„Breathless“ or by its original title „Ddongpari“ (meaning: shit fly) is a jewel of Korean independent cinema. It's the first and so far only feature length movie directed by Yang Ik-june, who is an acclaimed actor in Korea. This social drama has a simplicity and rawness in it, that touches the audience irreversibly.
Yang Ik-june plays masterly the male protagonist in the story. Sang-hoo is an easily irascible debt collector, lonely and visibly emerging from a difficult family background. He encounters a young girl (Kim Kkobi) that has a not particularly better life as him, but finds a way to escape it by daydreaming. The odd couple grow more and more close, so that Sang-hoo's regains back what comes close to a meaning in life. Unfortunately, it will last only for a blink of an eye.
Yang not only invested all of his emotions in the film, but apparently also a lot on a financial level. The film gives a voice to all victims of abuse, without using a moral tone. He manages with a script, that contains only very few explicit dialogues, to create characters that go inevitably under your skin. In an elegant way Yang introduces fine humour in this altogether tragic impressionistic portrait of a very special friendship.
„Breathless“ contains personal, autobiographical elements of the director. This is probably one of the reasons, why this so versatile actor, with a great sensitivity, has not yet presented a new directorial work. But hopefully he will do so, then besides the impressive topic of the film, „Breathless“ is also on a formal level, with its density of motifs, a precise framing, a proficient editing and dynamic pace clearly a masterpiece.
