''The Tenor – Lirico Spinto'' () is a 2014 South Korean-

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

biographical drama film directed by

Kim Sang-man Kim Sang-man (; born January 28, 1970) is a South Korean film director and art director. Career Kim Sang-man began his career in films designing posters, starting with '' The Contact'' in 1997. He had designed posters for about 30 films when he ...

. This film telling about chronicling the life of South Korean

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

Bae Jae-chul who performed in numerous European

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

s, but lost his voice at the peak of his career due to

thyroid cancer Thyroid cancer is cancer that develops from the tissues of the thyroid gland. It is a disease in which cells grow abnormally and have the potential to spread to other parts of the body. Symptoms can include swelling or a lump in the neck, ...

. However, after enduring a long period of painful rehabilitation, with the help of his wife Yoon-hee as well as his longtime friend and Japanese producer Koji Sawada, Bae regained his singing ability and half his

vocal range Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of stud ...

. Bae was portrayed by

Yoo Ji-tae Yoo Ji-tae (; born April 13, 1976) is a South Korean actor. After a stint as a fashion model, Yoo launched his acting career in 1998 then rose to fame through the films '' Attack the Gas Station'' (1999) and '' Ditto'' (2000). In the succeeding ...

. The film premiered at the 17th

Shanghai International Film Festival The Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF, , French: ''Festival international du film de Shanghai'') is the largest film festival in Asia and China's longest-running international cinema event. The first festival was established in Octobe ...

, and was released in South Korea on December 31, 2014.

Storyline

This movie is based on BAE Jae-cheol, a Korean opera tenor recognized even in Europe. After hearing the famous BAE's voice himself, Japanese music producer Sawada Kohji wants to have him on stage in Japan. At first, BAE, who was already doing great, did not show much interest in Kohji's proposal, but, later on, moves the audience's hearts by singing passionately on the Japanese stage. One day, BAE hears devastating news. He is diagnosed with cancer and has to go through an operation affecting the vocal cords in order to save his life, which will prevent him from singing after the surgery. The tenor gets the surgery to live but is left miserable as he can no longer sing. Sawada Kohji suggests an operation that will recover BAE's voice.

Cast

as Bae Jae-chul *

Yusuke Iseya is a Japanese actor, director, artist, and businessman. Career Iseya co-starred with Arata Iura, Yui Natsukawa is a Japanese actress. She co-starred with Hiroshi Abe in the 2006 Japanese drama '' Kekkon Dekinai Otoko'' and in Hirokazu Kore ...

as Koji Sawada *

Cha Ye-ryun Cha Ye-ryun (; born July 16, 1985), born Park Hyun-ho (), is a South Korean actress. A graduate of Sangmyung High School, she began acting in 2005 at the age of 20, when she had a supporting role in the horror film ''Voice''. In 2007, she made ...

as Yoon-hee *

Nataša Tapušković Nataša Tapušković (née Šolak; sr-cyr, Наташа Тапушковић; born 27 August 1975) is a Serbian actress. She is famous for her role as Danica Janković in ''Barking at the Stars'' (1998) and for her role as Bosnian hostage Sabaha ...

* Marko Stojanović

Production

The film's early

working title A working title is a preliminary name for a product or project. The usage is especially common in film and TV, gaming, music and publishing. It is often styled in trade publications as (wt) and is synonymous with production title and tentative ...

was ''Miracle'', but director

changed it because he thought it disclosed the ending, while he hoped the unfamiliar term '' lirico

spinto Spinto ( Italian for "pushed") is a vocal term used to characterize a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large musical climaxes in opera at moderate intervals. (Sometimes the terms ' or ' a ...

'' would arouse Korean viewers' curiosity. ''Lirico spinto'', Italian for "pushed lyric", refers to a tenor voice that is versatile enough to sing in the style of a ''lirico'', a singer with a softer voice and a ''spinto'', one with dramatic voice; Bae could do both. For his role, actor

practiced singing every day for more than a year and underwent further vocal training to acquire the technique to believably

lip sync Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , like the word ''sink'', despite the Hard and soft C, spelling of the participial forms ''synced'' and ''syncing''), short for lip synchronization, is a technical term for matching a Speech, speaking or singin ...

every opera song he sings in the film; he also took English lessons. Due to budget constraints, it took six years for the film to be completed. The production crew filmed in Korea, Japan and Serbia for 18 months.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tenor - Lirico Spinto, The 2014 films Japanese biographical films South Korean biographical films Documentary films about singers Biographical films about singers 2010s Japanese films 2010s South Korean films