Sunny | |||||||||
Native Name: |
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Director: | Lee Joon-ik | ||||||||
Producer: | Jung Seung-hye Cho Chul-hyun | ||||||||
Starring: | Soo Ae Jung Jin-young | ||||||||
Music: | Lee Byung-hoon Bang Jun-seok | ||||||||
Cinematography: | Na Seung-yong | ||||||||
Editing: | Kim Sang-bum Kim Jae-bum | ||||||||
Distributor: | Showbox/Mediaplex | ||||||||
Runtime: | 126 minutes | ||||||||
Country: | South Korea | ||||||||
Language: | Korean |
Sunny (; lit. "My Dear is Far Away") is a 2008 South Korean film directed by Lee Joon-ik. Soo Ae plays the titular Soon-yi, whose husband enlists to fight in the Vietnam War, and she decides to join a singing group that will travel to Vietnam to perform for the soldiers there.[1] [2]
Soon-yi is a young woman stuck in an arranged marriage to a man who still loves his college girlfriend. Her husband, Sang-gil, is a soldier in the South Korean army, and though she visits him regularly, he does not return her affections. After Sang-gil is sent to fight in the Vietnam War, Soon-yi resolves to follow him. She joins a band which is heading there, where she sings for the soldiers as "Sunny", with the hope of being reunited with her husband.
Sunny was produced on a budget of . Director Lee Joon-ik made the protagonist female in response to criticism that his films were largely male-oriented. Lee cast Soo Ae in the lead role, saying, "No other actress in [South] Korea has the distinctively pure image that [she] has". Soo Ae did two months of training to refine her singing and dancing skills, and admitted to being concerned over whether or not she could pull off the character.[3]
Sunny was released in South Korea on July 23, 2008. On its opening weekend it was ranked second at the box office with 480,144 admissions,[4] and exceeded the one million mark on July 19.[5] As of August 31, Sunny had received a total of 1,804,223 admissions nationwide, and as of September 14 had grossed a total of .[6]
Year | Award | Category | Recipient | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2008 | 4th Premiere Rising Star Awards Summit (PIFF) | Best Actress | [7] | ||
Best New Actor | |||||
Best Film | Sunny | [8] | |||
Best Actress | |||||
Best Lighting | Park Se-mun | ||||
Best Music | Lee Byung-hoon, Bang Jun-seok | ||||
Technical Award | Hong Jang-pyo (Special Effects) | ||||
Buil Readers' Jury Award | Sunny | ||||
Best Actress | |||||
28th Arts Council Korea | Artist of the Year, Film category | ||||
31st Golden Cinematography Awards | Popularity Award | ||||
[9] | |||||
Best Art Direction | Kang Seung-yong | ||||
Lee Byung-hoon, Bang Jun-seok | |||||
2009 | |||||
Best Actress | |||||
Best Supporting Actor | |||||
Best Costume Design | Shim Hyun-sub | ||||
17th Korean Culture and Entertainment Awards | Best Actress |