Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

A town, right after the Korean War. Heo Sam-gwan is poor but well-meaning and wants to marry Ok-ran, the most beautiful girl in the town. He finds the only way to raise the money for the wedding: selling his blood. Years pass, they have three sons, and life goes on. Then a rumour starts in the neighbourhood: the eldest boy does not look like Sam-gwan and people are saying his father is somebody else. The source is a novel by the Chinese writer Yu Hua; the story has been carried from China to Korea and settled in the post-war Korean countryside. Ha Jung-woo both directed the film and played the lead. Ha Ji-won is his wife. The story moves like a comedy through its first half and then hardens; selling blood here is not a metaphor but the only real resource the man has. A hundred and twenty-four minutes. The film asks whether fatherhood can be measured by blood.