Happy Funeral Director

Executive Producer: Tcha Sung-Jai
Producer: Kim Jae-Won
Screenplay: Chang Moon-Il
Director of Photography: Jin Young-Hwan
Editor: Kim Hyun
Cast: Lim Chang Jung, Kim Chang Wan, Chung Eun Pyo, Oh Hyun Kyung

When you take on the business of death, corpses and departures to the netherworld are commonplace items on the daily agenda. That is, if there is any business to be had. In his debut film, Chang Moon-Il (screenwriter of Jang Sun-Woo's A PETAL) looks at the lives of the lonely, the bored and the quirky, and displays their myriad reactions to death. Jang Pan-Dol is an undertaker in a town where nobody has died in a year. His apprentices consist of his reluctant grandson Jae-Hyon, who faints at the sight of a corpse; the lovably lecherous Chul-Gu, who constantly dreams up new schemes to ramp up business (preferably in the form of pretty, female corpses); and Dae-Shik, who hangs around for free meals and plays dead so that the others can practice. It becomes abundantly evident that in a small town where nothing happens, the boredom can make you mad(ly funny). This odd, endearing cast of characters acquaint themselves with death in all its forms: funny, irreverent, tragic and heartbreakingly beautiful. Chang artfully blends light and dark, frivolity and depth, and reveals that death in its promise of silence and peace is a reminder of life and all its nonsense, joy and unpredictability.

Innbo Shim