Any film which starts with a train sequence promises high doses of adrenaline rush.South Korean director Lee Chang Dong made wise use of a passenger train for his début film 'Green Fish' which depicts the tumultuous life of a young man who was forced to pay a heavy price in the form of a sacrifice partially due to his family's constant bickering.Not only is the hero a fledgling struggling to gain some foothold in a hostile environment with other gangsters,the milieu of south Korean also appears to be weak and subdued if one compares it with Japanese or Chinese criminals.Green Fish is also effective as the brutal portrayal of the lives of poor people who eke out a miserable existence close to high rise apartments.Although 'Green Fish' is full of funny sequences,one particular sequence would be remembered for a long time.It involves the hero's interaction with some corrupt policemen who cheat his brother thereby forcing him to lose his money. This sequence makes us all learn that one cannot expect even an ounce of honesty from a corrupt,dishonest person.

During his train ride back home after his term in the army has ended, Makdong decides to get some fresh air by hanging his head out of one of the train's open entrances. As he does this he notices a lovely woman doing the same. As the woman glances at him, her red scarf comes loose and lands on Makdong's face. Wanting to return the scarf, Makdong discovers that the woman is being harassed by three hoodlums. His interceding allows the woman to get away, but Makdong receives a beating for his efforts. It seems at first Makdong is going to let this slide, but when the three men get off the train, the young former soldier follows and cracks one of the three on back of the head with an award he received from the army.Makdong eventually returns to his widowed mother's home where she resides with his physically disabled older brother. Before his father died, the family home had been well kept. However, the following years had been unkind, so the house fell into disrepair. Makdong soon learns that his mother does housekeeping work to keep herself afloat. Makdong dislikes this and tells his mother to cease working as a housekeeper. He goes on to say that he will earn lots of money to take care of her. These are big words for someone without a job.Makdong's two other older brothers are not in much better shape. One sells eggs for a living and the other is a cuckolded police officer. Things seem to be going nowhere for our hero until he encounters Miae, the woman from the train, in a nightclub. It turns out that Miae is the, unwilling, girlfriend of Bae Taegon a high ranking member of the Korean mafia. Bae is impressed by Makdong's willingness to fight and later in the film, after Makdong clubs one of Bae's men on the head with a wooden post, the former soldier becomes a member of Bae's "family." _Green Fish_ is an interesting film. It has its moments of family tenderness and heartbreak and is also peppered throughout with gang violence. One of the most interesting relationships within the film is the one shared between Miae and Bae. Although Bae continuously tells Miae that he loves her, it seems that she is little more than a tool for him to use, meaning that she sleeps with whomever Bae tells her to. In one of the saddest parts of the film, Miae asks Makdong If he wants to sleep with her. She says it is okay if he wants to; everyone else has slept with her.

Lee Chang-Dong recently got a lot of attention when his latest movie OASIS one multiple Korean awards. OASIS is a unique movie that examines of the lives and loves of characters who normally do not get much attention from cinema or the public. It's an unusual sort of love story, and was a bad choice to watch with my girlfriend on Valentine's Day. Chang-Dong's directorial debut GREEN FISH is a far less ambitious film, but still shows the work of a talented and mature director.Makdong (Han Suk-Kyu) is a naive young man who returns home after his spell in the army full of hopes and (small) ambitions. Now that he's a man, he wants to make a lot of money and be able to look after his family. Unfortunately, when he gets home he is treated to a little dose of reality. The area is economically depressed, and his family are not the close loving unit he wishes them to be.Making lots of money proves to be a lot more difficult than he anticipated, as jobs in the area are pretty scarce. One area that does offer employment is crime, as the area is controlled by the gangs. A chance encounter with a young woman leads him to meet a gang boss who seems to be a little more respectable than most, and when he's told he won't have to break the law he accepts a job.The boss takes a liking to Makdong's simplicity and straightforward character and looks after him well, to the resentment of other members of the gang. Despite the promise of legitimacy, he learns that gangs cannot really live by the law, and he gets drawn further into the criminal life.GREEN FISH is a distinctly Korean film, which is not to say that all Korean films are the same (clearly not the case), but there are a few styles of film that do seem especially Korean, and this is one of them. It is a slowly paced and subtle film, allowing the story and characters to reveal themselves indirectly through the strength of the acting. The cast are all strong actors, and this allows the style of film to work. The story of an innocent young man drawn into the gangster world is not really a new one, and GREEN FISH does not try to add much that is new to it. It just focusses on the characters, their hopes and conflicts and their disappointments. The tone is not one of hope or happiness, with economic worries making reality hard. None of the characters in the movie are angels and none are devils - instead they are much more realistic human beings, full of good intentions and weaknesses. GREEN FISH is perhaps a little too subtle, or perhaps the actors are not quite good enough for the director's ambitions. Either way, the characters remain a little vague to us, and our involvement with their stories is hence slightly diminished. It is still a movie of strong characters, however, and a well told story until the slightly weak ending.Korea produces some very strong dramas, with a high level of "art" being found in much of the nation's cinematic output. GREEN FISH is an accomplished debut that fits well with recent Korean cinema, though it is a little too conservative to be classed in the higher ranks. Good for a first film though, and Lee Chang-Dong is definitely a director to keep an eye out for.

I saw this a few years ago and remember it as sad, graceful and often funny, with a few strikingly memorable images, like the one of the glowering night club singer. Its story of a young Korean man from a loving but troubled home who ends up working for the local hoods is not wildly original, but it's well done. It is kind of unassuming and low-key, so that when the credits trekked over the final scene (which the audience rightly applauded) I was surprised at how touched I was, and I remember it overall with more clarity than most films I see.