Hong Sang-soo Nabs Best Director Award at Locarno for 'Our Sunhi'

                                                                   Hong Sang-soo

Hong Sang-soo's film "Our Sunhi" picked up the Leopard Award for Best Director at the 66th Locarno International Film Festival, which ended in Switzerland on Sunday. It is the first time that a Korean director has won the prestigious award.
"Our Sunhi" was the only Korean entry to feature competitively at the film festival this year. After its official screening, it was praised as one of the most beautiful movies in the entire lineup. 

This is the second time Hong has collected a gong at an international film festival in three years. His movie "Hahaha" garnered the top prize in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes in 2010.

Locarno, launched in 1946, is regarded as one of the most prestigious film festivals, just slightly lower in profile than Cannes, Berlin and Venice.

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• Genres: Drama and Disaster
• Running Time: 121 min.
• Directed by: Kim Sung-soo
• Starring: Jang Hyuk, Su-ae, Yu Hae-jin

A man is infected with an unknown virus and dies in a hospital in a small city. In less than 24 hours since the death of the first patient, more similar cases are reported all over the city. Fatalities rise rapidly even before the government can react properly to the virus. The airborne virus turns the city in utter chaos and as a desperate measure the government shuts the city down to prevent further outbreaks that could spread to rest of the country and the world. 

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Prostitution, Drug Abuse Spread in N.Korea

Dire economic straits compounded by a weakening regime have led to an increase in prostitution, drug abuse and human trafficking in North Korea. 

The regime blames the negative influence of capitalism and is cracking down hard on offenders. Intelligence officials here say these problems are spreading especially in parts of the North close to the Chinese border. 

In the past, prostitution in North Korea existed primarily near military barracks or train stations, but a growing number of young women in all parts of the country are turning to prostitution to earn a living or make money to buy cosmetics, mobile phones or cover their wedding costs. 

According to one source, prostitution rings began to crop up in the mid-2000s, and now even university students are turning to prostitution. Their clients are often high-ranking officials. Sexual promiscuity is generally on the rise. According to sources, condoms were the best-selling product in a large open-air market in Hyesan, Ryanggang Province bordering China last year. 

A physical exam for the military draft of 16-year-olds years in Chongjin showed that more than 60 percent of the girls had had sexual experiences, said a North Korean defector who used to be a ranking official in the Workers Party. Virginity is a prerequisite for the song-and-dance troupes who entertain the North Korean dictator, and the defector said officials had a hard time finding any virgins. There are also accounts of an increase in sexually transmitted diseases in some parts of North Korea. 

This screen grab from Asahi TV shows a North Korean smoking a narcotic substance. 

Drug dealing began to spread throughout North Korea in the 2000s. There are drug factories in the Sunan district of Pyongyang and Munchon, Kangwon Province whose illicit products are strictly for sale overseas to generate dollar revenues for the regime. 
But now ordinary people also put their hands to drug production and dealing. "The whole of North Korean society is being affected by illegal drugs," said another defector. "Some wealthy people use them to lose their weight and other people take them to treat colds and fatigue.

They are considered wonder cures in North Korea." Sources say more than 30 percent of athletes tested positive for drug use in a doping test for a sporting event in 2012 to mark late leader Kim Jong-il's birthday on Feb. 16. 

During the harsh famine in the mid to late 1990s, human traffickers lured hungry women with food and sold them to pimps in China. However, since 2000, North Korean women voluntarily cross the border into China apparently knowing the dangers that await them. 

englishnews@chosun.com

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[Quick view] Myeongdong, Seoul, Korea

What do you see?

                                 Photo: KYODO/REUTERS

North Koreans are fighting for poverty, malnutrition and famine, and gross human rights violations, including forced labor camps, public executions, and political repression...

But see the statue, the amount of those statues are unbelievably huge!!!

Curses, come home to roost

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