At the Movies: 'Chunhyang'

Wednesday, December 27th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The Korea of the Yi Dynasty â€” before communism and the Cold War, North and South, car conglomerates and the Internet â€” is recreated in full splendor in director Im Kwon-taek's lavish period piece ``Chunhyang.''

Based on a much-loved Korean folk tale, ``Chunhyang'' (pronounced choon hyung) is a Confucian take on ``Romeo and Juliet'' in which class keeps a former courtesan's daughter from the aristocrat she loves.

'``Chunhyang' has lived inside me for a long time,'' said Im, the South Korean director. ``I wanted to show this classic tale might resonate for all audiences living in the 21st century.''

With humor, a sense of nostalgia and wonderful inventiveness, Im also tells the world about Korea â€” its traditions, 5,000-year history, culture and the neo-Confucianism that has shaped its society. The film is a fascinating glimpse into an era past: 18th-century Korea, when monarchs in silk and gold ruled the famously isolated ``Hermit Kingdom.''

The tale itself is simple: Myongryong, the sheltered son of a provincial governor, demands one day that he be taken out to see his country's sights. From the balcony of a painted pavilion, he spots a girl in gold and red riding high on a swing â€” and falls in love at first sight.

Turns out she's the daughter of a former entertainer, or kisaeng, technically a member of courtesan class. But Chunhyang is no ordinary courtesan â€” her father was an aristocrat, so she was raised like one. And while the young scholar is taken by her beauty, it is her literary talent that captures his heart.

After a secret courtship, they marry, with Myongryong painting his pledge of love in ink on her skirt. But reality intervenes: His family moves to Seoul, then called Hanyang, and he is warned not to make public his marriage lest it jeopardize his future.

While Myongryong toils away in Hanyang studying for the civil exam, the legend of Chunhyang's beauty reaches the new provincial governor, a cruel and corrupt man who demands that she be brought before him as a courtesan.

Defiant and loyal to Myongryong, she vows to die before being unfaithful.

Im opens the film with a staged, modern-day performance of the ``Chunyhang'' ballad in the operatic folk art of pansori. The unfolding romance becomes a play within a play â€” a neat device that keeps the story's melodrama from overwhelming the film.

The lead performances, by two first-time actors (Lee Hyo-jung and Cho Seung-woo), have the right light touch and the freshness to portray young love. Better yet are the performances by Pangja (Kim Hak-yong), Myongryong's animated, comic servant, and Wolmae (Kim Sung-nyu), Chunhyang's coquettish, sentimental mother.

The true performer in ``Chunhyang,'' however, is the pansori and the spectacle of Yi Dynasty Korea itself â€” the vibrant culture that flourished under 600 years of royal rule until Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910.

South Korea's most elaborate production (8,000 actors ran through 12,000 costumes in four months of shooting), ``Chunhyang'' pays loving homage to Korea's folk traditions, ancient architecture, majestic mountains and verdant autumns.

Im manages to sneak in all the totems of Korean folk culture: farmers' percussion bands, the sport of wrestling known as ssirum, Buddhist dance, and swingsets, the classic way for good girls to get a peek at the world outside their walled compounds.

We also see how the nobility lived, with their celadon flasks of rice wine and their robes of silk, and get a tutorial in the philosophies that have shaped Korean society: Confucianism, yin and yang, and the reverence for loyalty, chastity and fidelity.

Im takes a jab at the political injustices of the feudal era: unfair taxation, cruelty and corruption.

Though the film is slow at moments and the pansori a bit hard on the unpracticed ear, there is a vein of humor, playfulness and even tenderness that keeps it moving â€” Chunhyang diving under the covers her first night with Myongryong, Pangja goofing off, Wolmae glorying in her daughter's uncommonly good match.

``Chunhyang'' is a Lot 47 Films production. The film, which runs 122 minutes and has a few brief scenes with nudity, has not yet received a rating.