Waikiki Brothers is a 2001 South Korean film, set in the 1980s, about a group of high school friends who form a band. It was the opening film of the 2001 Jeonju International Film Festival.[1]
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Waikiki Brothers | |
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![]() Waikiki Brothers film poster | |
Hangul | 와이키키 브라더스 |
Revised Romanization | Waikiki beuradeoseu |
McCune–Reischauer | Waik‘ik‘i pŭratŏsŭ |
Directed by | Yim Soon-rye |
Written by | Yim Soon-rye |
Produced by | Lee Eun Shin Jae-myung |
Starring | Lee Eol Park Won-sang Hwang Jung-min |
Cinematography | Choi Gi-yeol |
Edited by | Kim Sang-bum |
Music by | Choi Sun-sik |
Release date |
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Running time | 109 minutes |
Country | South Korea |
Language | Korean |
Waikiki Brothers is a band going nowhere. After another depressing gig, the saxophonist quits, leaving the three remaining members - lead singer and guitarist Sung-woo (Lee Eol), keyboardist Jung-seok (Park Won-sang), and drummer Kang-soo (Hwang Jung-min), to continue on the road. The band ends up at Sung-woo's hometown, Suanbo, which was a popular hot spring resort in the '80s. The main resort now is the Waikiki Hotel, and their gig at the hotel nightclub starts well, until Jung-seok and Kang-soo start to play out their worst vices. For Sung-woo, the calm center of the band, the return home is filled with reservations of disappointments and a lost love. He reunites with his old high school friends, the original Waikiki Brothers, and finds them far from happy. He runs into In-hee (Oh Ji-hye), his unrequited first love. Now widowed, she seems desperate to try their relationship again. Sung-woo also runs into his old music teacher, Byung-joo, and tries to help him get work. But the band is fired from the nightclub and Sung-woo is forced to perform in karaoke bars. And, then, tragedy strikes when his high school classmate Soo-chul dies in an accident.
Cine21 film critic Shim Young-seop said, "You can see how much (director) Im feels attached to the world. Though the characters are deceived by reality, they cannot hate the world; they still love it. Small-budgeted but artistic films such as Waikiki Brothers, films that depict modern ordinary Koreans as they truly are, those are the best movies and the most authentically Korean."[2][3][4]
In 2004, it inspired a musical titled Go! Waikiki Brothers starring North Korean defector Kim Young-un,[5] which also performed in Los Angeles in 2006.[6]
Films directed by Yim Soon-rye | |
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Baeksang Arts Award for Best Film | |
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