Treeless Mountain | Review

My come-back post! Way back in April of last year, I saw the trailer for this movie and wanted to see it as soon as possible. I finally did shortly after, but it really wasn’t what I expected it to be. It’s been brewing inside of me all this time and I figure it’s about time to write it all out.

Directed and Written by: So Yong Kim
Released in: 2008 (Toronto International Film Festival), 2009 (South Korea)

Overall rating: C

Main Cast:
Actor/Actress as Character

Hee-yeon Kim as Jin
Song-hee Kim as Bin
Soo-ah Lee as Mom
Mi-hyang Kim as Big Aunt

Treeless Mountain doesn’t talk about any mountain or tree. Instead, it’s about two young girls name Jin and Bin and the abrupt change they face when their mother suddenly leave their lives. Jin, the older of the two girls, comes home from school one day to find people removing furniture from her home. Her mom set her and her sister down for a talk and tells them that they will live with their aunt for awhile. Her mom is leaving to look for their father and won’t be able to take care of them. Their mother also leaves them a piggy bank and promise to return when the piggy bank is full. She says good-byes to the girls at a bus-stop and leaves. Their aunt unwillingly takes them in at her home and try her best to take care of the kids. She, unfortunately, is more apt to take care in filling up her cup with alcohol and is often too drunk to make meals for Jin and Bin. The coins they get from their aunt is few in between if any. Jin later gets an idea to sell roasted grass-hoppers for fish baits (or whatever they’re used for) in return from coins. She then exchange them for smaller change to fill up the piggy bank faster. The day finally comes when their piggy bank is full. Jin and Bin go to the bus-stop where they last saw their mother and wait for her. Will their mother come like she promised?

Treeless Mountain

Hey all. I’m breaking away from my schoolwork to report to you about this new movie. Once I saw the trailer, I just had to post it up here for everyone to know about it.

The movie is called Treeless Mountain directed by So Yong Kim. The name of the movie alone intrigues me. The basic storyline from what I gather is two young Korean girls (Jin and Bin) are left in the care of their aunt by their mother while she looks for the girls’ father. The mother tells her daughters that once they fill up a plastic piggy bank that she gave them, she will return by then. Other minutes details of the movie are yet unknown, but I’m hoping it’ll be one of those calm yet powerful movie like Il Mare.

A quote from the trailer pretty much peaks my interest even more in that it says the movie portrays the “…quiet resilience of children.” I thought about my own childhood and how I could force myself to wake up freakishly early in the morning to catch the cartoon shows and now I can barely get up by noon. When did this resilience get lost? Maybe this movie will tell me. 😛