Eungyo

Lee Jeok-yo, a celebrated poet in his seventies, is changed by finding seventeen-year-old Eun-gyo asleep in his garden. What forms between them turns into writing. His assistant and student Seo Ji-woo notices, and jealousy pulls the balance of the three apart. Jung Ji-woo directed, from Park Bum-shin's novel. Park Hae-il, who plays the poet, was not even in his forties at the time; an actor in his thirties sat ten hours in the makeup chair every shooting day to become a man of seventy. Eun-gyo was Kim Go-eun's first film. Fresh out of drama school, she won eight separate Best New Actress prizes for it, including Buil, the Grand Bell, Busan and the critics' associations. The film treats sexuality as an extension of the fear of ageing and of creativity; the real subject is not desire but what passing time leaves on a body. It caused argument in Korea over its nudity and the age gap. Who it is for: viewers who like slow, literary Korean drama. Who it is not for: anyone uncomfortable with the premise itself.