[schi]

"Why Has Bodhi Dharma Left for the East?" won 1989 Locarno International Film Festival, the Golden Leopard (Best Film) and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - A South Korean film written, produced and directed by Bae Yong-kyun, a professor at Dongguk University in Seoul. Known principally as a painter, Bae spent seven years making this film with one camera and editing it by hand. This film focuses on Seon Buddhist philosophies as demonstrated by the lives of three Buddhist monks at varying ages. One is a young child, the second is an adult and the third is an elderly man. The overall film seeks to answer the question posed by the child, asking why have we all left the world. Two other riddles are also addressed: where does the master of a person's being go after death, and what is a being's original face before conception by a mother and a father.