COWS ARE COOL: LOVE ‘EM!
26.
An Old Cow Tugs At Millions of Heartstrings
Story of A 40 Years Old South Korean Cow And Her Farmer
To a South Korean farmer, this cow was sacred
A South Korean film made instant stars of two elderly farmers and their aged cow. South Korean farmer Choi Wonkyun and wife Lee Sam-sun became overnight celebrities in South Korea after their appearance in a documentary film that broke box-office records there. Many theatres in US and Europe are also screening this film.
They’re the unlikely stars of “Old Partner,” a documentary film that chronicles two years in the lives of the hard-working couple as
they live with their aging cow that has served them faithfully for 40 years. It’s title in Korean is ‘wo-nang-so-ri’, ‘The Sound of the Cow’s Bell.’
An Old Cow Tugs At Millions of Heartstrings
Story of A 40 Years Old South Korean Cow And Her Farmer
To a South Korean farmer, this cow was sacred
A South Korean film made instant stars of two elderly farmers and their aged cow. South Korean farmer Choi Wonkyun and wife Lee Sam-sun became overnight celebrities in South Korea after their appearance in a documentary film that broke box-office records there. Many theatres in US and Europe are also screening this film.
They’re the unlikely stars of “Old Partner,” a documentary film that chronicles two years in the lives of the hard-working couple as
they live with their aging cow that has served them faithfully for 40 years. It’s title in Korean is ‘wo-nang-so-ri’, ‘The Sound of the Cow’s Bell.’
The movie shattered box-office records in Korea for an independent film, becoming an instant low-budget classic, a fable about love, loyalty and rural Korean values — and also a touching, sometimes funny, tale of a wife’s jealousy over the bond between husband and the cow.
The movie portrays what might be one of the last stories of heartbreaking sacrifice and the touching interaction between a cow and its owner in the down slopes of life.
The story has left people of all ages teary-eyed, including First Lady Kim Yoon-ok, who with President Lee Myung-bak recently showed up unexpectedly at a Seoul theater to watch the film.
The film seems out of place in a world of fast-paced images and breathtaking special effects. Instead, it seems more like a collection of still shots strung together than like a moving picture, as it portrays the life of an old man as he spends his final days with his cow as it dies of old age.
Man meets cow. Man loses cow. Man finds cow again - while not exactly adhering to that old Hollywood narrative technique, it is definitely a peculiar but heartwarming story.
Dull as it may sound, this low-budget movie has topped the country’s box office charts, a first for an independent film here. Many are left wondering as to how such a slow-paced story can become the most-watched independent film in Korea, drawing more than 2 million viewers just six weeks after its premiere. According to Variety, only $142,000 was spent to make and market the film, a mere pittance by Hollywood standards.
The movie portrays what might be one of the last stories of heartbreaking sacrifice and the touching interaction between a cow and its owner in the down slopes of life.
The story has left people of all ages teary-eyed, including First Lady Kim Yoon-ok, who with President Lee Myung-bak recently showed up unexpectedly at a Seoul theater to watch the film.
The film seems out of place in a world of fast-paced images and breathtaking special effects. Instead, it seems more like a collection of still shots strung together than like a moving picture, as it portrays the life of an old man as he spends his final days with his cow as it dies of old age.
Man meets cow. Man loses cow. Man finds cow again - while not exactly adhering to that old Hollywood narrative technique, it is definitely a peculiar but heartwarming story.
Dull as it may sound, this low-budget movie has topped the country’s box office charts, a first for an independent film here. Many are left wondering as to how such a slow-paced story can become the most-watched independent film in Korea, drawing more than 2 million viewers just six weeks after its premiere. According to Variety, only $142,000 was spent to make and market the film, a mere pittance by Hollywood standards.
“Now the cow’s status has changed. They’re no longer family members but seen as pieces of meat.”
~Lee Chung-ryul, Film Director
A Romantic Triangle
The farmer says, “This cow is better than a human. When it dies, I’ll be its chief mourner — and I’ll follow. I’m alive because of this cow.”
Later, the farmer Choi sits forlornly with his head in his arms as his wife gripes that he loves the cow more than he loves her. He doesn’t react, but when the animal lows, his head jerks up.
