The specifically Korean tradition that is reclaimed in Sopyonje is the type of folk-song known as pansori, described as a musical sublimation of South-West Korea's collective grief and suffering - in other words, a kind of blues. The film's three central characters are itinerant pansori singers in the 1950s, a time when many aspects of Korean culture came under siege from Japanese and western influences. The story unfolds through flashbacks. A man named Dong-ho is roaming the rural hinterlands, ostensibly to find rare herbal medicines for his employer back in Seoul, but actually in search of Song-hwa, the woman he grew up with. Orphans, they were both apprenticed to the pansori master Yu-bong who pressured them to sacrifice everything for the art. Dong-ho rebelled and ran away, to become the man he is now. Song-hwa stayed, lost her sight, and outlived Yu-bong. Rumor has it that she is still traveling and still singing pansori... The tale has one truly shocking twist, but the overall one is plaintive, elegiac and serenely beautiful. - IMDb
La cantante de Pansori | Spain |
La chanteuse de pansori | France |
Kaze no oka wo koete | Japan |
De Pansori zangeres (informal literal title) | Netherlands |
Seopyeonje | South Korea |
Seopyeonje - Pansorisångerskan | Sweden |
Sopyonje | USA |
Sopyonje (alternative transliteration) | Korea |
Sopyonje - Die blinde Sängerin | West Germany |
Sopyonje - Panszori-énekesek | Hungary |
Sopyonje: A Cantora Cega | Brazil |
Сопендже | Russia |
悲歌一曲 | China |
風の丘を越えて 西便制 | Japan |