Blue Chong

Yang Tesong is a wilful kid at Korean immigrant’s high school and with his closest pals is one of the keenest members of the baseball team. One summer, he is forced into greater awareness of his identity as a Korean third generation immigrant. He finds himself about to be set up by his mother with a nice Korean immigrant girl (instead of the Japanese girl he fancies) and, even more of a crisis, facing a competitive ‘friendly’ with a Japanese high school baseball team. In this brave and promising début, young director Lee Sang-il describes in a charming, skilfully told and involving way the situation of a young man caught between two national identities, in a country where the situation of Korean immigrants was always swept under the carpet. (S.F.)