“It was a romantic triangle,” says director Lee. “The old woman was jealous because her husband gave the cow more attention.”
The cow is the 80-year-old man’s best friend, his only farming machine, and his only means of transportation. He rides to his fields every day in a small cart attached to his bovine friend.
Even as the animal, at the age of 40, is in its final days (most cows live to 15), it toils until it can no longer walk or stand. Meanwhile the farmer Choi, hobbles around in search of grass to feed his cow. He also refuses to use pesticides on his crops, fearing he might poison his friend.
That simple, touching plot is working with audiences worldwide.
“It feels like I’ve just heard a beautiful poem,” said 47-year-old Shin Yong-shik, after walking out of the cinema with his son and wife. “As the world around us becomes more harsh and urbanized this film reminds people of parts of life that are slowly disappearing.”
Thus a low budget tale of bovine-human love captivates South Korea and rest of the world.
I find it enormously puzzling that extreme suffering only gets widely questioned if it is the suffering of members of the human species. It is extraordinary how many people just accept the appalling treatment of such a vast number of animals.
Dr David Pearson, Lancaster, UK
Fame That Disrupts Their Simple Life
But since the movie’s January premiere, a near-daily invasion of curious visitors has threatened the tranquil life of the village couple, who just want to be left alone. Everyone wants a piece of them, pestering for countless photos: Stand here. Pose there. Bale more hay. Smile! Now take us to the old cow’s grave site for just a few more snapshots. The boldest intruders barge into the house uninvited.
And the stampede to see South Korea’s most reluctant celebrities starts early, often before they’re out of bed.
On many weekends, hundreds of tourists appear at the tumbledown homestead to meet 82-year-old farmer Choi Won-kyun and his loving but nagging wife, Lee Sam-sun.
Choi Won-kyun, the eldest of the couple’s nine children says, “I’m gratified that people are interested in my parents. If only they would have a sip of coffee and leave, but they stay. What can my parents do? Hospitality is part of rural life. We don’t have any choice but to welcome them.”
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you are ungrateful. You are drinking milk, you are taking so much butter, milk product, and as gratitude you are killing cows? You should be ashamed. Even if you have no human feelings. You suck the breast of your mother and kill? Is that humanity? |
The director recently made a nationwide appeal to South Koreans to respect the couple’s privacy. But the hordes keep coming.
The local tourism board is planning an “Old Partner” museum and has erected signs leading to the farm.
It has collected the elder Choi’s clothes and cane used in the movie. The board even claimed the tarnished cowbell, with plans to sell replicas to tourists.
The local tourism board is planning an “Old Partner” museum and has erected signs leading to the farm.
It has collected the elder Choi’s clothes and cane used in the movie. The board even claimed the tarnished cowbell, with plans to sell replicas to tourists.
If it weren’t for people, cattle would be happy in the wild, but now the fact that cattle are profitable for people to farm is the only thing standing between bovine and oblivion. A good farmer loves his cattle and does not rest himself unless they are taken care of. Look at factory farming and 25000 head feedlots for a real source of oblivious cruelty.
~Christine Roussel
Unexpected Success At The Box Office
The project brought first-time director Lee Chung-ryul overnight success. He says. “This movie has become more successful than I ever imagined. It has taken on a life of its own.”
Lee wanted to make a documentary about the beauty of simple things. To tell the story, he chose a farmer who preferred his devoted old cow over any modern tractor.
He was inspired by his own rural childhood and the novelist Pearl S. Buck, who nearly a century ago wrote of a farmer and cow she saw on a trip to Korea. “Now the cow’s status has changed. They’re no longer family members but seen as pieces of meat”, laments Lee.
Cow And Humanity - A Natural Relationship
For five years, he searched for the right subject for his film. In 2002, he was introduced to the Farmer Choi, who recently had been informed that his female ox’s days were numbered. She had already lived far longer than most.
The pair’s similarities astounded him: Nearly deaf with a malformed leg, the limping farmer was often forced to crawl across his rice fields. The staggering brown cow, which is never given a name, was no better off. Choi often groomed the skinny animal’s diseased hide and fed her special gruel to keep her strength up.
For Lee, the pair seemed to have a secret pact: Keep working together or we’ll both die.
In 2005, he began shooting what he saw as an intimate chronicle of the cow’s final year. Problems arose from day one.
