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Product Detail |
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Audio Format: DD 5.1 Surround, DD 2.0 Stereo Video Format: Full Screen 4:3 Languages: Korean Subtitles: English Region Code: ALL Year Made: 1996 Running Time: 115
 When the patriarch of a large, extended Korean clan dies suddenly in a bicycle accident, his kin from far and near arrive for a few days of mourning, burial preparation and the funeral. It's a drawn-out process that exposes rifts and resentments among various family members. If that plot sounds a lot like Juzo Itami's skillful and delicate 1984 black comedy "The Funeral," it's because "Farewell My Darling" is virtually the same story, complete with the obligatory relative who wants to make sure proper custom is followed at all times.
The problem with "Farewell My Darling" is that it coarsens all that was so wonderful about Itami's film. Its characterizations are one dimensional--audiences never learn anything about the relatives during the two hours of screen time--and Park's direction is crass. He moves the camera crazily but to little end, while the sensitivity and tact the film needs remain absent.
When old Mr. Park dies, his first son Chan-Wu, a film director, and his troublesome daughter Mi-Seon hurriedly come back to their rural hometown, and third son Chan-Se comes back to Korea from America. As the quiet country village gets busy preparing funeral, the house in mourning becomes a meeting place where villagers gather to ask how they are getting along and meet old friends.
The children mourn their father's death and above all Mi-Seon, who caused her parents a lot of grief, can't stop crying. Chan-Wu, the chief mourner, has a revelation about his career, and Chan-Se prepares to sing hymns for the Confucian funeral service. Old Man Park's sister sells insurance products and gradually the funeral service becomes for the living rather then the dead.
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