Park Chan Wook’s New Film Was Shot On An iPhone

Park Chan Wook has shot a 30 minute short film completely on the iPhone 4. But this isn’t some exercise in avant garde styling - it’s actually an advertisement for South Korea’s exclusive distributor of iPhones.

Still, it sounds like an actual short, not like  a big old commercial. It seems that the commercial is just the fact that a director on the level of Park has used Apple’s little smartphone to direct what is, by all accounts, a pretty good film.

Here’s what the Wall Street Journal has to say about the film, called Paranmanjang:

The short is a fantastical tale that begins with a middle-aged man fishing one afternoon and then, hours later at night, catches the body of a woman. The panicked man tries to undo the intertwined fishing line, but he gets more and more entangled. He faints, then wakes up to find himself in the white clothes that the woman was wearing. The movie’s point of view then shifts to the woman and it becomes a tale of life and death from a traditional Korean point of view.

The quality of the cinematography is quite good, except for a little shakiness in the beginning. And the fact that the screen is coarse works to the film’s advantage, especially on the night scenes given its life-and-death theme.

Paranmanjang will play in nine theaters in South Korea; I’m hoping it ends up on the internet at some point. Even Park Chan Wook’s low points (I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK I’m looking right at you) have more than enough greatness to be recommended. I’m sure even a short he shot as a commercial is filled with excellence.