Moyoung Jin
Republic of Korea (South Korea) | 2017 | 86 min
European Premiere
Language : Korean
Subtitles : English, French
After My Love Don’t Cross that River (VdR, 2015), Moyoung Jin continues to explore contemporary Korea and plunges us into the daily life of a family with an extraordinary destiny. Eleven years after fleeing North Korea with his wife and children, Park Myongho continues to risk his life every day by fishing for octopus, encased in an ancient diving suit that weighs 60 kg and is linked to the surface by a fragile tube that enables him to breathe. These incredible underwater combats filmed by Moyoung Jin then become symbolic of a more general struggle. As, like many deserters who left North Korea to try their luck with their capitalist neighbours, Park Myongho is finding it hard to integrate and his new life is a daily combat, marked by fear but also by a fierce desire to improve his condition. The portrait of a man driven by unwavering will and a family chronicle that sketches out the diverging destinies of his two sons, Old Marine Boy offers us a thrilling reflection on man’s instinct for survival, his capacity to adapt, and his inflexible faculty for hope.
Céline Guénot