Baramnan gajok

This is less of a movie than a very extended soap opera. An apparently conscientious young Korean attorney has an affair while his sexually frustrated wife goes looking elsewhere for fulfillment. Apparently he's lousy in bed since both of his women seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in post-coital masturbation. Meanwhile his mother finds love elsewhere as his father lies dieing while his young and tasty assistant yearns for the day when she can make his triangle a square. Altogether it provides a fascinating insight into Korean society, that being - they're just like Americans - or maybe, more specifically, just like Manhattanites - those in Sex and the City, for example.

If this movie has anything deeper to say than "get it while you can" it keeps it well hidden. The tragedy which brings the attorney's marriage - and the movie - to its inevitable conclusion seems to have nothing to do with the plot other than to provide it with a convenient resolution. Still its refreshing to see sexual relationships, marital and otherwise, portrayed in such a frank and nonjudgmental manner. Pity that the film continued about 45 minutes beyond the point that I stopped caring.

Apart from the interlocking network of relationships (which is complex enough), this film raises and deals with some interesting themes around grief, marital dissatisfaction, mental illness, modern parenting and others.

I'm not really sure I'd describe it as a "comedy" although perhaps some of the gross-out scenes with the grandfather and postman are supposed to be read that way? In any case, the acting is mostly pretty good and the central performance from Moon So-ri is excellent.

As others have noted, the dialogue and content is very frank but if you are ready for that you'll find some interesting depth here also. Recommended.

When a woman by the name of "Eun Ho-jung" (So-ri Moon) isn't busy raising an adopted son named "Joo Soo-in" (Joon-yeong Jang) she also has been tasked to take care of her father-in-law who is extremely ill due to alcoholism. Needless to say, these duties leave very little time for Eun to spend on herself and as a result she becomes bored and lonely. Little does she know that her husband "Joo Young-jak" (Jung-min Hwang) is having an affair with another woman and because of that he spends very little time satisfying her sexual needs. This causes her to become quite sexually frustrated as well. But that all changes one night when she notices a voyeur spying on her while she is at home and totally naked. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an okay South Korean drama which, surprisingly, includes a number of scenes involving sex and nudity. Unfortunately, the lack of good character development caused a bit of confusion for me at times and gave the film a rather shallow feel in the process. At least, that is how it seemed to me. In any case, despite the criticism just mentioned I didn't think that this was necessarily a bad film overall and because of that I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Right, well the concept idea behind the 2003 South Korean drama "Baramnan Gajok" (aka "A Good Lawyer's Wife") from writer and director Im Sang-soo sounded interesting. And thus, I sat down to watch the movie here in 2023, as I happened to stumble upon it by random chance.

But what seemed interesting in the synopsis was a snooze-fest of epic proportions. It was a sluggish narrative that offered nothing interesting to the audience. And running at 104 minutes, it is a massive struggle to sit through "Baramnan Gajok".

The character gallery was mundane and you don't care one bit about any of the character on the screen as they prance through the irrelevant narrative. I am sure that the actors and actresses on the cast list were talented, but they virtually had nothing to work with here.

"Baramnan Gajok" was a swing and a miss, and it is not something I would recommend for fans of the South Korean cinema to sit down and watch. Some of us suffered through this, literally, so you don't have to.

My rating of "Baramnan Gajok" lands on a two out of ten stars.

This movie was simply too much of all the wrong things. Too many people deliberately hurting each other. Too much (way too much) explicitly sexual scenes. Too many plots that were left undone. Even the end was too vague. The ending left me wondering about so many things and overall wishing they put gave more depth to each character.