2021 | Korea | B&W | 126′ | DCP Director: Lee Joon-ik Screenwriter: Kim Se-gyeom Cinematographer: Lee Eui-tae Cast: Sul Kyung-gu, Byun Yo-han, Lee Jung-eun, Min Do-hee, Ryu Seung-ryong In Korean with Chinese and English subtitles 2021 Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Cinematography and Lighting, Best Music, The 42nd Blue Dragon Awards, Korea 2021 Best Film, Baeksang Arts Awards, Korea The Book of Fish is a story about human beings. Set in the Joseon era during the early 19th Century, this is the tale of a Confucian scholar who is exiled because of his belief in Catholicism, at a time when Korea was going through the difficult integration of traditional values with newly-introduced Western ones. The film presents the historical, cultural and political complexities with simple storytelling, unfolded through the relationship developing between the scholar and a young fisherman. Director Lee Joon-ik poignantly essays the nuances of changing times through portraits of daily routines in a fishing village, where profound conversations are taken between the scholar and those talking to him. It is a time when Western thoughts are arriving as a government operating on Confucian principles has been greatly corrupted. The major conflict of the story is a philosophical as well as practical one. It is between the scholar and the fisherman. The former, persecuted for trying to reconcile Neo-Confucianism with Catholicism, finds purpose through learning about living beings, discovering wonders of the environment and contemplating the nature of human co-existence, practiced according to the Confucian principle of “studying things to gain knowledge” to pursue the ideal of “heaven and human as one”. The latter, having studied with the scholar, becomes a scholar himself and decides to pursue a government career. The former is a return to the essence of Confucian humanism and the latter a venture in Confucianism corrupted. The Book of Fish is a book on the spirit of the literati.

04/10/2025(Sat) 14:00

$75