Lee Chang-dong Films on Netflix by Country (No US Date Yet)
Netflix said on Monday, September 14 that it is widening where Lee Chang-dong's six earlier films can be streamed, two days after Possible Love won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the 83rd Venice Film Festival. Financial News and Edaily carried the Korean release late Monday afternoon KST, and the English copy is up on WebWire. If you are in the US or Canada, nothing has been added to your library yet.
The headline in most Korean outlets was "글로벌 공개" (global release). The country lists inside the release are a good deal narrower than that, so I've laid them out film by film below.
The three lists
Netflix splits the six films into three pairs, and each pair has its own set of countries.
Green Fish (1997) and Secret Sunshine (2007) have been streaming since late August in Italy, the UK, France, Australia and New Zealand. Peppermint Candy (1999) and Oasis (2002) followed on September 4 in Italy and Spain. Poetry (2010) and Burning (2018) are described as planned for Japan, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with no date given in either the Korean or the English version of the release. Film years are from Lee's filmography on Wikipedia; the release itself only dates Green Fish.
Subtitles run to six languages, though which six depends on the territory. The Korean copy says "한국어, 영어를 포함한 6개 언어" (six languages including Korean and English); the WebWire copy says "up to six languages including Korean" and does not name English. I read both against each other line by line and that is the only place they differ.
The rollout also started before the prize. Two of the three pairs were live by September 4, and the Silver Lion was handed out on September 12. And South Korea is on none of the three lists. VentureSquare's write-up of the release says the aim is for overseas members who found Lee through Possible Love to discover his earlier work, so domestic availability is simply not what this announcement is about.
What Venice gave him
The Hammer to Nail winners list, posted September 12, has the Golden Lion going to May el-Toukhy's Woman Unknown, the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize to Possible Love, and the Silver Lion for Best Director to Ilya Khrzhanovsky for DAU. Maggie Gyllenhaal presided over the jury, with Johnnie To among the members, per Wikipedia's page on the 83rd festival. The Grand Jury Prize is the festival's second prize, and it puts Lee back on the Venice honors list 24 years after his Best Director Silver Lion for Oasis in 2002.
Edaily also quotes jury member Johnnie To saying "나는 절대 이런 영화를 만들지 못할 것 같다" about the film, which I'd translate as "I don't think I could ever make a film like this." Financial News adds that Possible Love is Korea's submission for the international feature category at the 99th Academy Awards.
I wrote about the premiere and the reviews when the film first screened at Venice, so I won't repeat the plot here. The release dates have not moved since then. Korea gets it in theaters on September 23, Australia and New Zealand on October 22, the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland and Japan on October 23, and Netflix streams it everywhere on November 6.
What Netflix says it is doing
Two statements are quoted, one from a named executive and one from the company. Kang Dong-han, Netflix's VP of Korean content, is quoted in Financial News: "넷플릭스는 앞으로도 한국 영화계의 장기적인 파트너로서 다양한 영화가 꾸준히 만들어지고 더 많은 팬들과 만날 수 있도록 함께하겠다," which in my translation is "Netflix will keep standing with the Korean film industry as a long-term partner so that a wide range of films keep getting made and reach more fans."
The company-level line, from Edaily, is that Netflix will "keep supporting outstanding works that represent Korean cinema so that more of them are discovered and loved, beyond the limits of language, culture, time and place" (my translation of "언어와 문화, 시간과 장소의 제약을 뛰어넘어 대한민국 영화계를 대표하는 훌륭한 작품이 보다 많이 발견되고 사랑받을 수 있도록 계속 지원해나갈 것").
The measurable part of all that is six films, nine countries, and two of the three pairs already up.
Where that leaves you
If you're in the UK, France, Australia or New Zealand, you have Green Fish and Secret Sunshine right now. Italy has all four of the released titles, Spain has Peppermint Candy and Oasis. Japan, the US and Canada are waiting on Poetry and Burning with no date, which for a North American reader is the frustrating half of this announcement, since those two are the films most likely to be on your watchlist already.
If you only have time for one before November 6, I'd go with Secret Sunshine. Jeon Do-yeon won Best Actress at Cannes in 2007 for it, and she leads Possible Love too, so it doubles as a primer for the new film. Peppermint Candy is the other natural pairing, because Sul Kyung-gu carries both.
Availability by country is the one thing I can't check from here, since a Netflix library only shows you your own region. If Poetry or Burning turns up in your Netflix before Netflix announces a date, leave a comment with your country and I'll add it to the card above.
This is a running news series, not a one-off post — new stories go up twice a day, roughly 7am and 7pm Korea time.
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