Choi resisted any intrusion he felt would interrupt his chores. Every time Lee approached with his camera, Choi and his wife stopped talking, or stared as though posing for a snapshot.
With kind treatment, cows can be very loyal companions. In her book Peaceful Kingdom: Random Acts of Kindness by Animals, Stephanie Laland writes that when the Rev. O. F. Robertson began to go blind, his cow Mary became his “seeing-eye cow.” Mary would walk along with him, nudging him away from obstacles. She accompanied Robertson everywhere he went for the rest of his life.
So the director affixed microphones to the couple’s clothes and filmed from a distance with a zoom lens.
What his camera captured was a poignant real-life drama, as the woman constantly berated her husband for not exchanging his old partner for a tractor.
In her gravelly voice, she nags him to use chemicals that would improve crop yields and about the energy he wastes doting on the cow — but especially about her tiring labors caring for both animal and husband.
“We work so hard,” she tells the cow one day. “We both met the wrong man.”
What his camera captured was a poignant real-life drama, as the woman constantly berated her husband for not exchanging his old partner for a tractor.
In her gravelly voice, she nags him to use chemicals that would improve crop yields and about the energy he wastes doting on the cow — but especially about her tiring labors caring for both animal and husband.
“We work so hard,” she tells the cow one day. “We both met the wrong man.”
Reading about cows feels like hearing some news about old friends. I knew few individual cows. I haven’t been out to volunteer in a long time. I miss them. Cows are kind, patient, beautiful individuals.
~Mark Middleton
Passing Away of The Cow - The Final Plot
As the animal grows weaker, the couple and cow seem to know the end is near. In one sequence, Lee shows a tear in the eye of the farmer, then his wife, then the cow.
In one of their last days together, the animal struggles during a trip to collect firewood, prompting the farmer to stop the cart. He unloads some of the wood, straps it to his back and walks alongside his old partner in a gesture that signals he considers the two equals.
But Lee, the director, couldn’t be there for every poignant moment. He wasn’t there when the cow finally fell over, unable to rise.
Alerted by the farmer’s eldest son, he made the three-hour journey from Seoul to find Choi weeping as he implored the cow to get up, asking a veterinarian, “What can I do to prolong its life?”
When the animal finally dies, even the wife is moved. “May you go to heaven,” she says. “But why are you leaving before us?”
Finally, Lee had his ending. He went into postproduction, creating movie posters that showed the farmer’s weathered hands holding his keepsake cowbell. In Korean, the film is called “The Sound of the Cow’s Bell.”
Success was immediate. The movie won an award at the prestigious Busan International Film Festival and played at the Sundance Film Festival.
South Korea’s previous box-office record for an independent documentary was 120,000 tickets but this film surpassed 3 million. Even President Lee Myung-bak wanted to meet the director.
“One morning I woke up famous,” Lee recalls.
Cow Has A Natural Appeal To Human Soul
The film’s success has surprised many because the box office is dominated by Hollywood blockbusters and local movies that are increasingly costly to produce.
One might say that the themes were a bit too serious to attract the public in large numbers. As a low-budgeted movie (produced at around $142,000) there were no big names nor any special effects.
One might wonder how it could draw almost 2 million people in its six weeks of showing when the competing Hollywood movie at local theatres that time was starring Brad Pitt and was an Oscar-nominee. The answer is - cow and land based simple life has a direct appeal to human soul. The heroes of this movie - the farmer and his wife, know only two things in their life, cow and farming. In fact throughout their lives they have known only these two things. This is the natural plan of living and though we have distanced ourselves from this natural plan due to urbanization and industrialization, the craving, the yearning to return to our original nature remains. That is the reasons, millions could relate to the film’s plot even though it has no action, no drama, no special effects. But it has one thing for sure - direct appeal to your soul, to your essential nature.
I worked on a dairy farm and at this one period, when the cows were being kept in the stanchions in a long row, there was this first cow that would hold her head in the water trough to let the water run over for the longest time, till the alley was full of water all of the time. Then one day we found that the drinking cup for the cow at the end of the row did not work. As soon as we noticed this and fixed it, the first cow no longer held her face down to cause it to over flow... I was amazed.
Maureen J Valenti, San Angelo, Texas, USA