Interview: Kim Jee-woon on South Korean Oscar Submission 'The Age of Shadows'

By Jose Solís.

Kim Jee-woon is certainly no stranger to genre extravaganzas, but in The Age of Shadows (which Tim reviewed here) he takes it to the most sumptuous level yet. The spy thriller set during the Japanese occupation of South Korea centers on the dilemma a double agent (Song Kang-ho) faces when he realizes the resistance fighters he’s trying to capture, might actually be more patriotic than the people he’s working for. With stunningly choreographed action sequences, exquisite period detail and powerhouse performances, the film is the rare historical film that actually feels urgent and exciting. Since it’s South Korea’s Oscar submission I spoke to director Kim Jee-woon about what he discovered about the resistance, working with some of his best known collaborators, and what the Oscar nomination would mean to him.

Special thanks to interpreter: Areum Jeong

Read the interview after the jump.

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Review: South Korea's Oscar Submission "The Age of Shadows"

Tim here. Age of Shadows is currently making its way around the U.S. art house circuit, giving Americans our change to catch up with one of the biggest hits at the Korean box office this year. It's a historical spy thriller, set during a period of time that I suspect most of us English-speakers haven't thought about much, or at all: the stretch of time from 1910 to the end of World War II when Korea was occupied by Japan.

The film, set in the 1920s, takes as its subject the Korean resistance to Japanese rule, and follows the career of a double agent named Lee Jung-chool (Korean superstar Song Kang-ho), a Korean-born police captain operating under strict Japanese control...

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