"If you want to paint, first lean how to drink," instructs the renowned Korean artist Jang Seung-up, in one passage from celebrated Korean director Im Kwon-Taek's (Chunhyang) new biopic of the artist, entitled Chihwaseon.

Born a common man without status, Seung-up was an unpolished, unkempt youth who taught himself technique and began his career making copies of the masters' work, before finding his own lyricism in his originals. His life was a defiant one, dominated by a raging temper and a penchant for women and alcohol.

Chihwaseon skillfully recreates Seung-up's life, while painting a larger-canvas portrait of a society permeated by social unrest and instability. It's a film to admire, chiefly for its aesthetic pleasures, including beautiful cinematography that captures the vast Korean landscapes as well as a close-up focus on Seung-up's intimate paintings. There's also a lead performance of intensity and passion by Choi Min-Sik.

But for all that's effective in the film, there's something about the human connection to Seung-up that seems distant; removed. I have no doubt the film captures his life and events with authenticity, but his passion doesn't quite connect with the audience. But I was remiss to feel much emotion for him, or to empathize with his life or work. All of the necessary plot elements are in place, including political and personal pressures that drove him to greatness. And at times, it does manage to be a large-scale epic with small intimate moments of power. But I felt strangely cold towards Seung-up, and it's difficult to say exactly why.

Chihwaseon is a beautiful film and worthwhile experience, but I was not engaged as I was in Ed Harris' Pollock, a similar film regarding a similar man. Though they both share a similar artist at their center and are composed of intense scenes of artistic creation, Pollock contains a deep sense of the artist as tortured soul, driven by demons to greatness, living a shell of a life while creating works of great beauty. His combativeness with long-suffering wife Lee Krasner (Oscar-winning Marcia Gay Harden) often fueled his work, and their "functional dysfunction" out of which greatness emerged led to scenes of excruciating tension.

Chihwaseon, in its own way, contains domestic scenes that are effective. But Seung-up is more or less on his own journey through the film, and though I admired Min-Sik's performance and the gorgeous art direction and physical mounting of the film, I felt little empathy and consider the film a great piece of technique, a lesser piece of humanity.