Sumi Jo, Rising Stars Tour Korea

I got to hear her so close-up! She is "yeoksi" very glamorous, and knows how to play the press and pose for the camera.

Soprano Sumi Jo and rising opera stars sing during a press showcase in Seoul for the concert series ``Sumi Jo & Winners,’’ Thursday. From left, Suh Jung-hak, Son Ji-hye, Kang Hyung-kyu and Sumi Jo. /Korea Times photo

Prime coloratura soprano Sumi Jo has returned to her homeland to helm the next generation of Korean opera stars in the cross-country concert tour ``Sumi Jo & Winners,’’ from Busan to Seoul through Jan. 3, 2008.

``I’ve been looking forward to this since my world tour last year (celebrating 20 years since my international debut),’’ said the 45-year-old diva during a press meeting in Seoul, Thursday. ``These young artists are joining me on my longtime journey. We need to establish a support system for musicians, especially given that we put Korea’s reputation on the line.

``There are so many young artists leading active careers abroad. They have such bright futures and need to be taken notice of,’’ said Jo. ``I wanted to support them and sing less than I was scheduled to, but that was apparently a problem with selling tickets,’’ she added with a laugh.

Joining the prima donna onstage are award-winning singers who are playing principal roles in the international music scene: soprano Son Ji-hye, mezzo soprano Lee A-kyeong, tenors Lee Jeong-won and Chung Ho-yoon, and baritones Kang Hyung-kyu and Na Myung-won.

``There is a lot of striking Korean talent in Europe, and I often hear people say that Sumi Jo is the best,’’ said Kang Hyung-kyu, who has been leading an active career in Italy for 10 years now. ``I believe we were given such opportunities because (Jo) paved the path for us,’’ he said. Lee Jeong-won, for example, is the first Korean tenor to debut at the famed Italian La Scala Theater.

Jo herself was a discovery of German maestro Herbert von Karajan, who said she possesses a ``voice from the heavens’’ that appears every once in a 100 years or so. Jo also announced her five-year contract with Universal Music Korea, which she said is like ``returning home in 20 years.’’ Jo had recorded ``Un Ballo in Maschera’’ with Karajan in 1988 (Decca) as well as ``Carnival.’’ A crossover album of international folk songs is slated for release next December.

The opera gala concert showcases well-known arias from the standard operatic repertoire, including Rossini’s ``Il Barbiere di Siviglia,’’ Bizet’s ``Carmen,’’ Verdi’s ``Rigoletto’’ and ``La Traviata’’ and Puccini’s ``Turandot.’’ ``Even those unfamiliar with classical music or operas will be able to enjoy it,’’ said Jo.

The remaining schedule is as follows. Dec. 24: Daegu Suseong Artpia (www.ssartpia.or.kr); Dec. 27: Seongnam Arts Center (www.snart.or.kr); Dec. 29: Suwon Gyeonggi Arts Center (www.ggac.or.kr); Dec. 30: Busan Cultural Center (bsculture.busan.kr); Dec. 31: Goyang Aram Nuri Arts Complex (www.artgy.or.kr); Jan. 3, 2008: Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Seoul (www.sejongpac.or.kr).
Tickets cost from 70,000 won to 150,000 won. For reservations, visit www.ticketlink.co.kr or www.interpark.com. For more information about the concert, call (02) 3461-0976.

`My Love’ Is Loathsomely Sweet

"My Love" (내사랑; Naesarang)
Directed by Lee Han (이한)
Starring Choi Kang-hee(최강희), Karm Woo-sung (감우성), Lee Yeon-hee (이연희)

``My Love’’ (working title) is a montage film by Lee Han that weaves together four different love stories like the popular romantic comedy ``Love Actually.’’ If the British flick is like a mosaic of thoughts on love, this homegrown family drama is more like a hand-knit scarf _ fuzzy, warm and a bit tickly. While it does cater to the mood of the year-end season, the sweet factor is overwhelming and artificial like a Krispy Kreme donut, and its heavy glaze is only for those with a big sweet tooth.

Set during summertime, ``My Love’’ brings together characters from different parts of Seoul in time for a solar eclipse. Ju-won (Choi Kang-hee) is an eccentric _ and slightly sadistic _ artist who takes pleasure in teasing her subway engineer boyfriend Se-jin (Karm Woo-sung): At one point, a wardrobe malfunction has poor Se-jin standing, boxers-exposed, while giving Ju-won a piggyback in the subway. A few years later, Ju-won has left him, but he discovers that traces of their love remain.

