Due to unforeseen circumstances, Director Ryoo Seung-wan will no longer be present for this screening. Film critic Darcy Paquet and film scholars Molly Kim and Kyu Hyun Kim are scheduled to be present.
Series: The Films of Ryoo Seung-wan
The Battleship Island is set during World War II on a Japanese prison island where Koreans were drafted into forced labor in undersea coal mines. The film emphasizes the brutality of the prison and depicts the suffering of the prisoners with realistic wretchedness, while also drawing attention to their humanity through interesting and morally ambiguous characterizations. The action is staged on a specially constructed two-thirds-scale recreation of the island and shows off Ryoo’s cinematic skills with battle scenes centered on a fictionalized mass escape led by a Korean independence fighter. In Korean and Japanese with English subtitles. Contains mature content, including violence and strong language.
