‘The Age of Shadows’ to be the closing film for the IFFI 2016

‘The Age of Shadows’, a South Korean action thriller film directed by the critically-acclaimed film maker Kim Jee-Woon, is being screened as the Closing Film for the festival at a gala ceremony at the IFFI, 2016 today. 

Set in Seoul and Shanghai, during the Japanese occupation in the late 1920s, the film depicts an intense drama that unfolds between a group of resistance fighters trying to bring in explosives from Shanghai to destroy key Japanese facilities in Seoul, on one side, and Japanese agents trying to stop them, on the other. A talented Korean-born Japanese police officer, who was previously in the independence movement himself, is thrown into a dilemma between the demands of his reality and the instinct to support a greater cause.

Addressing the media, Mr. Kim said that his film is not an attempt to show action and violence on the screen but to depict intense emotions associated with the Korean Independence struggle against the Japanese occupation. He informed that he has tried his best to show these emotions through special sound effects and the ability of his actors to emote them on the screen.

Speaking about co-production of movies between India and Korea, the Director said that it would surely be great to incorporate elements of cinema from both countries into each other’s films. He would like to mix the elements of Indian cinema like humour and other real life emotions into Korean films, he added.

Replying to another question, Mr. Kim said that he has been greatly inspired by the stalwarts of Indian cinema like Shri Satyajit Ray and his films like Pather Panchali, Aparajita, among others, have had a major impression on his style of film making. He would like to collaborate with the Indian film industry to make films on history and the Independence struggle in both the countries, he added.

Mr. Song Kang-Ho, the lead Actor in the film, said that he is honoured that their film has been selected as the Closing Film at the IFFI, 2016 and he is hopeful that the times to come would see more critically acclaimed films from both India and Korea being screened for the people in both the countries.

‘The Age of Shadows’ has also been selected as the South Korean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89^thAcademy Awards.