Warai no Daigaku (filme, 2001)

University of Laughs, or Warai no Daigaku, in japanese, is a wonderful film! If you didn´t see it yet, don´t miss the opportunity of watching it on dvd. I´d love to see Hwang Jeong-min in this play! Actually I was thinking that this story could be played with sucess at any stage of the world, since most of the countries had to go through some obscure period of censorship in their history. And many artists learned that when an artist is forced to work within censorship, they can sometimes create something better than they ever could when having complete artistic freedom.



Hwang Jeong-min to Star in New Play

Korean movie actor Hwang Jeong-min will star in a new play, "University of Laughs", comedy based on the story of an artist's freedom of expression when faced with censorship, set in 1940 Japan. The play was written by Japanese dramatist Koki Mitani.

A young playwright (Hwang) comes up against a government censor (Song Yeong-chang ) to put a comedy on stage. The censor's job is to prevent anything political or taboo from getting into the pre-war media, but this particular censor has a thing against comedy, too.

The play was originally performed at Parco Theatre in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan in 1997 to high acclaim. It was also made into a film which was then released in 2004 by Toho Studios, and directed by Hoshii Mamoru.

Hwang began his acting career in theaters, as a musical actor in Subway Line No. 1 (1994), Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats and Nine.

"I think a movie is the art of a director but the play is the art of an actor", he said.

The play will be shown in Korea for the first time as the ninth work of the Yeongeuk Yeoljeon 2 (Best Plays Series) programmed by veteran actor Jo Jae-hyeon. The play will be staged at Dongsoong Art Center in central Seoul Oct. 24 to Nov. 30.

Hwang Jeong-min Filmography

The Waikiki Brothers (2001)

A Good Lawyer's Wife

Bloody Tie

You are my Sunshine (2005) * best actor award at the Blue Dragon Film Festival

Black House (by Shin Tae-ra, 2007)

Happiness (by Heo Jin-ho , 2007)

A Man Once a Superman (by Jeong Yoon-cheol, 2008)

Warai no Daigaku (University of Laughs/ Escola do Riso)/ Japan/ 2004/ 121 min/Comedy

Director: Mamoru Hoshi

Writer: Koki Mitani

Producer - Yumiko Shigeoka

Cast: Koji Yakusho, Goro Inagaki

Cinematographer - Hiroshi Takase

Editor - Masaki Yamamoto

Sound/Sound Designer - Yasushi Tanaka

Music Score - Yusuke Honma

Production Designer - Takeshi Shimizu

Based on 1996 play by Koki Mitani, Mamoru Hoshi's comedy Warai no Daigaku (University of Laughs) is set in 1940, during Worls War II, wen an naive playwright, Hajime Tsubaki (actor Goro Inagaki, from j-pop group SMAP), try to get his play, Romilet and Julio, past the censorship from Mutsuo Sakisaka (actor Koji Yakusho, Yudan Taiteki). A censor that proudly describes himself as “a man who has never laughed”.