Who would you say has had the worse day? The staff physician (Shim Hye-jin) who prematurely proclaims her patient as certifiably dead then passes him on to the donor team for a corneal transplant? Or the artist-professor (Han Suk-kyu) who keeps having encounters with star-crossed ghosts, both in and out of dreamland? In Kang Je-kyu's supernatural pic The Gingko Bed, these two are certainly having a rough go of it. But it's nothing the playing of a gayageum won't help solve and lucky for these two, an elderly local carpenter not only has one of these Korean zithers but plays it serviceably well.
The music-making woodworker illuminates the artist on the latter's reincarnation, his previous manifestation dating back to a time when being a skilled zither-player could really lead to some chances for advancement in the royal court. These were the days when a general (Shin Hyeon-jun) might go on the warpath because a princess (Jin Hee-kyung) didn't share his affections. The old set-up of men who refuse to take no for an answer is once again at play! Which isn't a critique so much as a reality check regarding this unapologetic fantasy in which some may come back as trees or a hawk perhaps while others will insist that "when you die, you just know it."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment