The Road DVD Region 3

The film has a fairly simple set up, following a travelling blacksmith called Tae Seok (played by the director himself, who has actually featured in quite a few films, including Lee Myung Se's Gagman, which he also co-scripted), who encounters a young woman travelling to her father's funeral. Their meeting causes him to recall his past, in particular the betrayal he suffered at the hands of his supposed best friend that cost him his livelihood and wife. As the two continue on their journeys, their paths become entwined, forcing Tae Seok to confront and re-evaluate the bitterness which he has held in his heart for so many years.

With the director playing the lead role as well as having written the script, The Road is obviously a very personal film and it certainly comes across as such, being an intimate, heartfelt examination of a man's life which focuses mainly on themes of acceptance and forgiveness. What is perhaps most impressive is the way that Bae conveys a great wealth of emotion without ever making anything too explicit or obvious, relying to a large extent on characters' facial expressions and body language rather than dialogue to convey aspects of the story. Shying away from any kind of melodrama, the film depicts Tae Seok with the utmost honesty, showing his faults as well as merits, bringing him to believable life in a way which makes him far more than a simple mouthpiece for the director's own thoughts. Similarly, the story never patronises the viewer and avoids passing judgement or offering easy answers to the dramatic events at its core, adding a real sense of maturity and considered depth to the proceedings.

The film benefits from a well thought out narrative structure, with the scenes set in the past and present complementing each other perfectly and gradually revealing their secrets as they quietly converge. Although there are a couple of twists in the tale, they are played out simply and without fuss, and as such they only add to the film's naturalistic feel rather than disturbing its contemplations through forced dramatics. This is not to say that the film is without any kind of tension, rather that the viewer is pulled into the story gradually and without any kind of artifice, something which actually results in it being all the more engrossing.

Visually, the film is impressive throughout, with Bae making great use of the rural scenery, though without overplaying his hand, bestowing it with a silent, often bleak beauty. The changing seasons act as an effective, if rather obvious metaphor for the cycle of life, and provide a fitting method of underlining the differences between the warm green of the past and the cold icy of the present. As expected, the film does move along at a fairly slow pace, though this matches its rhythmic, unhurried feel and appropriately reflects Tae Seok's deliberate, unending journey. Wisely, the running time is kept to a lean ninety minutes, and the film never outstays its welcome, covering its narrative and themes with a pleasing lack of clutter or excess.

As a result, The Road is a film far removed from most other recent Korean offerings, being a genuine and unforced piece of character based drama which shows an admirable sense of economy without sacrificing emotional depth or cinematic appeal. A simple yet thoughtful tale told well and with great compassion, it marks a real return to form for one of the country's great directors, whose career will hopefully see him continue to craft this kind of wonderfully human film.

by James Mudge - BeyondHollywood.com