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A Well-Wrinkled Romance
By Donald Macintyre, Time
Asia
November 25, 2002
Park
Chu Gyu and Lee Sun Ye in 'Too Young To Die'
Even by the racy standards of South Korea's red-hot
movie industry, one of the many bedroom scenes in Too Young to
Die was a tad risqué. A woman fondles a man and bends over him,
initiating oral sex. After banning the movie, Korea's censors
relented last month on the condition director Park Jin Pyo obscure
the scene by digitally turning down the lights. It wasn't the act
that scandalized Koreans, it was the actors. The stars of the movie
are in their 70s, and in conservative Korea, nobody was ready to
witness granny and grandpa having a romp. Koreans typically shunt
the elderly aside instead of treating them like real people with
real passions, says Park. But he insists he isn't on a crusade. The
director met the couple, Park Chu Gyu and Lee Sun Ye, while shooting
a documentary film on the elderly. After losing their spouses, the
couple had met by chance and became lovers. Touched by their story,
director Park decided to turn it into a movie. And most of the time,
he just let the cameras roll.
(He left the room during the sex
scenes.) "I just wanted to express the passionate love this
couple found right at the end of their lives," says Park.
"It is just a story about a man and a woman." Romance
never gets old. Nor does prudery.
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