With the Korean story telling tradition performed on stage, it was a interesting and novel way to tell the story. The story was beautiful and the moving. I figure it to be a Korean fairy tale given its happy ending and having a moral to the story.I didn't find the story telling method completely successful. The music and drumming added tension to the film, but the Pansori seemed to intrude in the film too frequently, describing everything that is going on when it could be done visually, rendering many scenes as some sort of announcement, not letting the ambiance set in. The scene of the whipping seemed to be a little forced, having the camera show us various audience members crying, as if we don't know this is a dramatic situation. It might have worked better if they let the dialogue be spoken by the character Chunghyang instead of the Pansori, since the Pansori does not have much dynamic range in his voicing, being always loud. The character saying it while being whipped gives a different impression than the Pansori screaming it.But all in all, still a good film.

This was the first movie from South Korea I saw, and I must say I'm inclined to see more films from there. It's a beautiful love story. The title character is courageous, trustworthy, and utterly honorable. I'm a little confused as to whether Chunhyang actually existed or not, but if she did, she has all my admiration. I'll never forget the scene where the executioners beat her legs and she moves her head in the Korean symbol for the number one ("one love"). Anybody who can do that deserves all my respect. I also love the lively drum music that accompanies the narrators. If you can find this movie (I saw it on the Sundance Channel, if that's any help to you) I urge you to check it out. I think you'll find it quite entertaining and very touching.

Beautiful Korean film of one of those country's legends--Mongryong (Cho Seung Woo) falls in love with a lower-class girl Chunhyang (Lee Hyo Jung). They marry and she vows to remain faithful to him when he must leave to finish his education. Then an evil governor takes over and wants Chunhyang for himself. The film looks absolutely stunning--gorgeous costumes, vivid color and beautiful scenery. The leads are attractive, the acting is good and the film moves quickly. But I only can give this a 5. Why? The film is (mostly) narrated by a VERY annoying man who's performing the tale in front of an audience. His voice is harsh and grating and he YELLS EVERY WORD AT FULL VOLUME! His narration is not needed--he's basically telling (actually yelling) at us about what's on the screen. Thanks bud! I can see! Also the narration is sometimes laughably out-of-place (while we see the two lovers chasing each other around the bedroom, he's screeching about food!). He single handedly almost destroyed the film for me--I considered leaving a few times, but the movie was so beautiful I couldn't. Without him, I'd give the film a 10--but I can't. Too bad.

This is not just a movie, in the way that Americans, like myself, usually conceptualize contemporary film. Perhaps, it might be interesting, as a learning experience, to view "Chunghyang" with "Gladiator" to understand that these are two distinct art forms, devised by two distinct cultural traditions to tell important stories. I was thrilled to find this film so 'other', so un-American, so un-MTV. A Korean storytelling/operatic tradition is fused with beautiful filming. Dialogue, as the actors play out the story, is interlaced very comfortably with a storyteller's narrative in a sutra-chanting, poetic style, accompanied by one drummer. The storyteller's voice is a remarkable asset of the film. It has to be experienced to understand its power. I thought the film used very sophisticated editing to blend the highly operatic story line with the teller's narrative on stage and with a wonderful middle-Korean, as in middle-American, audience. This omniscient viewing perspective, affording views of several different levels of concurrent existence, was really wonderful. Then, I remembered in the middle of the film that I was reading subtitles without a trace of annoyance or distraction from the visuals. Very nicely done all around. I felt enriched, educated and entertained.