The Butterfly

The Butterfly (2001)

나비

In a near future Korea, where an "oblivion virus" which causes memory loss has become the centre of a tourist industry aimed at those who wish to forget the past, Anna Kim, a German woman of Korean descent, seeks the virus in order to erase painful memories and, along the way, develops a close bond with her driver and her teenage guide.

Date of release
2001-10-13
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (11)
Runtime
1h 52m
Genres
Science Fiction
Director
Moon Seung-wook

Casting

Interesting facts

Nabi is a 2001 South Korean science fiction film. Directed by Moon Seung-wook, Nabi was shot on digital video and transferred onto 35mm film, filmed on a low budget of $380,000. It marked the feature film debut of Kang Hye-jung, who won Best Actress at the 5th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival for her role as Yuki. Nabi also starred Kim Ho-jung, who won the Bronze Leopard for Best Actress at the 54th Locarno International Film Festival.

Production, style and themes

Produced on a budget of $380,000, Nabi was shot on digital video and later transferred to 35mm film. Filming took place on location in Busan, South Korea, as well as Kobe and Osaka, Japan.

Director Moon Seung-wook received his filmmaking education in Poland at the National Film School in Łódź, and Offscreen critic Peter Rist detected in Nabi traces of that country's tradition of romantic-pessimism, while Koreanfilm.org found the film's "clear Eastern European visual pattern" to be reminiscant of Tarkovsky and Kieślowski, the latter a former teacher of Moon's.

The premise of Nabi has been compared to Song Il-gon's Flower Island, another South Korean film released in 2001. Both films feature three central characters, each with differing goals but sharing an emotional pain that allows them to develop a strong bond, and both films use a plot device—Nabi's "oblivion virus" and the magical Flower Island—promising take away painful memories.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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