{ "id": "ep7p7e259j", "slug": "peppermint-candy", "title": "Peppermint Candy (박하사탕)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": 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biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s", "label": "Drama films 1990s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Peppermint Candy (박하사탕, Bakha satang) is Lee Chang-dong's 1999 South Korean drama, released January 1, 2000, telling factory worker Kim Yong-ho's 1979–1999 life in reverse through seven episodes tied to the Gwangju massacre, 1987 torture, and 1997 crisis.", "snippet": "Peppermint Candy (박하사탕, Bakha satang) is Lee Chang-dong's 1999 South Korean drama, released January 1, 2000, telling factory worker Kim Yong-ho's 1979–1999 life in reverse through seven episodes tied to the Gwangju massacre, 1987 torture, and 1997 crisis.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-1990s.drama-films-late-1990s.yr-1999", "markdown": "# Peppermint Candy (박하사탕)\n\n**Peppermint Candy** (박하사탕; also romanized *Bakha satang*) is a 1999 South Korean drama film written and directed by [Lee Chang-dong](https://www.edgepedia.org/lee-chang-dong), his second feature after *[Green Fish](https://www.edgepedia.org/green-fish)* (1997). It stars Sul Kyung-gu, Moon So-ri, and Kim Yeo-jin, and was released in South Korea on January 1, 2000.[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050) The film tells the story of [Kim Yong](https://www.edgepedia.org/kim-yong)-ho, a factory worker who becomes a soldier, a police torturer, and a ruined businessman, in seven episodes arranged in reverse chronological order across the twenty years from 1979 to 1999.[2](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_008270) • [3](https://search.worldcat.org/title/Peppermint-candy/oclc/871032928)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director and writer | Lee Chang-dong, his second feature after *Green Fish* (1997)[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050) |\n| Cast | Sul Kyung-gu, Moon So-ri, Kim Yeo-jin[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050) |\n| Release | January 1, 2000, South Korea; rated 18+ (청소년관람불가)[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050) |\n| Running time | 129 minutes (the Busan festival program lists 135 min)[4](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_004911) • [5](https://www.biff.kr/kor/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=801&pyear=1999&s1=133) |\n| Structure | Seven episodes in reverse chronology, 1999 back to 1979[2](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_008270) |\n| Production | East Film; a South Korea–Japan co-production (MUBI lists South Korea, Japan)[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050) • [6](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/peppermint-candy) |\n| Restoration | 4K remastering in 2018 by the Korean Film Archive and the Korean Film Producers Association[2](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_008270) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot and structure\n\nThe film opens in the spring of 1999 at a reunion picnic of former workers of the Garibong-dong industrial complex, held at the same lakeside spot where the group, the Bong-woo Club, had gathered twenty years earlier. Kim Yong-ho, a distraught forty-year-old in a business suit, stumbles into the picnic, behaves erratically, climbs onto the nearby railroad tracks, and stands before an oncoming train shouting \"I am going back.\"[3](https://search.worldcat.org/title/Peppermint-candy/oclc/871032928) • [7](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/view/news.jsp?category=IN_FOCUS&seq=265) From that moment the film moves backward in time, with a reverse train shot linking each episode to the next.[7](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/view/news.jsp?category=IN_FOCUS&seq=265)\n\nThe seven chapters, as summarized by the Korean Film Archive, run: the picnic (spring 1999); three days earlier, when the bankrupt, divorced Yong-ho is about to kill himself and receives a camera returned by the dying Sun-im, his first love; the summer of 1994, when the prosperous businessman meets Park Myung-shik, a man he once tortured, and hears the words \"life is beautiful\"; the spring of 1987, when, as a detective, he tortures Park Myung-shik during the student demonstrations for democratic reform; the fall of 1984, when the new recruit, tormented by his first assignment of torture, turns away Sun-im when she comes to confess her love and give him a camera; May 1980, when his unit is deployed to suppress the Gwangju uprising and he accidentally shoots and kills a girl who resembles Sun-im; and the fall of 1979, when, at the workers' picnic, he tells Sun-im he wants to photograph her and she gives him a peppermint candy.[4](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_004911) • [2](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_008270)\n\nThe candy of the title is the object that carries the memory of that final episode. The Busan festival program describes the film as following the peppermint scent backward through time, the way Proust followed the taste of a madeleine, and notes that at the end of the reversed journey lies the beautiful period when Yong-ho and Sun-im exchanged peppermint candies.[5](https://www.biff.kr/kor/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=801&pyear=1999&s1=133)\n\n## Historical setting\n\nYong-ho's private collapse is mapped onto twenty years of South Korean history. The episodes touch the 1980 Gwangju massacre, in which Yong-ho takes part as a conscripted paratrooper; the torture of a student activist by the security police in 1987; and the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which ruins his business.[3](https://search.worldcat.org/title/Peppermint-candy/oclc/871032928) • [8](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/456086/1/Thesis_Jia_Kang_28618939_.pdf) The Busan program note states that although the film appears to deal with one man's personal life, viewers experience through him the broken twenty years of Korean history, and that his transformations into a violent soldier, an interrogator of dissidents, and a failed stock-market businessman are a self-portrait of Korean society.[5](https://www.biff.kr/kor/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=801&pyear=1999&s1=133)\n\nScholarship on the film has read it as a record of historical trauma centered on Gwangju. A 2019 study in *Korean Journal of Arts Criticism* argues that Yong-ho, selected as a suppression soldier at Gwangju and transformed by accidentally killing a girl there, becomes a being marked by trauma whose guilt leads to self-punishment, the abandonment of Sun-im, and finally suicide; his life stands for all those sacrificed to historical and social violence.