After The War shows the disillusionment of a young soldier, Savannah, returned from fighting the Khmer Rouge. He finds civvy street in Phnom Penh riddled with vice, corruption and black marketeering. When he falls in love with a prostitute and tries to live a normal life with her, the system defeats him and he is forced to take to crime himself. For Panh, financing the film was probably easier than shooting on location in Cambodia, yet the film is slick, polished and pushes all the right dramatic buttons. The quota system protecting SouthKorean productions from Hollywood is under threat, but the economic crisis seems to have helped the country's film industry.
Distributors have less money for foreign imports, allowing local fare room to breathe.
This year's stand-outs were The Power of Kangwon Province and Christmas in August, a quiet, graceful, drama about Jung Won, a young photographer with a terminal illness. Jung Won is resigned to his fate. Then the unexpected happens - he falls in love. Instead of dealing in anger and pain, the director gently shows Jung Won supping low-key joy from his last days. The Power begins with two city dwellers taking separate walking holidays through the mountains.