text: This film, winning Im Kwon-Taek the Best Director at Cannes in 2002 (tied with P.T. Anderson for Punch-Drunk Love), is about a 19th century Korean painter with a commoner's roots and significant impact on Korean painting. One of the strengths?of the film is that Im tries to help us see with the eye of a painter, so we see multiple scenes and objects which help our drunken painter friend, Jang Seung-up (Choi Min-shik),?receive inspiration.<br /><br />The costumes and the art direction are all impressive and the acting is even along being good. It's not a movie that moved me, but it was one that made me think about art and what it means to find your own voice in it. That's pretty cool. It's also interesting to see a version of Korea during those times right before the turn of the century, where Chinese and Japanese powers are both in Korea and the Chosun kingdom is coming to an end. More than one revolution and political ideology are gathered in the film, but are never the center. It's firmly on the painter.<br /><br />In the end, it's a well made film about the life of a painter. But it doesn't exactly have the regular three-act structure plot, so you have to be able to take a non-standard Hollywood story to watch it. Yay for art! 8/10