For college student So-hyeon (Lee Yeon-hee), it was love at first sight when she meets Ji-wu (Jeong Il-wu). A rather embarrassing incident at a party enables So-hyeon to finally converse with Ji-wu, and she jumps at the opportunity to ask him to help build her alcohol tolerance. Meanwhile, Ji-wu, who had taken a semester off from school to nurse a broken heart, is slightly baffled by the new blooming romance with So-hyeon.

Hippie-like activist Jin-man (Uhm Tae-woong) finally returns home after six years of traveling around the world to give free hugs to strangers (he basically stands around with a sign that reads ``free hugs’’). He tries to trace back his former girlfriend _ ``the second half of my incomplete heart’’ _ and the only way he can reach her is to retrieve his old cell phone number. The new user of his old number is Su-jeong (Im Jung-eun), a hotshot worker at an advertisement firm.

Although Su-jeong has an excellent career, things aren’t going so well in the love department. She is constantly being rejected by Jeong-seok (Ryu Seung-ryong), a gifted copywriter and single father suffering from the loss of his beloved wife. She learns to persist as she tries to pave a way into the heart of Jeong-seok and his young son.

``My Love’’ does offer some genuinely endearing characters and stories. The subway lovebirds _ Ju-won and Se-jin _ picnic on the train, play hide-and-seek and demonstrate every possible way to spend an entire day and night on line 2 via Seongnae station (although there are parts that should read ``do not imitate’’). Newcomer Lee Yeon-hee, who debuted opposite Gang Dong-won in ``M,’’ gives a charming performance that strikes a comparison to Jun Ji-hyun in ``My Sassy Girl.’’

``Love Actually’’ became an international hit because it pieced together heartwarming tales in a natural way. It justifies its use of the montage genre by demonstrating six degrees of separation, how we are all connected one way or the other. Characters crisscross one another’s lives in a way that is crafty but not too contrived, and the film made a spot for itself as an ultimate Christmas classic.

``My Love,’’ on the other hand, seems more like a collection of those sentimental anecdotes and quotes you find in feel-good mass e-mails. Ji-wu, for example, desperately misses his ex-girlfriend and has a message on his cell-phone that reads ``you’re tattooed onto my heart and I can’t erase you.’’ Another cheesy attempt to tug at the viewer’s heartstring is when he asks So-hyeon some important questions _ but viewers can be distracted by their own question as to why he calls her on the cell phone when she’s standing right next to him in the first place.

Paik Kun-woo's Beethoven Sontata Marathon: Intoxication With Musical Poetry

Paik Kun-woo, 61, is one greedy man. The celebrated pianist has embarked on a historical marathon concert, playing all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in just seven days.

With Paik’s commanding presence and impeccable style, just one of these concerts would be enough to keep you entranced for days. Packing eight of these in a week seems, at first, a sort of injustice to the serious listener, who has to erase the deep imprint of one performance for the next.

``If I take breaks in between I’ll have to return to reality, and I don’t want to,’’ Paik had explained. The daily recital is indeed difficult to digest, but it leaves you in a state of intoxication -- what better way to become completely drunk with Beethoven’s music?

Some 600 fans here had formed the Beethoven Club a year ago to support the serial recital. The special package enabling audiences to attend all of the performances at half the price was sold out months before the concert.

Paik’s rendition of Beethoven is pure, with no frills. It is thus far from comforting to hear, to be sure. Even ``Moonlight’’ on Tuesday was chilling in all its beauty. But Monday’s concert featuring piano sonatas Nos. 16, 17, 22 and 23 was an especially frightening experience.

Beethoven is said to have remarked ``Just read Shakespeare’s `The Tempest,’’ when asked about sonata No. 17, dubbed ``The Tempest,’’ as well as No. 23, ``Appassionata.’’ In the play, the heroine Miranda responds to her father’s incredible story by saying ``Your tale, sir, would cure deafness’’ -- indeed Paik, while capturing the urgency of the deaf composer’s vision, paints music that would speak even to the hearing impaired.

His rendition of ``The Tempest’’ was storm defined, encompassing both the violent, eradicative effect of an angry Mother Nature and the lovely sunshine after the rain. The volatile character of the first movement of the piece was clearly defined by Paik’s alternation of inquisitive largo and ominous allegro.

``Appassionata,’’ on the other hand, was unlike any other performance. Paik is a poet who paints with the piano keys. As T.S. Eliot said, ``poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion,’’ and Paik’s musical poetry, assuming a life of its own, completely spellbound the audience for the full 23 minutes. The recital hall, fully packed on a weekday night with even the chorus seats open to the public, fell utterly silent, without a random cough or shuffle in the crowd.

