South Korean film director Park Chan-wook, known for his fantasy-horror flicks, is planning to hit theaters in his native country in late January with a movie shot entirely using an iPhone 4.
The 30-minute short is called “Paranmanjang,” (that’s a “life full of ups and downs” in Korean) and cost about $130,000 to make.
“From hunting for a film location, shooting auditions, to doing a documentary on the filming process, everything was shot with the iPhone 4,” Park said after the screening. “We went through all the same film-making processes except that the camera was small.”
For the short, he teamed up with his younger brother Park Chan-kyong, a media artist, and KT Corp., the wireless operator that is the exclusive distributor of iPhone in South Korea.
Reporters who screened the short said that the “cinematography is quite good, except for a little shakiness in the beginning.” That coarseness may be an advantage, though, in giving it a new kind of realism.
Park’s prize-winning credentials may make this iPhone film something more than a passing gimmick.
Park won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004 with “Old Boy,” the second of a three movies in what he called his revenge trilogy. In 2009, his movie “Thirst” was awarded the Jury Prize at Cannes.
No word yet on when the short may be in theaters beyond South Korea.
