Kick the Moon A Petal

November's New Korean Cinema series begins with the Kim Sang-Jin's kinetic hit Kick the Moon and Jang Sun-Woo's moving, metaphorical A Petal. One of the highest-grossing Korean films ever, Kim Sang-Jin's Kick the Moon is a raucously cartoonish immersion into the world of rival high school gangs, with teen rock concerts alternating with astonishingly staged rumbles. Posing a fine line between teachers and gangsters, the film underscores the aggressively competitive nature of urban Korean society. (2001; 119 mins.)

According to Time Out, Jang Sun-Woo's A Petal "sets a new benchmark for the serious treatment of politics and sex in Korean cinema." Focusing on a desperate girl wandering the countryside in search of her brother, Jang Sun-Woo's A Petal is set against the context of 1980's Kwangju Massacre--a national trauma whose cultural impact in Korea resonates with that of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China. (1996; 101 mins.)