Road to Cheongsong Prison
(Cheongsongeuro ganeun kil)
by Lee Doo-yong
South Korea
Script: Ko Young-shik
Cinematographer: Lee Seong-chun
Settings: Do Young-wu
Editing: Lee Kyeong-ja
Music: Choi Chang-kwon
Cast: Chung Kwang, Cho Hyong-gi, Tae-il, Mooen Chang-geen, Gir Dar-ho, Kim Chun-shik, Yung Taek-cho
Production: Doo Sung Cinema Corporation
Year: 1990
35 mm, Colour, 100 min
OV Korean with Frrench Subtitles
With kind support of Paris' Korean Cultural Center
47th Venise Film Festival
It is dawn and the gate of the jail opens for the prisoners who have served their sentences. Nobody is waiting for Hojuki who has been in prison 38 times. He does not know where to go and enters a restaurant. He thinks that if he cannot pay the bill he will be sent back to jail, where at least he can eat. A policeman pays for him. He will not go back to his cell. He then decides to steal a goat in the market. If he is not caught he can sell it and get some money, otherwise he will go back to jail. He is arrested and is subject to legal restrictions pending trial in Chong song. He tells the warder about his life, how he did his first petty theft and the 37 which followed. Condemned to a 2 year sentence, a disproportionate sentence, he falls sick. The director of the new jail who had met him before, takes pity on him and has a nice meal prepared for him to celebrate his sixtieth birthday.
