Exhibiting Korea
A New, Monthly Series of Gallery Talk Programs at The Korea Society

Film Screening of  A Petal (꽃잎) and Q&A Session with Actress Young-Lan Lee
Associate Professor of drama at Kyung Hee University

Thursday, July 12 at 6:30 PM

May 1980 is a month that still lives in infamy in South Korea. That month, residents of Kwangju demonstrated for an end to decades of military rule. But newly installed President Chun Doo-Hwan would broach no dissent. He ordered elite Korean paratroopers to storm the city and crush the protests. Untold numbers of protesting civilians were massacred in the assault.

It took director Jang Sun-Woo 15 years to find a producer brave enough to tackle the topic, but when he did, he filmed his masterpiece—A Petal (꽃잎)—a fierce and uncompromising look at the Kwangju uprising and its political and personal aftermath.

A Petal’s female lead was played by Lee Young-Lan, who won a Best Supporting Actress Award in 1996 at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival for her stirring performance. Following the screening, Lee will talk with the audience about the making of the film, its impact it’s release had throughout Asia and the painful, lingering legacy of the Kwangju uprising.

Warning: This film contains graphic scenes that may be disturbing to some viewers.


















About the Presenter

Lee Young-Lan is an associate professor of drama at Kyung Hee University. Lee is one of Korea's leading academic experts in synthesizing Eastern and Western theories of acting. Lee is also one of Korea’s leading actresses of stage and screen. Her theatrical career favors one-person shows, avant-garde theatrical happenings and feminist performances such as the annual Anti-Miss Korea Festival. Lee appeared in Kang Je-Gyu’s Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War and in 2005, she received a critic’s special mention at the Berlin International Film Festival for her role in Sara Jeanne.







Registration Fee:

Single-Program Ticket: $5 (members) / $10 (non-members)
Series Pass (for all seven monthly gallery talks): $20 (members) / $50 (non-members)
buy tickets online or use the fax registration form (pdf)

Questions, registration? call Jinyoung Kim, senior program officer for arts, 212-7597-525 ext 316 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .