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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Chunhyang

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by: Kim Myoung Kon
Directed by: Im Kwon-Taek
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 29, 2000
DVD: October 16, 2001
Running Time: 119 minutes, Color
Origin: South Korea
Summary
RATING: Not rated
Starring Seung-woo Cho, Hyo-jeong Lee, and Jung-hun Lee
Set in 18th century Korea, this story of young lovers from different social castes is based on a Korean folk tale.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This astoundingly beautiful Korean production is poignant, original, and engrossing.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A spectacular, engrossing, big-hearted film based on one of Korea's great national epics and made by that country's top filmmaker.
Chicago Reader Patrick Z. McGavin
A rapturously beautiful, lyrically dazzling work.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Andy Klein
Unless you're deeply familiar with Korean culture, you've truly never seen anything like it.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Im Kwon Taek's exquisite Chunhyang brings to the screen one of Korea's most cherished folk tales, a timeless romance in which the lovers are challenged by differences in class.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
A three-ring circus of visual pleasure, showing us the beauty of Korean garment, custom and national character.
Read Full Review >Film.com Jared Rapfogel
A multi-layered, experimental film, a film about storytelling, but the beauty of it is that it transcends the story at its center while still celebrating the virtues of a tale well-told.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
The film is unabashedly sexy, and its heady romanticism feels as right and as unaffected as Im's bold use of color and his equally bold decision to tell the story through traditional pansori narration.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
It's sweeping yet intimate, stately yet impassioned, stylized yet immediate.
Miami Herald Sara Wildberger
As magical as "The Wizard of Oz," the film leaves its spare setting and blooms into action in a colorful springtime world to tell the story of an epic romance lush with silken costumes, giggling courtesans, comic servants and rulers cruel and compassionate.
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Chunhyang is a movie — and a heroine — for all times.
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
It's a good bet the average American moviegoer, however familiar with the rhythms of cinematic global culture, has never experienced such a handsomely self contained world.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
From the ravishing landscape photography to the exquisite costume design, the entire film is a stunning visual experience; rarely since Hollywood's golden age has the genre been so well served.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Demonstrates that sometimes the simplest stories are the most profound, and certainly possess the most moral authority. It's a film that emphasizes loyalty and sacrifice, values that have become jokes in most other films these days.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The Korean director im Kwon-Taek has made more than 90 films since his first in 1962, and perhaps this explains why his latest, Chunhyang, seems so effortless and masterly. Based on a highly popular eighteenth-century Korean folktale, it's a movie that, stylistically, mixes the traditional with the avant-garde; the narrative may be ritualistic, but there's a let's-try-it-on-for-size friskiness to the filmmaking.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
All the backing-and-forthing between olden and modern days intensifies the emotional impact of a compelling story, and underlines the enduring power of narrative itself.
San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
Chunhyang is an extravagantly beautiful movie that many viewers are going to love and others are not going to be able to sit still for. That's their problem.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Im's movie approaches a seething, primitivist beauty that evokes Makhmalbaf and parallels the contrapuntal textual investigations of Resnais.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
Proudly wears its heart on its sleeve, but it never becomes so swoony that you'll reach for your hanky.
The New York Times A.O. Scott
The extravagance of the sets and costumes increases the theatricality; Chunhyang is an almost childlike delight for the eyes.
Read Full Review >New York Post V. A. Musetto
Beautifully filmed, and the star-crossed lovers, both played by first-time actors, are a match made in art-film heaven. But I must admit, the pansori singer got on my nerves about halfway through.
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
A feast for the eyes. But not, alas, for the ears.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Some people might find Chunhyang a chore to sit through, including me. Despite all of its accumulated period gorgeousness, or perhaps because of it, the film moves at a snail's pace, telegraphing plot twists miles before we actually arrive at them.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
The second-class status of women in Korean society is a reminder of Confucianism's dark side. For all its pretty cinematic images and well-meaning bows to a vanishing literary tradition, this movie is a celebration of that dark side.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
[Anonymous] gave it a 10:
I absolutely loved this movie! This is one of my favorite movies ever.
Yoon C. gave it a 7:
A faithful and faintly experimental screen adaptation of a classic Korean musical play, the problem lies with the source material itself. The music is turgid, ugly, and monotonous, and its moral message relies on the virtue of woman who must bear the disporportionate share of the burden. It's morality tale as masochism, a fetishistic notion of woman suffering all the pain in the world to remain truthful to her man. The two leads are boring.
Joel gave it a 7:
Pansori like other folk cultures requires some getting used to. I had to watch this twice to make sure that the music style doesn't interfere with the overall movie. Overall, it works I must say.
Jay gave it a 10:
Best ever!!!!!!! hell, i almost cried!!! man!!!!