The third movement, with its melodic fragments and canons crashing down, was passionate, despairing and absolutely breathtaking -- ``I thought my heart was going to explode,’’ muttered one audience, clutching her chest.

With the last notes, ``Appassionata’’ left you in a state of awe that made it seem more appropriate to keep the hands together, palm to palm, in a moment of prayer rather than perform the mundane act of clapping. An explosive standing ovation followed a few seconds later.

The drizzling rain that night was a blessing, enabling you to calm down the beating heart and cool down the heated senses -- to sober up from the intoxicating experience.

The series continues at Seoul Arts Center, with sonatas Nos. 27-29 tonight at 8 p.m. and Nos. 30-32 Friday. Tickets cost 20,000-50,000 won. For reservations, call 1577-5266 or visit www.interpark.com, www.ticketlink.com.

`Venus and Mars’ Defies Expectation

"Venuse and Mars" (싸움; Ssaum)
Directed by Han Ji-seung (한지승)
Starring Kim Tae-hee (김태희), Sul Kyoung-gu (설경구)

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon that refers to the discomfort felt when what you already know clashes with a new interpretation. ``Venus and Mars'' feeds off this idea from beginning to end, as director Han Ji-seung (``A Day,'' 2001) ironically defines love through the art of warfare, using a mix of genres dubbed ``hardboiled'' romantic comedy.

Called a romance guru for his hit TV series ``Alone in Love'' (Yeonaesidae, 2006, SBS), the director makes a comeback on the silver screen where he traces a highly volatile emotional ― and physical ― tug of war between a divorced couple. But ``Venus'' becomes a rather confounding audiovisual experience as he forcefully packs heavy melodrama and surreal, comic elements.

``Venus'' is crafted in the style of ``The War of the Roses'' (1989) crossed with ``Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (2005) ― and a touch of ``Kill Bill'' (2003). A minor quarrel spins out of control, and you've got cars crashing and burning, wrestling in a pile of ostrich dung and police intervention. It becomes too difficult to lightheartedly laugh at the funny parts, while the dramatic moments capturing the subtle emotional tension between a divorced couple are rather stilted.

The film made headlines as it cast an unlikely pair to play improbable roles: actress Kim Tae-hee eradicates her frail, angelic image to play as a woman with serious anger management issues, while the older and charismatic Sul Kyoung-gu, known for playing tough anti-heros in films such as ``Peppermint Candy'' (2000), turns into a super-sensitive guy.

Hot-blooded glass artist Jin-a (Kim) and faint-hearted, cleanliness-obsessed entomologist Sang-min (Sul) have absolutely nothing in common. But opposites attract, and the two tie the knot after a string of ultra dramatic break-ups and make-ups. The two end up splitting, however, when a bug-in-the-glass-jar incident demonstrates their irreconcilable differences.


But just when they think they've been liberated from the past, repressed emotions ― and high kicks ― take full pendulum swing over nothing. Sang-min had split every single item in half, including his cherished clock after their divorce. On a mission to recover the missing pendulum from Jin-a, he inadvertently triggers his hot-tempered ex-wife, who gives him an ultimatum.

Seeing a spineless, obsessive-compulsive Sul is bound to create more cognitive dissonance in viewers than Kim's high kicks. Sul's bona fide acting suggests he's born for the role. The film features some delightful details, such as when Sang-min is bathing his pet bug Wu-kyung or scraping off miniscule bits of dried toothpaste in the bathroom, or when he is about to run away from his ex-wife in a movie theater and happens to stand against the emergency exit instructions.

Unfortunately, such wit does not translate into the overall quality of the film. It makes some pathetic attempts to squeeze out laughter by resorting to extremes, rather grotesquely. Sul's obsession with order and cleanliness is funny at first but becomes freaky ― you begin to think this guy needs some serious treatment, as does his friend, an agricultural studies professor who's infatuated with his cow. Jin-a, on the other hand, remains a rather undeveloped character that borders on hysterical, while her divorced friend, bloodthirsty for revenge against the all the ex-husbands in the world, defines hysteria.

The director deserves credit for not settling with something safe. But it's unfortunate that ``Venus'' feels more like a bits and pieces of a romance movie, animation and hardboiled action film messily slapped together. It's fun when films experiment, but ``Venus'' throws the viewer into a state of cognitive dissonance that makes it hard to digest.