[9](https://kiss.kstudy.com/Detail/Ar?key=3691276) A study in the *Korea Journal* places the film among works about the Gwangju massacre and notes that it was released on [New Year's Day](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-day) 2000, when South Korea was caught between anxiety and hope for the new millennium, and that its final sequence, the peaceful 1979 picnic, romanticizes the time before the massacre while presenting Gwangju as the original injury producing all the losses.[10](https://oak.go.kr/central/journallist/journaldetail.do?article_seq=25151)\n\n## Production and release\n\nLee Chang-dong came to film from literature: born in Daegu in 1954, he worked as a teacher and published novels before writing screenplays, including for Park Kwang-su, and directing *Green Fish* (1997) with the production company East Film.[5](https://www.biff.kr/kor/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=801&pyear=1999&s1=133) • [11](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/peopleView.jsp?peopleCd=10057659) *Peppermint Candy* was produced by East Film and presented with Japanese participation; one film-history study identifies it as the first Korean-Japanese co-production after the long ban on Japanese involvement in Korean production.[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050) • [8](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/456086/1/Thesis_Jia_Kang_28618939_.pdf) The crew included cinematographer Kim Hyung-gu, lighting director Lee Kang-san, art director and editor Park Il-hyun, and music director Lee Jae-jin.[12](https://filmmovement.com/userFiles/uploads/films/peppermint-candy/PeppermintCandy_PK_FC.pdf)\n\nIn the fall of 1999 the 4th Busan International Film Festival gave its opening slot to the film.[7](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/view/news.jsp?category=IN_FOCUS&seq=265) It was an official selection of the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes and won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.[13](https://filmmovement.com/educational/film/peppermint-candy) In Korea, Sul Kyung-gu won Best New Actor at both the 2000 Baeksang Arts Awards and the Golden Cinematography Awards, where Lee Gang-san also won Best Lighting.[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050)\n\n## Reception and legacy\n\nThe film's reverse structure and treatment of historical trauma are regularly identified as the qualities that established Lee as a leading Korean auteur; the Korean Film Council's retrospective notes that it turned a promising filmmaker into a bona fide auteur acclaimed over the following two decades.[7](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/view/news.jsp?category=IN_FOCUS&seq=265) Film Movement's release describes it as a powerful work of Korean New Wave cinema that elegizes a generation of marginalized people, quoting The New York Times on its \"quiet, heartbreaking power.\"[13](https://filmmovement.com/educational/film/peppermint-candy) MUBI's synopsis observes that, as a story told backwards, it preceded [Christopher Nolan](https://www.edgepedia.org/christopher-nolan)'s *Memento*.[6](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/peppermint-candy)\n\nThe 2018 4K restoration by the Korean Film Archive and the Korean Film Producers Association has kept the film in circulation; it screened in the Cinematheque KOFA program for the 40th anniversary of the May 18 Democratic Uprising in 2020, and in retrospectives of Lee's complete feature works, such as the Asian Film Archive's 2024 series of new 4K restorations of all six of his features.[2](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_008270) • [14](https://asianfilmarchive.org/event-calendar/retrospective-lee-chang-dong/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Peppermint Candy (1999), Filmmakers film database](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19990050)\n2. [박하사탕 (A Peppermint Candy), Cinematheque KOFA program page](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_008270)\n3. [박하 사탕 = Peppermint candy, WorldCat catalog record](https://search.worldcat.org/title/Peppermint-candy/oclc/871032928)\n4. [박하사탕, Cinematheque KOFA past program page](https://www.koreafilm.or.kr/movie/PM_004911)\n5. [박하사탕 Peppermint Candy, Busan International Film Festival archive, 4th festival opening film](https://www.biff.kr/kor/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=801&pyear=1999&s1=133)\n6. [Peppermint Candy (1999), MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/peppermint-candy)\n7. [A Peppermint Candy, Korean Film Council In Focus](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/view/news.jsp?category=IN_FOCUS&seq=265)\n8. [Kang, Jia. PhD thesis on Korean film festivals, University of Southampton](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/456086/1/Thesis_Jia_Kang_28618939_.pdf)\n9. [Lee, Daun (2019). \"A Cinematic Record of A Historical Trauma: Focusing on Peppermint Candy,\" 한국문예비평연구 62](https://kiss.kstudy.com/Detail/Ar?key=3691276)\n10. [Building the Post-Traumatic Nation: Mourning and Melancholia in Korean Films about the Gwangju Massacre, Korea Journal](https://oak.go.kr/central/journallist/journaldetail.do?article_seq=25151)\n11. [LEE Changdong, Korean Film Council people profile](https://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/films/index/peopleView.jsp?peopleCd=10057659)\n12. [Peppermint Candy press kit, Film Movement](https://filmmovement.com/userFiles/uploads/films/peppermint-candy/PeppermintCandy_PK_FC.pdf)\n13. [Peppermint Candy, Film Movement educational page](https://filmmovement.com/educational/film/peppermint-candy)\n14. [Retrospective: Lee Chang Dong, Asian Film Archive](https://asianfilmarchive.org/event-calendar/retrospective-lee-chang-dong/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films late 1990s › Released in 1999*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/peppermint-candy", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/peppermint-candy.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Peppermint Candy (박하사탕)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/peppermint-candy. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Peppermint Candy (박하사탕)](https://www.edgepedia.org/peppermint-candy)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/peppermint-candy](https://www.edgepedia.org/peppermint-candy). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Peppermint Candy (박하사탕)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/peppermint-candy. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Peppermint Candy is Lee Chang-dong's 1999 South Korean drama, released January 1, 2000, telling factory worker Kim Yong-ho's 1979–1999 life in reverse through seven episodes tied to the Gwangju massacre, 1987 torture, and 1997 crisis." }