The Journals of Musan

Name: The Journals of Musan
Genre: Drama
Released: August 19, 2011
Duration: 127 min
Rating: 56

2011

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Mixed or average reviews based on 6 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Tribeca Films | Release Date: August 19, 2011 | Not Rated

Summary: Jeon Seung-chul, a North Korean defector, leaves a resettlement in South Korea and takes up residence in a dilapidated home on the outskirts of Seoul. He finds employment putting up advertisement posters, but yearns for human contact. Instead, he befriends a stray dog.

Director: Jung-bum Park

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 127 min

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Critic Reviews

Staff (Not credited)

Aug 15, 2011

Jeon is played to perfection by the director himself. The spare script effectively funnels audience attention into him, who is never less than engaging. Read full review

Kenji Fujishima

Aug 15, 2011

If The Journals of Musan indicates anything, it's that people, for the most part, either can't or simply aren't willing to comprehend the circumstances behind others' actions. Read full review

Jay Weissberg

Aug 15, 2011

Though it cries out for trimming, "Musan" is a welcome, substantive marker on the current cinema landscape. Read full review

David Fear

Aug 16, 2011

An attempt to detail the plight of North Koreans in their new homeland, The Journals of Musan doesn't soft-pedal the hardship; Park, however, apparently felt obligated to stack the deck against the film's passive protagonist to a ridiculous degree. Read full review

Benjamin Mercer

Aug 16, 2011

Group scenes, meanwhile, often suffer from a peculiar handheld drift, as if in troubling over which insult to add to which injury, the filmmakers neglected to attend to rudimentary blocking. Read full review

Mike Hale

Aug 18, 2011

Mr. Park's screenplay, pedestrian direction and stolid performance don't set us up to care. Read full review

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emdashm

Aug 27, 2011

Saw this for free at MOMA last Friday, and it's the best Korean drama I've seen in awhile! Also glad to finally see a worthwhile emerging Korean director get some recognition after disappointments by leading veterans in the past few years. At heart, the film dealt with some seriousSaw this for free at MOMA last Friday, and it's the best Korean drama I've seen in awhile! Also glad to finally see a worthwhile emerging Korean director get some recognition after disappointments by leading veterans in the past few years. At heart, the film dealt with some serious contemporary cultural issues regarding Korea's backhanded discrimination of its own in the treatment of North Korean refugees living in Seoul, as well as the overzealous yet superficial adoption of Christianity and the consequences and experience of living in a super-collectivist cult-ure. Some of the tricks used to engage western audiences and evoke empathy (the dog, religious hymns in the singing room, for example) were cheap but effective; likewise, amateur-ish lens when filming chase scenes and perspective shots. Overall, the level of detail and character sketches/development made for great drama. Among the best and most subtle are scenes at the close of the film, wherein the "love interest" is reduced to just another blind follower, implicitly unworthy of the tragic hero's redemption.… Expand

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