Power of Kangwon Province

Director: Hong Sang-Soo Hong Sang-Soo

Overview

The beautiful mountains of South Korea's Kangwon Province provide a popular getaway for stressed-out residents of Seoul. This first segment of this two-part drama centers on a trio of young women. The second story follows university lecturer Cho Sankweon on his vacation.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/17/2021
UPC:	0853294007084
Original Release:	1998
Rating:	NR
Source:	Grasshopper Film
Language:	English
Time:	1:50:00
Sales rank:	30,948

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Hyun-yeong Park	Actor
Sun-yeong Im	Actor
Yun-hong Oh	Actor
Jae-hyun Chun	Jaewan
Baek Jong-hak	Sangkwon
Yu-seok Kim	Actor
Oh Yun-hong	Actor
Kim Yu-seok	Actor
Chun Jae-hyun	Actor
Park Hyun-yeong	Actor
Im Sun-yeong	Actor
Il Weon	Composer
Weon Il	Composer

Technical Credits

Hong Sang-Soo

Hong Sang-Soo	Director,Screenwriter
Byeong-ju An	Producer
Se-jin Oh	Sound/Sound Designer
Oh Se-jin	Sound/Sound Designer
Ahn Byeong-ju	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Few filmmakers are as single-minded in their approach to their craft as Korean maverick Hong Sang-soo. Like all of his films, his second feature, The Power of Kangwon Province, is a gorgeously shot, elliptically edited, distended, and cynical look at the vicissitudes of modern romance, involving multiple narrative threads. Confused, feckless, and childish men get drunk and behave boorishly, and are rarely worthy of the conflicted women who nonetheless often give in to their sexual demands. Self-destructive patterns repeat themselves. Hong reached an early peak of cynicism here, as there's a murder, borne of sexual jealousy, that takes place offscreen and is alluded to in the main narrative with a darkly comic obliqueness. Ji-sook (Oh Yun-hong) at least tries to find some kind of direction, offering her prayers at the vacation spot's temple. Sang-kwon (Baek Jong-hak) may be ambitious in his career, but in his personal life, the married professor can't see past the next pretty young girl, even to that guy standing behind her who's apparently her boyfriend. At times, Hong's film seems depressingly cold, but Ji-sook, with her casual, "I'm always making mistakes," is the sad soul of the film, and a palpable sense of loss is conveyed with a surprisingly potent magic realist metaphor (involving Sang-kwon's homeless goldfish) at the film's close.