Chilsu & Mansu
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Muranów
Muranów
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Film description
Seoul, 1988. The country is in the midst of transformation: ongoing democratisation brings growing prosperity, but at the same time widens the gap between social classes. Monthly civil defence drills still take place in the streets, even though the world around seems more colourful and increasingly stable. Clubs, cinemas, and museums are adopting an American character, shaping the multicultural identity of young people. In this ironic reality, suspended somewhere between the top and the bottom, the titular characters, Chilsu and Mansu, struggle to find their place, contributing to the construction of a world to which they do not belong.
The debut of a future master of the Korean New Wave is a deliberate critique of the 1980s, told in the style of social realism, not without comic touches. Chilsu tries to chat up a cashier at Burger King, while Mansu desperately takes on any job he can find just to make ends meet. Yet beneath the surface of their daily struggles, the roots of greater problems are easy to discern, issues that remain irrelevant in a world where they are invisible and their voices go unheard.
Park Kwang-su
Considered one of the key figures of the Korean New Wave of the 1990s, Park Kwang-su was born in Sokcho in 1955. He studied Fine Arts at Seoul National University, where he began making his first independent films as part of the Yallashung collective and later founded the Seoul Film Group. He made his feature debut in 1988 with “Chilsu and Mansu”, which, taking advantage of the loosening of censorship, offered an open critique of the social and political realities of the time. His films often focus on young people coming of age under the pressures of an authoritarian regime.
1988 Chilsu i Mansu / Chil-su wa Man-su / Chilsu and Mansu
1990 Geudeuldo uricheoreom / Black Republic
1991 Beleullin lipoteu / Berlin Report
1993 Gwiezdna Wyspa / Geu seom-e gago sipda / To the Starry Island
1995 Iskra młodości / Aleumda-un cheongnyeon Jeon Taeil / A Single Spark
1999 I Jaesu-ui nan / The Uprising
2003 Yeoseotgae-ui Siseon / If you were me
2007 Nunbushin Nal-ae / Meet Mr. Daddy

