Review of Peppermint Candy / 박하사탕, directed by Lee Chang-dong

There are some memories associated with positive events in our lives, and even if you can’t remember the concert or movie fully, I think there are always the feelings associated with them that one cannot forget.

For me, if I watch a really good movie, I have a tendency to remember all of the details that happened concurrent to watching that movie.

The first time I saw Peppermint Candy I was a freshman in college and a friend, no longer a friend, and I bought tickets to see it at the MoMA. We walked all the way from FIT to the MoMA and almost missed being let into the screening (MoMA closes entry five minutes after the start time).

But we had made it, and afterwards we agreed at what an incredible movie it was. I’m still continuing to think about it all these years later, which led me to rewatch the movie for the first time ever since.

Lee Chang-dong is my favorite director for a reason, and Peppermint Candy is one of his best works if you’re asking me—but that’s hard competition, as all of his movies are really good.

Anyways, I’m rambling already. Let’s get into the review.

The events in Korean history that led one man to try and commit suicide.

Something to note about Peppermint Candy is that this is a movie told in reverse and broken into seven sections. We begin with a group of friends gathering to have a picnic by railroad tracks, and they haven’t seen each other for twenty years.

While they’re chatting and catching up about their lives, one man, Kim Young-ho, breaks off from the group. No one knows about what has happened to him in the time that has passed, and, while they’re chatting, he seems to be drunk. Something’s off about him.

At one point, he wanders onto the tracks to commit suicide, and only one of his friends tries to help. As the train approaches, he throws his hands into the air and screams “I want to go back again.”

The next section takes place three days prior, as Young-ho hears about the reunion.

He buys a pistol and contemplates shooting himself and killing someone else in the process. Instead, he goes to confront some people in his life, such as an ex-wife and a business partner.

He then decides to visit a comatose old flame, offering her unconscious body the peppermint candies she used to give him. He’s already clearly distraught, but then we go back in time five years, to 1994.

At this point, he’s got a successful business, but his wife is cheating on him with someone else. As it turns out, he’s also cheating on his wife, and while dining out with his new fling, he runs into an old friend.

He tells him how he quit the police force, and then asks him if life is beautiful. Yong-ho is then seen in a new home with his family, and his wife cries as he leaves the home. We go back after then to 1987, when he’s a police officer.

His wife is about to have their daughter, and then we see while he’s on the job he meets the man who was at the restaurant in the previous section. Yong-ho is apprehending and torturing him for information, and then Yong-ho has to go to Kunsan.

This is the home of the woman he had a fling with that was comatose in the earlier section.

As the cops capture the wanted man, Yong-ho looks for the fling, but has another one night stand with a woman. When he leaves town, she’s still waiting for him.

We then go back to 1984. He’s just started the job, and he’s told to torture a suspect, who is a student. He meets his future wife, then working at a restaurant, and Yong-ho is visited by his fling.

She tells him she tried to visit when he was in the military, that she wanted to give him a camera, and he’s absolutely awful to her.

He tells her he’s more interested in his future wife, Hong-ja, and returns the camera. Yong-ho then treats patrons at Hong-ja’s restaurant terribly that night, then sleeps with her.

1980 is next, and Yong-ho is in the military. His unit is sent to stop the Gwangju uprising, and when Yong-ho is shot in the leg and waiting for help to get him, a student approaches him.

She begs to be allowed to go home, but he hears his fellow soldiers coming back. He shoots into the air in an attempt to make them believe he has done his job, but he shoots and kills the girl. This traumatizes him, and he isn’t the same after that.

We go back to 1979 after that, when the friends have gathered at the same picnic place. There, he meets his fling, Sun-im, who works at a peppermint candy factory.

Together, they chatter, and the movie ends with him laying in the grass, staring at the sky. A train passes in the distance, and a tear comes out of his eye.

Overall Thoughts

This is such a gorgeous movie. Telling it in reverse adds such an interesting and compelling element, as we want to know why we get to the point where this man commits suicide.

There is also elements of Korean history going on here. When Yong-ho is a businessman, the Asian Financial Crisis is going on, and when he’s in the military, the Gwangju Uprising is happening and becomes an inciting incident for his trauma at that point.

This is a loaded movie if you can’t handle it emotionally, but it certainly is worth watching at least once, that’s for sure.

Watch it if you haven’t already. Lee Chang-dong is a master, and I absolutely adore his work.

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