Sampoganeun gil (The Road to Sampo). 1975. Directed by Lee Man-hee

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Sampoganeun gil (The Road to Sampo). 1975. South Korea. Directed by Lee Man-hee. Courtesy Korean Film Archive

Sampoganeun gil (The Road to Sampo). 1975. South Korea. Directed by Lee Man-hee. Screenplay by Yu Dong-hun. With Kim Jin-kyu, Baek Il-seob, Mun Suk. 4K digital restoration by the Korean Film Archive; courtesy Choi Jae-yong. North American Premiere. In Korean; English subtitles. 101 min.

Championed by Quentin Tarantino and Bong Joon-ho, the great Korean genre director Lee Man-hee died before he could finish The Road to Sampo, but the film nonetheless bears his unmistakable gifts for widescreen color composition, black existentialist humor, and sympathy for the working class. Adapted from a loosely autobiographical book of short stories by the famed dissident author Hwang Sok-yong, the film is an incredibly touching and at times hilarious road movie following a trio of outcasts—an unskilled laborer, an ex-con, and a bawdy runaway waitress—as they wander across the desolate, punishing wintry countryside in search of a home that no longer exists.

This film accompanies To Save and Project: The 18th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation.

Past events

Wed, Feb 2, 2022, 7:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Tue, Feb 1, 2022, 4:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

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