Steel Cold Winter (2013)A boy transfers to a school in the countryside, where he finds himself attracted to a mysterious girl. The girl lives alone with her mental patient father and enjoys skating alone on the lake at night. Villagers and classmates spread rumors about the girl, but the boy doesn’t care.
Then one day, her father disappears and the boy becomes witness to suspicious activity. Other than a few documentaries, this is Choi Jin-seong’s first feature film. Steel Cold Winter is no normal teenage love story.
Steel Cold Winter (English title) / Girl (literal title) 소녀Set within a village on the Gangwon-do Mountain, Hae-Won ( ) has lived alone with her mentally ill father since she was 10 years old. Her mother left them at that time. Hae-Won has a secret. Yoon-Soo ( ) blames himself for his friend's suicide. His parents decide to send him to a small and peaceful school located in Gangwon-do. At his new school, he meets Hae-Won, who seems to have a strange mood. Yoon-Soo falls in love with her.Release Date: November 7, 2013 (Korea)Source: AsianWiki.com TRAILER (English Subbed).
The world premiere of Steel Cold Winter will be October 4 at the Busan International Film Festival:Steel Cold Winter A boy transfers to a school in the countryside, where he finds himself attracted to a mysterious girl. The girl lives alone with her mental patient father and enjoys skating alone on the lake at night. Villagers and classmates spread rumors about the girl, but the boy doesn’t care.
Then one day, her father disappears and the boy becomes witness to suspicious activity. Steel Cold Winter is no normal teenage love story.The mysterious village covered in snow is a place where rumor, curiosity and suspicion lead to misunderstanding and tragedy. Just like pigs who had to be buried alive because of a stomatitis epidemic, crazy rumors can bury a person alive. The girl opens up to the first person she could trust, but can the boy handle her secrets? (NAM Dong-chul)Source: BIFF. Class='headline' style='box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 30px; line-height: 34px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);'Busan 2013 Review: Thoughtful STEEL COLD WINTER Doesn't Stray from Its Comfort Zone, TwitchFilm.comSometimes, even the most skillfully assembled volley of words can do little to express our feelings or explain our past experiences.
There are moments, so great, that they are beyond words or others, so terrible, that could never truly be conveyed with a the help of a dictionary. Throughout modern Korean cinema we've been introduced to characters so badly scarred that they've lost the ability to speak. In Choi Jin-seong's Steel Cold Winter, the young protagonists do speak, but they do so so reluctantly that it's as though they've been robbed of their ability to do so.A teenage boy moves with his mother to the countryside, while the father remains in Seoul, after he witnesses one of his friends fall to his death. In a quiet snow-covered village where he will ideally get his mind off the incident, he meets a mysterious girl who he becomes attracted to. She lives with her mentally handicapped father until one day he disappears.Neither of the lead protagonists fit into their surroundings, and in a remote place with little to latch on to, they become introverts, unable and unwilling to communicate with those around them. As they have little use for words, they find themselves part of a generation of Korean teenagers who have been silences by their inability to connect with a society that is perpetually in flux. The problem is that these characters are less well drawn than one would hope.
They are ciphers, representations of a traumatized youth lacking individual characteristics.The countryside is frequently relied on as a site of horror in cinema and once again this is the case here. Perhaps the film's most effective asset is its atmospheric location photography and its description of a place full of creepy, shady and unscrupulous characters. In the rural world of Steel Cold Winter, the truth is treated with disdain. In the midst of a potential foot and mouth epidemic, pigs are being buried alive. These scenes are shocking enough on their own merit but when we see the money that is exchanging hands before the pigs are shuffled off their mortal in the most inhumane way, the effect is unsettling to say the least.Just like the poor swine being led to slaughter, problems in Steel Cold Winter are buried unresolved. In a series of beautiful scenes, the young leads skates on ice by the edge of the forest under the night sky. Enchanting though these scenes are, they also reinforce the thin line between truth and falsehood as the narrow sheet of ice they gracefully glides threatens to plunge them into a cold and dark abyss in an instant.Subdued and handsomely produced, Steel Cold Winter looks the business.
However, by mining all too familiar social themes without a clear new voice, it falls short of leaving its desired impact. Rape, high school violence, hierarchy, inept cops and small time corruption.
It's all here, but we've seen it all before. Featuring a great soundtrack and a handful of powerful scenes, Steel Cold Winter is a solid, if somewhat uninvolving debut feature. Class='arttitle' style='font-family: arial, verdana, tahoma, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 300; margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 28px; width: 526px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);'Young Actress Spooks Viewers with Chilling Movie Role (EnglishChosun.com / November 9, 2013)Kim Yoon-hyeActress Kim Yoon-hye is giving audiences a chill with her striking performance as a cold and aloof high school girl in director Choi Jin-sung's romantic thriller 'Steel Cold Winter,' which was released on Thursday.'
I've heard many times that I look cold or mysterious. A few years ago, I played the role of another psychopathic student in a TV drama, so people may think I'm a kind of cold-hearted or gloomy person.
But the reality is far from that,' said the 22-year-old actress.' At first, I was afraid that I'd become typecast, but I also realize that I've been given a rare opportunity. And as I appear in more films or dramas in the future, I'm sure I'll be able to expand my acting range rather than being pigeonholed.'
The shooting of 'Steel Cold Winter' mostly took place on an icy lake beside a rural village.' I spent two hours every morning and evening for three weeks learning how to skate for the movie. That was quite challenging, especially with all the cold weather,' she said.' But the hardest part was getting to grips with the character, because she doesn't have that many lines, so I had to convey a lot of her feelings simply through the expression on my face, or by using my eyes emotively.' Kim started modeling after she was spotted by a fashion magazine editor at the age of 11 and continued to appear in advertisements through high school. She switched over to acting one year ago.'
Yun-hea Kim
Even at a young age, I liked being photographed. Then I appeared in a music video, which got me interested in acting as a career because you can become completely immersed in the world of one character.'