The Recipe (Doenjang) (2010)

The Recipe centers on a TV producer searching for the recipe for an enchanting spicy bean-curd stew–and its elusive creator. Producer/presenter Choi Yu-jin smells a scoop when he learns that the last request of mass murderer and famed fugitive Kim Jong-gu before he was executed in February 2009 was for a bowl of dwinjang jjigae (beancurd soup stew). Choi then discovers Kim was arrested at the tiny Sanjang Restaurant, in a mountain pine forest outside Seoul, while eating a bowl of dwinjang jjigae so delicious it reduced him to a state of pure bliss. Choi discovers that the soup was made not by the restaurant’s owner but by a mysterious young woman, Jang Hye-jin, who turned up one day with a suitcase and was taken in by the owner. Choi becomes obsessed with finding Jang, who’s since disappeared, and tracing her precise ingredients and preparation method. ??Palm Springs Internation Film FestivalWorldwide Gross: $293,898Suh-Goon LeeSeung-ryong Ryu, Yo-won Lee, Lee Dong-Wook2010-10-21 (South Korea)tt1773083