听 During this year's Oscars, host Steve Martin remarked on the recent plethora of artist biopics and joked that he would shortly be starring in "The Sherwin-Williams Story". The gag may have sailed over the heads of British viewers (Sherwin-Williams make paint brushes), but one can't help thinking it would still have proved more entertaining than this tortuous chronicle of 19th century Korean painter Jang Seung-up's life and times.
Also known as "Strokes Of Fire", "Chi-hwa-seon" opens at the peak of Jang's fame before backtracking to his early days as an orphan and artist's apprentice.
Using broad brushstrokes, director IM Kwon-taek shows Jang - later given the pen-name "Oh-won" - to be as prodigiously gifted as he was sensually profligate. Jang's divided nature is mirrored by that of Korea itself, at the mercy of revolt from within, and invasion from the outside.
Charismatically played by the burly Choi Min-sik, Jang emerges as a larger-than-life hellraiser who uses alcohol and sex as inspiration, displaying a cavalier disregard for his talent. (Short on wood during winter, he uses his discarded artwork to keep the fire going.)
Crucially, the director divests him of his posthumously-bestowed divine status, revealing him to be a very human being, battling demons that (the film claims) led him to take his own life in 1897 in a bizarre act of self-immolation.
The problem is, painting isn't a spectator sport, as the interminable scenes of Jang at work continually confirm. Stunning visuals aside, "Chi-hwa-seon" ultimately proves as impenetrable as its title.
In Korean with English subtitles.
This is probably the best Korean film going.
