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Bookmark this pageResurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002)
Director: Jang Sun-Woo
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Jang's splendid folly uses the form and digital effects of a mainstream blockbuster to explore two besetting questions: (1) Can you live in a tropical paradise on someone else's money? (2) Can the ego be transcended by chasing the yellow butterfly of Taoism? Ju (Kim Hyun-Sung, admirably ordinary) delivers Chinese food for the Great Wall Restaurant and dreams of becoming a champion gamer. He enters the virtual reality game of the title (the object is to save Hans Christian Andersen's forlorn heroine from assorted predators so that she can safely freeze to death), but very quickly loses his identity and his ammo. And the Match Girl (now selling cheap lighters) suddenly starts taking her defence into her own hands. Despite fabulous casting (famous Chinese transsexual Jin Xing as the lesbian game player Lara) and spectacular stunts, it doesn't really work as a genre movie - which is no doubt why it lost money on Korean release. But as a Jang Sun-Woo auteur piece it's up there with Hwa-om-kyung: a philosophical fun-ride with thrills, spills and a serenely materialistic happy ending.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Jang Sun-Woo
Producer: Kim Seung-Bom, Yoo In-Taek, Lee Kang-Bok, Huh Chang-Kyung
Cast: Yim Eun-Kyung, Kim Hyun-Sung, Kim Jin-Pyo, Jin Xing, Myung Kay-Nam, Pierre Rissient full cast
Genre(s): Fantasy
Duration: 124 mins
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