Digital Short Films by Three Filmmakers

Bong Joon-ho
INFLUENZA
Corea del Sud/South Korea, 2004, DigiBeta, 28', b-n/B&W
A man named Cho Hyuk-rae who has perched dangerously on top of the Han River Bridge. The sad picture has been caught unwittingly on a security camera which continues to reveal the downward spiral of Cho and those of us who surround him. The 'real' images shown through the camera keep on becoming more 'corrupted' as the time goes by.
"The dictionary meaning of influenza in Korean is as follows; 1 Flu, bad cold. 2 Trend (in an economic or ideological sense). In the year 2000 in Korea the economic slump continued, becoming part of daily lives. The violence among people oppressed by the hysteria of the slump became a trend, an influenza. People seem to be slowly, bit by bit, but unavoidably becoming mad [...]. The most fearsome part is that one becomes that desensitized to violence but not the violence itself. One looks at the articles about murder, group suicides and other things in the newspaper without any feeling. People are unresponsive unless the intensity of the stimulus is heightened. Such violence and brutality seems to make its place part of every thing, and the cold, unconcerned eye of the security camera shows us just this. Perhaps people are fast becoming cold and insensitive just like a security camera." (Bong Jun-ho)
Ishii Sogo
KYO-SHIN
Corea del Sud/South Korea, 2004, DigiBeta, 40', col.
A film actress writing a script by herself has a mysterious experience like in a movie. She feels like she's lost something vital in her heart and finds herself very much distressed over the difficult process of writing a script and acting. Then she decides to go on a trip to Southeast Asia Where she wanted to go to for a long time escaping the hardships involved in making a movie. But, she wonders why this trip feels like it's something like a trip of soul.
"Right now, I'm making a film that I never made before with the smallest camera and with minimum crew. This film is the most personal one of the films that I made. I often think that there is very important truth in very personal, very small things." (Ishii Sogo)
Yu Lik-wai DANCE ME TO THE END OF LOVE
Corea del Sud/South Korea, 2004, DigiBeta, 30', col.
Plasticity suffers from the Big Chill. The extreme weather condition prohibits any human existence on the ground surface. Near the 50th Periphery, an underground hostel sleeps under this deserted landscape... Kirin is the doorkeeper of the hostel. He is an orphan and nobodies know exactly where he is from. People name him Kirin simply because he earns his life by collecting emptied beer cans. This enigmatic young man lives in his own solitude until one day he meet the beautiful nomad Lanlan.
"In this short film project, I want to make my tribute to the silent film. For me, the silent movies are the biggest lesson of cinema. In terms of cinema language and narrative construction, the silent movies have nearly all invented for us. They are the pioneer of cinema. With this chance of making this short film, I want to indulge myself with this spirit of naivety and sincerity, exploring the digital visual possibilities in continuity of this great tradition. Shooting the present time as a Parody, to create dialectic between the reality and imagery. Everything is familiar and contemporary, yet the treatment itself will create a sort of discrepancy and distance." (Yu Lik-wai)