· Directed by Tom Hooper
· Genre : Musical drama
· Starring : Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe
· 158 Min.

Kim Yun-a’s theme song in her comeback match in the 2012 NRW-Trophy contest, one of the most impressive and best loved musicals in the world for a long time and recently performed in Korean for the first time, and the recently released film famous for its star cast and three awards at the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards. Do you know what these three have in common? They all refer to Les miserables! The box office hit Les Miserables was released at the end of the 2012 and has continued to be popular in 2013. It has already become one of the important keywords in 2013.

This movie starts with the story of Jean Valjean, a man who spent 19 years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread. Les Miserables is not only his story, but also a lot of people’s stories and also the pain and hope of French history. For example, Jean Valjean who lives a life as an ex-con and tries to start a new life, Inspector Javert who has chased Jean Valjean, Fantine who lives for her only daughter, Cosette who is Fantine’s daughter and Marius who loves Cosette, Eponine who loves Marius, Enjolras and his companions who want to start a revolution, and the little revolutionary Gavroche. You can see countless emotions that people have, for example various states of love, agony about responsibility for work and other strong emotions.

The movie Les Miserables has differences with other simple musical movies. One difference is live recording. General musical movies use a method where actors record musical numbers before shooting the movie and then in post-production apply the sound recordings to the scenes. However, Les Miserables recorded the actors acting, singing and dancing a song at the same time with the accompaniment of live piano. Another difference is not only using well-known existing numbers, but also adding a new song. “Suddenly” is a new solo sung by Hugh Jackman who plays Jean Valjean that you can’t hear in the original musical. Cameron Mckintoch, the producer of the world’s four major musicals and the movie Les Miserables, and Claude-Michel Shenbug and Allan Bublil who composed the music and lyrics for Les Miserables joined forces to make that song at the request of Tom Hooper, the movie director. He asked for it because he thought the scene in which Jean Valjean realizes he loves Cosette after meeting her is important.

You can experience Les Miserables by watching the new musical movie with its new features, the normal movie or the musical or by reading the book. You may feel bored from the long running time of the movie because of the vast amount of stories, but if you are patient, you will be rewarded. If you take the time to understand all the scenes, figures, and historical background, you will able to feel the depth and power of Les Miserables. If you do this, you will be ready to understand the inspiration for the story and the meaning of the title: miserable people, poor people. Then, Let’s see.