Korean Zen Cinema

Last night I finished watching the 1989 film Why Has Bodhi Dharma Left for the East? [IMDB, Amazon], a film I've been wanting to watch since I glimpsed the cover in the library. It has comparisons to Ozu (whose films I've not seen) and Tarkovsky (who did Solaris [IMDB], which I love).

The Korean title is Dharmaga tongjoguro kan kkadalgun. Yong-Kyun Bae [IMDB] is the Director, Writer, Cinematographer & Editor, and took 7 years and his own funding for the film. Not entirely unlike Mike Jittlov.

Like Solaris, this needs multiple viewings.

Looking over Solaris, at the IMDB, it's soon going to be time to watch this again. I wish I had the VHS and DVD versions myself. Lots of subtile changes between them. I remember how the VHS version had both letterboxing bars at the bottom to allow a bigger area for subtitling. None of the titles were on the picture. It's funny to remember watching Return of the Jedi in the theater and seeing the subtitles over the picture. But when you watch it on DVD in widescreen, the subtitles are below the picture, in the black bar.

Methinks there is something wrong with blogger again. The photo is showing here in the edit of my post, but not on the view of the blog. Also, the bold is gone. At first, I thought that an issue with the template I'm using. Perhaps I should go back to my old tripod page after all. I've got better control there.