# Village in the Mist (안개 마을)
**Village in the Mist** (안개마을, also translated as *Village of Haze*) is a 1982 South Korean drama and mystery film directed by Im Kwon-taek, in which a young schoolteacher assigned to a remote mountain village uncovers a sexual secret that the entire community conspires to keep hidden[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017). It stars Jeong Yun-hui as the teacher Su-ok and Ahn Sung-ki as the village outcast Kae-chul, and it was released in South Korea on February 12, 1983[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017). The film adapts [Yi Mun-yol](https://www.edgepedia.org/yi-mun-yol)'s short story *An Anonymous Island* (익명의 섬) and won major Korean film awards, including the Baeksang Arts Awards for Best Film and Best Director in 1983[2](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=25391) • [1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 안개마을 (Angae maeul); international titles include Village in the Mist and Village of Haze[3](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/village-of-haze/) |
| Director / year | Im Kwon-taek; produced 1982, released February 12, 1983[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017) |
| Running time / format | 93 minutes, 35 mm, color[4](https://biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10872&pyear=2013) |
| Source | Yi Mun-yol's short story *An Anonymous Island*; screenplay by Song Gil-han[2](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=25391) |
| Principal cast | Jeong Yun-hui (Su-ok), Ahn Sung-ki (Kae-chul), Kim Ji-young, Jin Bong-jin, Kim Jin[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017) |
| Key crew | Producer Park Chong-chan; cinematography Jung Il-sung; music Kim Jung-gil; editing Kim Chang-soon; lighting Cha Jeong-nam[4](https://biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10872&pyear=2013) • [1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017) |
| Production company | Hwacheon Corporation; Korean rating "No Minors"[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Su-ok, an unmarried young woman who has just finished university, leaves Seoul to take her first post teaching at an elementary school in an isolated mountain village[4](https://biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10872&pyear=2013). When she steps off the bus, the village at first seems deserted, and her first encounter is with Kae-chul, a disheveled vagabond who stares at her intensely[5](https://sgiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SGIFF2014-FestivalGuide.pdf). Like Su-ok, Kae-chul is an outsider in a close-knit community whose members are related to one another by blood or marriage[5](https://sgiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SGIFF2014-FestivalGuide.pdf).
Su-ok gradually notices that the village women bring food to Kae-chul and that the men treat him with a strange mixture of contempt and indifference. When a villager named Hwa-chun beats Kae-chul, claiming that Kae-chul raped his wife, all the villagers insist that Kae-chul is impotent[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017). After her fiancé fails to arrive for a planned meeting, Su-ok takes shelter from the rain in an oil warehouse, where she is drawn to Kae-chul and they make love[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017). An academic account of the film describes what she then comes to understand: that Kae-chul fulfills the sexual needs of the village's unloved and abandoned women, and that the menfolk silently accept the situation through closed-door compromises and the need to save face for themselves and their clan[6](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/823/736?inline=1). On the day Su-ok leaves the village, a newly appointed female teacher arrives and meets Kae-chul's brightly lit eyes, closing the story on a cycle that begins again[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017).
## Source and production
The screenplay by Song Gil-han adapts *An Anonymous Island*, a short story by the novelist Yi Mun-yol[2](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=25391). The film was made by Hwacheon Corporation with Park Chong-chan as producer, and it gathered a crew of Im Kwon-taek's established collaborators: cinematographer Jung Il-sung, lighting director Cha Jeong-nam, editor Kim Chang-soon, and composer Kim Jung-gil[4](https://biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10872&pyear=2013) • [1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017).
**A short shoot.** According to a Cine21 retrospective, the film was shot in the Danyang area of North Chungcheong Province, in a location later submerged under Chungju Lake; weather and other difficulties cut the first shoot to 12 days, with about 5 additional days of supplementary filming, yet the finished film showed a high degree of polish, which the retrospective attributes to the teamwork of Im's crew of the early 1980s[2](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=25391). An English-language scholarly survey likewise places the setting in an insular village in the Tanyang region[6](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/823/736?inline=1).
## Themes
The Busan International Film Festival's program note describes the film as Im's exceptional treatment of sexuality and desire, combining the latent anonymity of a rural community, rather than an urban space, with the thorny matter of lust; it frames the rural landscape as a reservoir of suppressed desire and calls the film one of Im's most modern[4](https://biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10872&pyear=2013). The Singapore International Film Festival's guide characterizes it as a dark tale in which Im examines and questions the moral codes that bind and divide society and individuals, and the clash between tradition and instinct[5](https://sgiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SGIFF2014-FestivalGuide.pdf). Cine21's retrospective highlights Ahn Sung-ki's performance as Kae-chul, a man shunned as a fool by the village, and the presence of Jeong Yun-hui, one of the leading actresses of the 1970s, at the height of her form[2](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=25391).
## Reception and awards
The film received multiple honors in Korea. At the 1983 Baeksang Arts Awards it won the Film Division Best Film and Grand Prize for Hwacheon Corporation, Best Director for Im Kwon-taek, Best Acting for Ahn Sung-ki, and the Technical Award for lighting director Cha Jeong-nam[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017). At the 1983 Grand Bell Awards it took Best Cinematography for Jeong Il-seong and Best Actor for Ahn Sung-ki, and Ahn also won the Korean Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor in 1984[1](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017). Cine21 lists the film as a winner of the work, directing, acting, and technical prizes at the 19th Korea Theatre and Film Arts Awards[2](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=25391).
Overseas, the film reached festival audiences years after its Korean release. Michael Wilmington, reviewing a Filmex screening for the *Los Angeles Times* in March 1985, called the opening an excellent mood piece and praised Im's visual flair and the film's erotic tension, while judging that the last half-hour went awry by trying too hard to explain the inexplicable[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-15-ca-35229-story.html).
## Later screenings
The film has circulated internationally through retrospectives of Im Kwon-taek's work. The Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes screened it in 1986, in 2003, and again in its 2015 Im Kwon-taek retrospective[3](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/village-of-haze/). It appeared in the 18th Korean Cinema Retrospective at the 2013 Busan International Film Festival[4](https://biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10872&pyear=2013), and the 2014 Singapore International Film Festival included it in its tribute to the director, in collaboration with the Korean Film Archive[5](https://sgiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SGIFF2014-FestivalGuide.pdf). In London, it opened the 15-film, two-week Im Kwon-taek retrospective at the ICA and BFI in October 2012[8](https://londonkoreanlinks.net/2012/10/29/im-kwon-taek-village-in-the-mist/).
## References
1. [Village in the Mist (1982), Korean Film Database entry, Filmmakers](https://www.filmmakers.co.kr/movies/en/19830017)
2. [폐쇄된 마을 안의 '끈끈한' 삶, <안개마을>, Cine21 (2004)](https://cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=25391)
3. [Village of Haze, aka Village in the Mist, Festival des 3 Continents](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/village-of-haze/)
4. [Village in the Mist, 18th Korean Cinema Retrospective, Busan International Film Festival](https://biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=10872&pyear=2013)
5. [Tribute to Im Kwon-taek, SGIFF 2014 Festival Guide](https://sgiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SGIFF2014-FestivalGuide.pdf)
6. [Postwar Korean Cinema, Kinema (University of Waterloo)](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/823/736?inline=1)
7. [FILMEX Reviews: 'Village in the Mist', Los Angeles Times (1985)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-03-15-ca-35229-story.html)
8. [Im Kwon-Taek's Village in the Mist, London Korean Links (2012)](https://londonkoreanlinks.net/2012/10/29/im-kwon-taek-village-in-the-mist/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1980s films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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