The Taebaek Mountains

The film is set between 1948 and 1950 in the town of Beolgyo, at the southern end of the peninsula. The old reckoning between landowners and peasants joins with the political split that would divide the country in two. The people of the town separate into left and right, and neighbours on the same street become each other’s enemies. The account does not clear one side; it tries to say why each person stands where they do. The road to the Korean War is shown from inside a single village. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Jo Jung-rae. Taking the subject up this openly at the start of the nineties is the film’s marked quality, and the work caused argument in its own country. Ahn Sung-ki and Kim Myung-gon appear in Im Kwon-taek’s hundred and sixty four minute South Korean film, completed in 1994.