Urban Re-development

Two very different elements of the past come back to haunt the modern Korean urban present in these two movies. The Gingko Bed, which is eventually buried under the weight of its own CGI conceits, preposterous medical-establishment shenanigans and portentous acting, begins from the charming-enough premise that the spirits of two medieval forbidden-lovers are imprisoned in the wood of a bed made from a Gingko tree. The vengeful General Hwang, who pursues them through modern Seoul is strictly cartoon-time though.

Green Fish, on the other hand, has its audience more reflectively respectful and doubtful of the position of traditional, localised, family-centred Korean society, in the form of 막동의 (Mak Dong's) riotous, sometimes charmless, permanently struggling family in 일산 (Ilsan), while huge new apartment blocks begin to dominate the horizon of what was recently a market and farming town outside Seoul.

After his (never seen) break in the army, Mak Dong returns home and drifts inexorably and quickly away from his family toward the brutal big city nightclub'n'property underworld. The brilliantly and prosaically staged petty violences and resentments of this demimonde (including the wonderful 송 간호 (Song Kang-Ho) as a more natural but charmless gang lieutenant) never seem to convince him, and Mak Dong's traumatic attempted return to his family is a quietly devastating piece of cinema.