Lee Chang-dong’s film, Peppermint Candy explores the history of modern Korea through the plight of the film’s protagonist, Kim Young-Ho. The film utilizes a unique reverse-chronological plot line throughout the film. With each scene in the film we see the true nature of the degradation of Young-Ho’s life, and the events that drove him to suicide. These events mirror modern Korean history, from Young-Ho’s stint as a soldier in the Korean military, as an unforgiving police officer during Korea’s authoritarian Fifth Republic, to his success as a businessman during Korea’s economic boom, and finally to his eventual state of financial ruin in the wake of the Asian Economic crisis. We learn the extent to which Young-Ho is a “victim of the system”, a system that has not only dramatically changed throughout the two decades that the film takes place, but also dramatically alters Young-Ho himself.
Interestingly, the transitions that are used during the film involve a train moving backwards, which not only depicts the fact that time is moving backwards during the film, but it evokes a sense of continuity. As a train is on a set of tracks that can only move in two directions, forward or backward representing that despite history moving forward, there is still some level of history moving backward, as we will see throughout Young-Ho’s life.
The film’s timeline begins with Young-Ho at the beach with the same friends that he reunited with at the beginning of the film, presumably meeting them for the first time. What seems to be his first encounter with Sun-Im is not plagued with the same level of misogyny that their later encounters during the film are plagued by. We learn of his aspirations to become a photographer, a relatively innocent profession compared to the police officer he later becomes. The purity of Young-Ho in this stage of the film stands in strong contrast to the Young-Ho that we see throughout the rest of the film.
Young-Ho’s enlistment into the Korean military is the first step unto his path of self-destruction. With the military dictatorship headed by President Chun Doo-hwan in full swing, his enlistment made him a pawn of Chun’s ruthless regime. Sun-Im remained one of the few things grounding Young-Ho’s relative innocence at the time, visiting him at his base and sending him peppermint candies that he kept in a box. When this box of candies spilled out during the commotion preceding a military operation, he was reprimanded by a superior, kicked and beaten until he was subservient, metaphorically representing the regime’s crushing of dissent from within. As Young-Ho and his platoon drive off in the back of a military truck, we notice Sun-Im walking along the same road and trailing the truck, unable to visit Young-Ho due to the martial law in place at the time.
Upon arrival in Gwang-Ju, despite the scene being hectic with soldiers running into the city, the camera stays stationary, and later focuses on the sounds of the night, the footsteps and crickets being especially prominent. This represents the fact that in the grand scheme of things, the soldiers and the government of Korea are the real causes of disarray and chaos in Gwang-Ju, and they are disrupting the relative peace of the night. Later, when Young-Ho discovers that he has been shot, his cries and lack of masculinity are treated negatively by his officer, and he is yelled at and hit for not “manning up” and reacting with emotionless masculinity to his wounds.
When he hears the footsteps of what we later learn is a student that was on her way home, the camera begins to pan towards Young-Ho, adding another sense of movement and rising tension, a break from the mostly stationary camera that was used before. Young-Ho’s departure with his platoon on the trucks from Sun-Im earlier in the scene foreshadows his departure from innocence when he accidentally shoots a student protestor in Gwang-Ju during the uprising. He sees his innocence flash before his eyes, initially thinking that the protestor was Sun-Im, he then tries to let her go home. Instead when his fellow soldiers return he must return to the hyper-masculine emotionless soldier that society expected him to be at the time. He fires in her general direction, trying to startle her into leaving but instead his shot kills her, killing what was left of Young-Ho’s innocence with her.
With the aftermath of his military service Young-Ho becomes a police officer, another hyper-masculine position of power that serves to bolster the authoritarian regime. Throughout this section of the film he is seen torturing and abusing student protestors, the same student protestors that destroyed his innocence during the Gwang-ju Protests. His abuse and torture of protestors seems to represent his animosity against the protestors that destroyed him.
We later see his rejection of Sun-Im while they go out to lunch. During the meal she compliments his hands, saying “Hands, your hands, Young-Ho. Your hands are unique. Fingers are blunt and ugly, but seem so sweet. When we first met your hands made me think you’re a good person”, and just as she says that, he says “You’re right, my hands are so sweet” and takes the same hand that he used to torture prisoners to sexually grope Hong-Ja, the same hand that Sun-Im was just admiring. With a malicious grin, he then says, “Sweet aren’t they?”. Even after her rejection, she still tries to give Young-Ho a camera as a gift, bringing us back to his aspirations earlier in his life. Instead he rejects it, saying “I don’t need this sort of thing any more” symbolically rejecting any connection to his past self. He later gives the camera back to Sun-Im, sending off the remnants of his innocent, past self on the train that Sun-Im leaves on.
In the next period in Young-Ho’s life we see Young-Ho at what seems to be the height of his financial success, his great economic fortune stands in contrast to the military dictatorship that existed only a year before. He discovers his wife Hong-Ja’s infidelity, and punishes her, beating both her and man she cheated with violently. Hong-Ja’s affair stood in the way of his hyper-masculinity, a recurring theme throughout the film. His efforts were hypocritical, as he was having an affair of his own with a family friend, one that is later seen having dinner with Young-Ho and his family. This era of opulence and greed mirrors the greed and fortune gained by many after the liberalization of economies after years of authoritarianism.
The first flashback of the film begins with the aftermath of the Asian Economic Crisis of the late 90s, with the protagonist losing nearly everything to the economic crash and his embezzling business partner. In just one year, the South Korean absolute poverty rate rose from just 9% in 1997 to nearly 23% in 1998 according to the World Bank. We see the true extent of his poverty as he is living in a squalid shack and is unable to afford even a coffee, instead pouring all of his money into purchasing a gun with which he plans to kill himself as well as what seems to be the business partner that robbed him of his fortunes. Instead he encounters a man who we later learn is the husband of his childhood love, Sun-Im, who tells him that she has fallen terminally ill. We again see the camera that she gifted Young-Ho years ago given back to him. Rather than cherish the remnants of his innocence he sells the camera instead, symbolically selling his soul, and also again representing the enterprising greedy nature of many businessman after the liberalization of the Korean economy.
The death of Sun-Im and the sale of the camera marks the end of any bridge to Young-Ho’s past self, and his visit to their first meeting places the beach represents his lost efforts at reclaiming his life as it once was. At the beach, we see Young-Ho completely broken and seemingly very intoxicated, stumbling and staggering along and throwing himself into the river carelessly. We soon see him climbing on the same train tracks that we will become familiar with during every transition, and with a final cry of “I am going back”, he ends his life a broken man. Kim Young-Ho is a product of the society that he fell victim to, dictatorship that was plagued with hyper-masculinity and a lack of ethics. Throughout the film you can’t help but feel a level of sympathy for Young-Ho, as he transforms from the innocent young man we see early in his life, to the monster that he becomes.
Bibliography:
- Choi, Yongsok, and Chae-Schick Chung. Social Impact of the Korean Economic Crisis. Jan. 2002, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.545.3768&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
- Lee, Chang-Dong, director. Peppermint Candy. Shindo Films, 2000.
Originally published 15.10.2019