral: Roaring Currents and the romance drama Discovery of Love. She has won many awards in her career, including the best actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of a broken woman who has lost everything in Lee Chang Dong's "Secret Sunshine". Regardless, they had a child, Jin Kazama. Ms Baty's death is the second alleged murder of a homeless person on the Sunshine Coast in less than a year. She seems to feel it all. We acknowledge the sovereignty of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin nation and support all Aboriginal people on their paths to self-determination. In keeping with the rest of Lees hard-won film, these final moments never really suggest victory or catharsis, just the possibility of survival and the first stages of renewal. All three were found at Mrs Pattison's home on the . One night, Shin-ae returns home late after partying to discover that Jun is missing. Tuoba Jun receives a letter about his father. But grace is not the ultimate, even if unwanted or seemingly unwarranted, state or goal of Lees characters. SECRET SUNSHINE Movie - JEON Do-yeon, SONG Kang-ho. Name: Jeon Do-Yeon Hangul: Birthdate: February 11, 1973 Birthplace: Seoul, South Korea Education: Seoul Institute of the Arts, Graduate School of Korea University Height: 165 cm. Followed around by Jong-chan, Shin-ae soon becomes a believer and claims to have found inner peace; even Jong-chan starts going to church. Secret Sunshine Directed by Lee Chang-dong A compelling and poignant Korean film about a besieged widow's journey into the far country of forgiveness. But the book was written by Coralee June and as much as I hated it, it was a fucking impressive read. Shin-ae likely believes this is the lowest point of her life and that going to church certainly couldn't cause her any more pain and suffering than she's already endured. Were told that Miryang means in Chinese secret sunshine, and that concert pianist Shin-Ae plans to open a piano school, get away from gossips in Seoul who say her hubby was an adulterer and because she wants to honor her late husband. Senses of Cinema was founded on stolen lands. In this subtly hopeless stare lies the turning point of the film. The scene is not between Shin-ae and the man. Read her mostly embarrassing tweets here: Jeon delivers a jaw-dropping performance as a grieving mother. Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy was shot three times after giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. In this devastating scene, Jeon takes us right up to the line where rapture and tantrum meet. Shin-ae becomes a church-goer and wants to forgive the murderer. At first blush, this seems like a cold and impersonal way to shoot a scene where a mother sees her dead son's body. Secret Sunshine is the fourth film made by Lee Chang-dong, inarguably one of the most significant directors to emerge in world cinema over the last 20 years. Although this is the first big mental shift/breakdown Shin-ae experiences, it won't be the last by a long shot. At least that's how her in-laws treat her after Jun is kidnapped, held for ransom, and killed. 2:16. Grief can also make you lose your moral compass and any real semblance of right and wrong. Shin-ae doesn't understand how God can absolve him of his sins before she has forgiven him and felt true peace. It is in such moments containing the emotional expressivity of the former and the spiritual questioning of the latter that one can note such influences. , tragedy strikes for single mother Shin-ae (. Though she and Shin-ae get along for a minute or two, Shin-ae eventually jumps up and storms out. Jeon shows us how unnerving cryingthat most private, hidden, policed, and potentially shameful of expressionscan be when taken out in public, how defiant and perverse its demands for attention really are. The final, conventionally ugly shot of the wet ground as Shin-aes hair blows towards it intimates the troubling matter-of-factness of daily experience and is reminiscent of the sunken quarry in which her sons body was found. She decides to visit her son's murderer in prison and forgive him. Secret Sunshine ( Korean : ; Hanja : ; RR : Miryang) is a 2007 South Korean drama film directed by Lee Chang-dong. Following this, Kazuya is supposedly killed by Heihachi by being dropped into a volcano, leaving Jin, the only person in the world who possessed the devil gene. In keeping with the equivocal view of community, religion and morality it presents, Lees film concludes with a series of images and actions that are disarmingly calming, unsettling and symbolically apt. The FBI Wall of Honor remembers Special Agent Sang T. Jun, who died on October 22, 2008 after collapsing during SWAT tryouts earlier that month. Opening to a shot of a clear blue sky that's ultimately juxtaposed by a haunting image of a garbage-strewn dirt patch, Lee's film concerns Shin-ae (Cannes best actress winner Jeon Do-yeon), who with her young son . Although Shin-aes journey into faith and out again ultimately rails against the undiscriminating forgiveness of god, the film does not fall back on easy stereotypes of the vacuously happy Christian or of a rigid fundamentalism. We sketch out what goes into an effective Scrooge performance and which actors best conveyed the spirit of Charles Dickens infamous miser. What makes this response so noticeable is the opposition between pre- and post-trauma Shin-ae. Less than halfway through Chang-dong Lees Secret Sunshine, tragedy strikes for single mother Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon). She says that believing in God feels like falling in love. But her smile is never entirely convincing. And what are we to think when there arent any tears to measure? Deeply depressed and still grieving for Jun, Shin-ae can't find the inner resources to carry on. The Ontological Truth of Film-as-Philosophy: For a Double-Edged Theory: Christian Metz, Othering Heights: The Queerest of the Queer in Rosa von Praunheims. Is it done with self-forgetting abandon or as a power play to forestall the moral judgments of onlookers? More from JustWatch. The experience of watching [Chang-dong's] films is not always pleasant yet his quiet and exacting humaneness infuses even the most dreadful moments with an intimation of grace. In the middle of her cut, Shin-ae leaves the salon. As so often in Secret Sunshine, it is an image of both the now and then, the grounded necessity of the present and the trauma of the past, an irresolvable and bottomless image. The 38-year-old single loser Kim Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho), a friendly garage owner, immediately becomes attracted to Shin-Ae and wont stop following her around to get a date, even though she shows no interest and is a different type of personality. Soon, thanks to gossips, everyone in Miryang knows Shin-Ae has money to purchase some valuable land, and a man who moved here from Busan kidnaps her son and asks for ransom. She whispers something at the sky that is, at first, impossible to make out. Indeed, Lee seems to imply that they're mutually exclusive. Jeon has given Shin-ae a rebel streak, and time and again she leans into it, that part of the character that says if I must fall apart, I will do so spectacularly. Dateline is the long-running, award-winning news magazine bringing viewers stories ranging from compelling mysteries to powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. See Insider Exclusives . She blames Shin-ae not only for Jun's death but also for Shin-ae's husband's death. When Shin-Ae tries to purchase some land, Kim recommends a very wealthy and powerful land owner. Teaser Trailer. Jun was determined to save Kazuya from Devil's possession, and the inner conflict she inspired in him was the main reason he was defeated and seemingly killed by Heihachi at the end of The King of Iron Fist Tournament 2. The point Lee makes is that neither is particularly healthy in the long run. Despite warnings from her friends, Shin-ae is optimistic that this visit will give her all the more reason to believe in God. The suspect reportedly barricaded himself in his home, where . If you are an Australian resident, any donations over $2 are tax deductible. But when Juns killer tells her that he, too, has found God, and, whats more, that God has forgiven him, Shin-ae suddenly meets the depths of despair. 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