Tiger Spirit
December 23rd, 2008 by Gilbert Seah
A reunification road trip through the two Koreas
World Broadcast Premiere on History Television
Monday, January 26, 2009 – 8:00pm (est/pst)
It’s fitting that Tiger Spirit the acclaimed feature length documentary by award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee ( Hogtown: The Politics of Policing) will have its World Broadcast Premiere on History Television on Monday, January 26, 2009 – the first day of the lunar Korean calendar which is the most important of the traditional Korean holidays.
In Tiger Spirit filmmaker Min Sook Lee asks: “If North and South Korea did reunite – what would that look like?” Shot in South and North Korea, Tiger Spirit introduces two worlds split apart by one border but bound together by a sea of blood, family and memories.
Korea is a divided nation. The psychic scar shared by families divided during the Korean War in the 1950’s is symbolized by the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing communist North from capitalist South. Along this infamous border, filmmaker Min Sook Lee begins a revelatory, emotionally-charged journey into Korea’s broken heart, exploring the rhetoric and realism of reunification through the extraordinary stories of ordinary people.
Lee joins one man’s quest to prove the tiger, a symbol of resilience in Korean mythology, still lives in the DMZ. But Lee delves deeper than symbols, asking the crucial questions – how will the two Korea’s reunite?
In the South, we meet elderly Koreans waiting for news of family members they haven’t seen in over 50 years as well as young defectors haunted by memories of their recent escape. In the North, we visit an inter-Korean economic project and gain unprecedented access to a state-sanctioned family reunion.
An eloquent tale of longing and hope, Tiger Spirit is an unforgettable portrait of Korea at a crossroads
Tiger Spirit is written and directed by Min Sook Lee, who also served as producer along with Ed Barreveld of Storyline Entertainment and Anita Lee from the NFB. Directors of photography included Stan Barua, Mark Ellam and Michael Grippo while Ricardo Acosta served as editor.
Min Sook Lee is a writer, broadcaster and an award-winning documentary director/producer. In 2006 she released the short docu-poem Borderless, a film about undocumented workers in Canada, which has screened internationally at festivals in Asia and North America. Her feature documentary, Hogtown: The Politics of Policing was awarded for Best Feature-length Canadian Documentary at the 2005 Hot Docs festival. Lee’s first feature El Contrato, was nominated for a Gemini award for Best Social/Political documentary in 2005. In 2009 Min Sook will release the doc Badge of Pride, the story of queer cops in Canada.
Running time: 71 minutes
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