Green Fish (1997) on Netflix
Discharged from the military, Mak-dong returns to Ilsan, where rice paddies have become apartment towers. In Seoul he follows Mi-ae, a nightclub singer, into the world of gang boss Bae Tae-gon.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.0/102,762 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Mak-dong leaves the army and takes the train home to Ilsan, where a pink scarf blown from the car ahead lands on his face and he ends up in a fight with the men harassing its owner, Mi-ae. The town he returns to has lost its fields and rice paddies to apartment towers. His mother works as a housemaid, his siblings have scattered, and only his mentally disabled eldest brother still lives at home; Mak-dong tells his brother he wants the family together again, with a business of their own. Looking for work in Youngdeungpo, he spots Mi-ae, follows her into the nightclub where she sings, and learns she belongs to gang boss Bae Tae-gon. When thugs force her into a car, Mak-dong intervenes and is beaten. Mi-ae persuades the boss to give him a job at a parking lot.
Cast
- Lee Ho-seongas Mak-dong's 1st-eldest Brother
- Han Seon-gyuas Mak-dong's 2nd-eldest Brother
- Cha Yu-kyeongas 2nd Brother's Wife
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Green Fish (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Although renowned for his writing, director Lee Chang-dong let Han Suk-kyu improvise the film's now-famous extended telephone-booth monologue; the scene was spoofed in director Gyu-seong Jang's 2002 parody Funny Movie and again in the 2007 MBC drama Kimchi Cheese Smile.
- Green Fish was Lee Chang-dong's first feature-length film as director and co-writer, made after he had been known as a novelist and a high school teacher.
- The rival mob boss Kim Yang-gil, played by Myung Gye-nam, was parodied with an extended back-story in the 2006 black comedy The Customer Is Always Right.
- Poet and director Yoo Ha cited the film's pivotal men's-restroom scene as informing the basis of a similar scene in his more stylistically baroque A Dirty Carnival.
