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Fantastic Shin Sang Ok

Madam white snake

Shin Sang Ok

Korea1960 100min 35mm B&W

Synopsis

'Madam White Snake is a film version of "Love of the White Snake" in a Chinese fairy tale. The way a grudged female ghost gets even with her enemy is different from the traditional Korean horror genre. In this movie, the thousand-year-old white snake is not a monster who holds hostility toward humans, rather who is more human and loves her husband dearly. Animism-driven legendary storytelling, on a black standard screen, creates a mysterious and dreamy look to it. It is refreshing that this movie without any high-tech special effects succeeds in garnering a surrealistic feeling. In particular, the female leading character Choi Eun-hee plays her role in a very different way from the traditional female characters that she used to play.

Diretor

Shin Sang Ok

He debuted as a director with The Evil Night in 1952, he had made movies throught his life and he established 'the cinematic world of Shin Sang Ok' during the 'Golden Age' of South Korean cinema in the late 1950s and 1960s. Like Howard Hocks in Hollywood, director Shin had huge influence in Koroean film history.