Friend (2001 film)
| Friend | |
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Theatrical poster
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| Hangul | |
| Hanja | |
| Revised Romanization | Chin'gu |
| McCune–Reischauer | Ch'in'gu |
| Directed by | Kwak Kyung-taek |
| Produced by | Seok Myeong-hong An Chang-guk Hyeon Gyeong-rim Jo Won-jang |
| Written by | Kwak Kyung-taek |
| Starring |
Yu Oh-seong Jang Dong-gun Seo Tae-hwa Jung Woon-taek Kim Bo-kyung |
| Music by | Choi Man-sik Choi Sun-sik Im Ju-hui Choe Seung-yeon Oh Hye-won |
| Cinematography | Hwang Gi-seok |
| Edited by | Park Gok-ji |
| Distributed by | Korea Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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118 minutes |
| Country | South Korea |
| Language | Korean |
Friend (Hangul: 친구; RR: Chin-gu) is a 2001 South Korean film written and directed by Kwak Kyung-taek. Upon its release, it became the highest-grossing South Korean movie of all time. Its record was surpassed in 2003 by Silmido.
This film is the director's experience about his friends, a semi-autobiography set in his hometown, Busan, and the actors speak with a strongly accented Busan dialect. The film changed the public images of Jang Dong-gun and Yu Oh-seong; previously, Jang had been famous for romantic comedies and Yu had appeared in movies with mostly cult interest.
The film follows the lives of four childhood friends: Joon-seok, the leader of the group and whose father is a powerful mob boss; Dong-su, whose father is an undertaker; class clown Jung-ho; and Sang-taek, who was an exemplary student. As children they play together, sell sexually explicit pictures cut from a magazine, and wonder if a South Korean Olympic swimmer could outrace a sea turtle. Jung-ho also showed the rest of them a VCR that his mother had, and this film he found on it. It turns out to be a pornographic movie, and the boys are entranced while arguing over what a "menstruation" was, with them believing that it was the word that adults used to describe the "vagina".
Fast forward to high school, where they are reunited after separating during middle school. They become smitten with the lead singer of a band of girls their age. Joon-seok invites the band to a party at his house, where each boy pairs off with one girl (though not after some tension over how to do so). Sang-taek receives his first kiss from the lead singer, Jin-sook.
Back in school, Joon-seok and Dong-su get in trouble after a confrontation with a teacher; After their friends convince them to go apologize, they are only off with a light suspension. During an outing to the movies, where Sang-taek catches the eye of another school kid whom he had picked a fight with earlier, Joon-seok and Dong-su fend off a whole rival school while Jung-ho protects Sang-taek. Dong-su, after the fight, returns with a steel rod and smashes the school's glass cases with its awards and trophies, dropping out of school and warning anyone who bumps into him on the street will "pay". Sang-taek is suspended from the affair. After graduation, Sang-taek and Jung-ho go to college but the others do not.
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