‘Poongsan’ heralded the second full length feature from director Juhn Jai-hong after his 2007 debut, the dark psychological thriller ‘Beautiful / 아름답다’. A protoge of Kim Ki-duk, ‘Beautiful’ saw Jai-hong not only on directorial duties, but he was also responsible for the screenplay, and the movie was met with a lot of critical praise. Four years later, he had stated that he wanted to try his hand at more of a “popcorn movie”, and the result was ‘Poongsan’.
Jai-hong takes up the directorial reigns once more, however ‘Poongsan’ is actually written by his mentor Kim Ki-duk, who also co-produced the movie, and perhaps as a result of this an undercurrent of sexual violence runs throughout the movies themes. The whole thing was made in just thirty days for 200 million Won, and Jai-hong was quoted as telling the actors and staff that there was no guarantee it would even be released, but he was on a mission to prove that a quality movie could be made with a limited budget.
The question of whether or not he succeeded is one which is open to debate, but we’ll get to that later. In the title role of Poongsan himself is Yoon Kye-sang, who was most recently seen in Kim Ji-woon’s short film ‘Love of Rock, Scissors, Paper / 사랑의 가위바위보’. Poongsan is actually a nickname, taken from the brand of cigarette he smokes, themselves named after the breed of dog which is entirely native to North Korea. Kye-sang had quite a task on his hands with his role, as despite also being a singer, here he doesn’t have a single line of dialogue in the whole movie. In fact his entire character is a mystery, we never find out his name, we never find out if he is South or North Korean, and we never find out what his real motivations are.
나의 이야기를 다른 사람들이 깊이 공감해줄 때의 느낌은 매우 짜릿합니다. 영화는 말이나 글 보다 입체적으로 세상과 소통할 수 있게 해주는 멋진 언어라고 생각합니다. 보다 의미 있는 이야기를 찾아내고 좀 더 많은 사람들과 나누기 위하여 계속 노력하고 있습니다. 
