South Korean superstar Hwang Jung-min was the highlight of this year’s London Korean Film Festival, which is now in its 10th year and proudly growing up. The London Korean Film Festival started this month on the 2nd of November, with the film ‘Ode To My Father’ starring Hwang Jung-min in the lead role as part of the Opening Gala.

Hwang Jung-min surrounded by reporters.
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Hwang Jung-min arrived at the British Film Institute on Southbank along with Director J. K Youn surrounded with reporters and fans alike in the London Korean Film Festival. This is the first time Hwang Jung-min has worked with director J K Youn, and the role that he had got spanned from his twenties to the seventies. When he was asked what was the challenge that he had to face while working in this film, Hwang Jung-min said that as he has passed through his twenties and thirties, and is now reaching into his forties, he had no difficulty in portraying the character through those ages. The most difficult part was to play a seventy year old man, and for this he went to different parks with his video camera and met elderly people. He interviewed them, took their pictures and filmed them from head to toe in order to study their appearance and movement but most importantly their emotions.

Director J. K. Youn.
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This movie was the main project of Director J. K Youn. It was a powerful and personal story which he wanted to tell the people. The film was a dedication to his father along with all the men of his generation. He first started on this film in 2004 when he himself became a father. Becoming a father for the first time brought back memories of his own father who passed away when he was only twenty years old. He recalled how hard his father worked to support the family, and as he was very young at that time he didn’t have the oppurtunity to spend enough time with him. Therefore in order to thank his father for everything he had done he made this film.

The ‘Film Ode To My Father’ was shown to a houseful audience and was preceded by Tony Rayns remarks about the film. He said ‘The films starts from the present and then tracks back to the Korean war in the 1950s thus following subsequent decades in which the characters grow older. There is also a lot of travelling involved in the film making as their are parts of the film shot in Germany and Vietnam. The film succeeds in telling the story of one family who face the ups and downs in their lives following the Korean war, which turns out is quite common among many South Koreans. . I have atleast three friends in Korea who said to me ‘It’s my story’, and i believed in them because it touches the lives of those who have gone through similar times. This is why the film became immensely successful.’

The Title Picture along with the images within the article are All Rights Reserved: The London Tree, and have been taken by Freelance Photographer Adnan Kundi.