Makes you realise the implication of every act and makes to judge the next. You wont go wrong, but will make you wish you were.

This movie looks gorgeous, with very interesting sets and absolutely stunning, fantastic costumes. Most of the acting is okay, particularly by Woo-seong Kam as the chief clown and Jin-yeong Jeong as the king; but Jun-ki Lee as the girl-like clown of the title is embarrassingly bad - a real ham who can simper and pose and wail and shed real-looking tears, but that's about all. What the king sees in him is beyond my imagining, but then the king is insane, so....The story is so ridiculously overwrought and melodramatic, though, that hammy acting almost fits better than good acting. This movie is fantastic to look at as long as you're able to ignore the two-hour soap opera that makes Dynasty seem like Shakespeare.

The King and the Clown is a movie about a pair of street performers who come to the attention of King Yeonsan of Korea around the start of the 16th century (the Chosun Period).Yeonsan is tired of his ministers who chirp away about the example of his dead father and provide consistently contrary counsel. Yeonsan is both a genuinely sensitive individual and also a deeply disturbed one, whose neuroses are amply watered in the fertile garden of his royalty, and allowed to blossom bloodily. I felt there was some sort of allusion to North Korea here, where the "Supreme Leader" Kim Jong-il is quite literally second-in-command to his dead father, theocrat Kim Il-sung, and certainly does have a twee side.Jang-sang and his partner, the extremely effeminate Gong-gil, are clowns who come to the attention of the king. They put on shows that are sometimes extremely bawdy, or acrobatic, comic, or dramatic. They divert Yeonsan from his concubine Nok-su whose skirt he lives inside (as even the public are aware). I think this is a key point that the movie makes that the diversions of the clowns are more interesting than fondling even the most seductive woman a king can find; sex an inferior version of play that adults have come up with.The King becomes attached to Gong-gil in an apparently non-sexual way, re-entering a childish state. The story touchingly reminded me very much of the biblical one where David plays the harp to soothe King Saul when madness came upon him.The film in many ways is a feel-good one, times are very harsh in the Chosun era, but the performers don't let this get them down, and can find ways to cheer each other up even when times are bad. The "blindmen" scene is the key example of this. The characters perform even when no audience is around, to amuse themselves, and because they seem to feel most alive when living in a form of collective identity. Gong-gil even enjoys the stage of party nights when vomiting starts.The film manages to capture the innocence and virtues of childhood (which the performers have kept intact), for example, and there are times in my life when I have seen this happen, admitting to misdeeds that you have not committed to avoid the collective punishment of your group. Another lovely example would be a puppet show where a love story is enacted by the furtive stroking of one another's hands. The film has a lot of bright colours and looks good, although this may be more down to the often exquisite set design than any particularly beautiful cinematography. One good example of shooting though was in a meadow, which I like to think of as daisy drop.Aspects of the movie that weren't to my taste were the bawdiness, which was a little strong for me (I still have some innocence too, so this is a very subjective point), and the fact that Yeonsan's back story intruded a lot (the intrigue surrounding his mother's death), and was quite hard to follow.The King and the Clown is however an excellent movie, full of values that have almost vanished, and need some reviving.This is for Mollie for the memories at Renato's.

When I first heard that the movie King and the Clown was being made, I thought that it wouldn't be very interesting. But it was so good. Directed by Lee Joon Ik(a quite well known director in our country,though not in overseas),King and the Clown tells about a love story between two courters and the triangular relationship between them and the king.(of course,unlike what many foreign audiences might think,although the king,his concubine and Kong Gil are real people,the story itself is 100% made up)What was most astonishing about this movie was that,it showed the passionate love between the two male jesters without showing any sexual scenes.(I liked Brokeback Mountain,but not it was too explicit)And the choreography,costumes etc were so beautifully made with a low budget(around 4.5million dollars). Finally I see a well made Korean movie that was very interesting even without any star actors.