Peppermint Candy (US Version) DVD Region 1

The film kicks off in the spring of 1999 as a sharp-dressed, but obviously distraught man stumbles upon a high school reunion of sorts that's taking place at a tranquil riverbank overlooked by a railroad bridge. These revelers recognize the man as Yong Ho (Sul Kyung Ku), a long-lost classmate that they failed to get in touch with for this twenty-year reunion. The people are generally friendly to Yong Ho and try to include him in the festivities, but the man seems mentally disturbed. Soon enough, Yong Ho reveals his mental state by climbing the railroad track to await his demise. With a train bearing down on him, Yong Ho shouts, "I wanna go back!" And in a manner of speaking, he does just that. At the moment of impact, the film freezes, then transitions to footage shot from the back of a train moving in reverse. The film resets three days prior to Yong Ho's suicide, bringing the viewer up to speed on what drove him to such a desperate action.

We soon find that Yong Ho has lost just about everything - his wife, his child, his job, his money, and as we will come to see, his innocence and his one true love. In this portion of the timeline, Yong Ho has a final encounter with his high school sweetheart, Sun Im (Moon So Ri), a meeting that will push him over the edge. The film then flashes back to other key moments in Yong Ho's past, which help illuminate his dark character. In these episodes, the film delves into his unhappy marriage with Hong Ja (Kim Yeo Jin), his brutal tactics while working for the police department, and the life-changing incident that traumatized Yong Ho during his time in the military, to name just a few. Eventually, the film reaches its chronological "beginning" in 1979, returning to the setting and the characters of the film's opening. We find those very same reunion-goers, full of youthful exuberance, as well as Sun Im in the prime of her life. We also find a youthful Yong Ho, one so dramatically different from the man we met at the start of the film. Armed with all the knowledge of what will happen to this poor character in the coming decades, viewers can only lament the bittersweet, if not outright tragic fate of the once-innocent Yong Ho.

One of the more interesting aspects of Peppermint Candy's backwards structure is the fact that it can be read in at least two different ways. On one hand, it can be seen simply as a device imposed on the narrative from outside the story. On the other hand, the final shot in the film suggests something more. Like Pascual Aubier's 1985 short film Flashback, in which a man's life flashes before him in reverse all the way back to infancy, so, too, can Peppermint Candy's trip into the past be considered in some sense, Yong Ho's spiritual journey to reclaim his lost innocence. In the film's final, moving shot there is a sense that Yong Ho is overwhelmed by the scene's beauty, yet prior to that moment, there is also the suggestion that he is experiencing a case of déjà vu. The ambiguity of exactly what is going through Yong Ho's mind in this moment of realization gives the film an extra dimension and creates a jumping-off point for viewers to debate the film's ending.

Sul Kyung Ku is a revelation as Yong Ho. He effectively portrays the character as a slightly different kind of man in each episode, although always rooted to a core personality. At times, the character is like a wild animal, prone to outbursts of violence at any moment, a characteristic which Sul would revisit in later films like Public Enemy and Rikidozan. As the sole anchor of the film, Sul Kyun Ku is a magnetic presence, holding the viewer's attention throughout the narrative.

Although Peppermint Candy suggests that Yong Ho's journey into darkness was a gradual decline, it could also be argued that his innocence was lost in a single instant and completely by accident. Certainly, his reaction to that traumatic event and the choices he made in its aftermath put him on the road to becoming the tragic monster seen in the film's opening scene, but the film also suggests that who we are depends not just on choice, but pure chance. Intellectually stimulating and heartbreaking to the last, Peppermint Candy is undoubtedly a modern classic of Korean cinema. By Calvin McMillin - LoveHKFilm.com