Asian Drama

The specifically Korean tradition that is reclaimed in Sopyonje is the type of folk-song known as pansori, described as a musical sublimation of South-West Korea's collective grief and suffering - in other words, a kind of blues. The film's three central characters are itinerant pansori singers in the 1950s, a time when many aspects of Korean culture came under siege from Japanese and western influences. The story unfolds through flashbacks. A man named Dong-ho is roaming the rural hinterlands, ostensibly to find rare herbal medicines for his sick son back in Seoul, but actually in search of Song-hwa, the woman he grew up with. Orphans, they were both apprenticed to the pansori master Yu-bong (played by the film's writer, Kim Myung-gon) who pressured them to sacrifice everything for the art.

Three young men face the university entrance exams upon which their economic and social fates depend. Kim Tae Moo is a comic book artist whose art is plagiarized even as he's humiliated at school, at work, and then in the army. Cho Se In, plagued by a drunken father, wants to be a hairdresser and is the victim of gay bashing and chicken hawks. The overweight, phlegmatic, and cowardly Kong Seung Ho lives to eat and watch videos. The film dramatizes their friendship, their family lives, and the crushing reality of the limited opportunities Korean society offers them.

(Source: gmat6594 gmat6594 at Dramacool)

Episodes: 58

Duration: 53 min.

Aired On: Monday

Ratings: 7.7