Green Fish (Chorok mulkogi)

Lee Chang-Dong's debut has that classic debut feel- a little rough around the edges, and he certainly refined his craft over the years, but definitely carries many of the features that would make his later work so stunning and provocative.

Thomas Flight

In a talk with Jia Zhangke at a film festival in 2018, Lee Chang-dong was asked to speak about his directorial debut, Green Fish: "Green Fish was released in 1997 when [the] Korean film industry was at a low point. People would not go to the movies even if they were…

Lowe McKee

Action! - Lee Chang-dong: The Frictions In The Serenity So our next director was a little bit of an accident. Apparently, I had picked a lot of his films but wasn’t aware they were his until later on. So with only a few remaining and having seen them all, I thought, why…

Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine

Lee Chang-dong clearly hadn't found his footing as a director in his debut film, Green Fish, but despite being too indistinct to be a work that could only be his, Green Fish contains elements that would define Lee's work in later years (slow pace, unflashy style, a focus on…

Darren Carver-Balsiger

What an apt title for the debut feature of a future leviathan of cinema. Green Fish captures a small-town idealism swallowed whole by the murky underbelly of modernizing South Korea. Through Mak-dong's tragic naivety, Lee transforms a classic gangster archetype into a…

Terence Ang 洪偉凱

I think of my identity on a leash, where family trees become cold buildings, on the reason to sacrifice my execution; caring in spring.

PlaguDocta

Always cool to see a filmmaker's debut have such a clear vision right out the gate for what they'd explore for the rest of their career. This almost plays like an unrefined (and more melodramatic, less ambiguous) prototype for Burning. You got the alienated and miserable…

Josh Lewis

This is a decent, if not outstanding, debut from Lee Chang-dong. Despite a conventional gangster drama told without much innovation, Green Fish is still a beautiful dry run for Lee's later, more mature masterpieces. As political and socially relevant as it is, Green Fish…

nick

There are many things that I see in Green Fish. I see Lee Chang Dong's future. In the recurring use of trains as imagery - as ever moving time keepers. In the loving depiction of persons with cerebral palsy. In the value placed upon the role of family (or lack of…

Genasai