Go-yang-i-leul boo-tak-hae

This fairly low-key drama that follows the lives of a group of young girls after they graduate from high school is well-crafted and affecting. The IMDB stats confirm what is only to be expected: namely that you will especially love this film if you're a twenty-something female.

Incidentally, the average standard of Korean film amazingly high. My own policy is that any time I get the chance to see a Korean film, I do so. Regardless of whether it is a thriller or a comedy or a drama, I'm rarely disappointed - what is on offer is often excellent, and scarcely ever less than okay.

A group of female school friends find their lives change when they all are out of education and either in jobs or looking for work. After coming together for a birthday party the friends start to drift apart. Hae-Joo heads to Seoul to take a job that quickly starts to take over her life while her other friends, feeling abandoned and separated are left to take stock of their relationships and lives. As the group starts to drift apart, Tae-Hee and Ji-Young start to become closer than they were and try to plan out their lives.

When a film is subtitled from a foreign language it is easy to praise it for being excellent when really it is just 'good'; likewise it is easy to want to see a film because of the country of origin and not on the merits of the film itself. Finally it is easy to forgive a foreign film for weaknesses or standards that we would frown upon in an American film. I don't know quite why this is – maybe because so few people see these films or it is hard to see them so we want to sound cine-literate and intelligent by seeing 'a great little foreign film', and maybe we blind ourselves to it a little – I know I do it, I loved Swiri when really it was just an enjoyable American-style action movie, nothing more. So with this film, I didn't sit to watch it because of the story but mainly because it was from South Korea and I have seen several from this country recently and liked them.

The IMDb reviews for this film generally fall into the trap of forgiving a film for things that you wouldn't forgive an American film for and, as such, are quite gushing on the whole. This is not to say that it is no good, but rather than it is only 'good' and not some wondrous piece of art! The plot is fairly loose and is more character driven than anything else and, in this way, it suits the style and tone that the film sets out very early on. The freewheeling film would have been better if the film had hit a more realistic and engaging script. The characters are OK but not all of the five or so main characters are easy to get to know – I ended up finding Tae-Hee easiest to care about and Hae-Joo the easiest to understand (mainly because her low-paid, hard-worked administrator is universally recognisable). The characters are still interesting and make for an OK tale about the difficult stage where school friends drift, the workplace takes over the majority of your hours and you find you life changing, but it is no more than good for the majority.

The script could have been much sharper and the characters much better written and this would have been a much better film as a result. At this point I will admit that perhaps I didn't get a lot of it due to not being aware of the culture that the characters were in but, to be honest, I think the story is fairly applicable across cultures with only maybe the influence of parental pressures having greater importance. The way the story heads in the final third also betrays what started as a pretty realistic picture of the life of the twenty year olds by going places that seem to have been done in the name of creating more narrative and dramatic flow. The script does manage to convey the chatter and general hustle-bustle of city life, with the use of text messaging, mobile phones and ring tones well done in capturing those still young enough to enjoy the world of pop ring tones while also finding themselves with the income to waste on them!

The cast mostly do well but the lion's share of the film is given to three actresses. Yu-won Lee is good but the script paints her a too-simple character in Hae-Joo and she is left to deliver the obvious rather than the insightful. As the heart of the group (or at least the story) Du-na Bae is likable and does well with conveying her mix of sadness, loss, hope and happiness. OK is unconvincing as Ji-young and is too difficult to get inside as a character. The Lee twins are used just as twins and have no meat on their characters at all – the film lets them drift in and out of view so easily that I wondered why it hadn't gone for a scaled down story and made it about 3 friends instead of 5. Director Jeong makes the film look and feel very interesting, with nice use of split screens and a clever display of text messages etc. Her collection of award winning shorts shows she has talent in this area but, like many directors of shorts, the step up to features has seen problems exposed that a short film, by their very nature, would conceal. The title and end credits are imaginative and enjoyable (even if the style at the end makes it hard to read any names – maybe bothering those that worked on it but not me, since they were all in Korean).

If my review sounds overly negative maybe I am accidentally overcompensating for the praise it has had from others. I did like the film but I must admit that it was quite weak in many regards. The basic plot works at the start but the writing is not good enough to sustain a character driven story, while later narrative twists just take away from what should have been a touching story set in reality. Worth seeing once as a coming of age story but not worthy of the praise it has garnered from some circles and not one I'll be rushing back to for a second viewing.

I was very impressed by this upon first viewing, a couple years ago, and boy does it hold up with the passage of time. This was Jeong's debut and it will be interesting to see what she comes up with next.

In this coming-of-age story set in a group of young women in a rather bleak and industrial Inchon, S Korea, Jeong doesn't attempt to duplicate the lushness of Naruse or the extraordinary technique of Ozu, but there's an elegance that recalls both - a real ability to look straight into the many subtle slights these women endure, along with the many moments of joy they create, and discover profundity in the everyday. The basic mechanics of the story seem (at first) simple, and the film seems very ethereal for the first 20 minutes or so, but it does coalesce into something quite memorable - the slow tempo and loping narrative makes it easy to overlook the subtle defiance and independence of spirit (and the quick moments of odd, deadpan humor) to be found underneath it all. In both look and feel, Jeong's work is of a piece with certain other leading figures in the current Asian cinematic new wave, and like the best examples of that new wave, Jeong creates a memorable style of her own.

Sweet but not sappy, occasionally tragic without sliding into gross manipulations - a film of great power. The Kino DVD looks great, no extras however.

33-year old director Jae-eun Jeong's Take Care of my Cat is a perceptive coming of age film about five young Korean women trying to cope with the transition from high school to the adult world. Though a bit overlong and somewhat disjointed, it is an honest work that avoids genre clichés of sex, drugs, and even boyfriends. The film received a major award at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2002, but did not gain proper recognition until its DVD release this year. The title refers to a stray kitten, Tee tee, which is passed between the five girls and, as circumstances pull their lives apart, serves as a connection between them. Set in the City of Inchon, the bleak working-class environment establishes the mood of the film. According to the director, "Inchon is a city with many immigrants who came during the war or in the 70s during industrialization. It is a city full of wanderers that matched my characters who were outsiders."

The girls are in constant movement. Whirling through the city on subways and buses between work, clubs, and restaurants, we get a sense of their optimism and energy. Programmed to play entire melodies, their cellphones ring constantly as the girls coordinate their meetings and activities. In a clever gimmick, the director floats the text messages on the screen, in bus windows, and building walls. While it took me a while to get to know each character, each one has a strong and distinctive personality and, by the end, I felt a part of their lives. Hae-joo (Yo-won Lee) is the most outgoing and self confident but can be self-absorbed and insensitive to others. Through connections made by her affluent family, she lands a job as an assistant in a brokerage firm.

Although aware of the fact that she is a "low-wage" earner without much of a future at the company, she becomes fashion-conscious, carries a Louis Vuitton bag, and is acutely conscious of her appearance, spending money on laser surgery for her eyes. When she moves to Seoul to advance her career, it further strains the relationship with the others. Ji-young (Ji-young OK) is the opposite, a soft-spoken, sensitive young woman who lives in the poorest section of town with her grandparents in a run-down shack and cannot find a good job. She lacks the means to develop her considerable potential as a designer artist and is prone to moods of sadness and withdrawal. Tae-hee, in an outstanding performance by Doo-na Bae, is the glue that holds the friendships together by arranging meetings and bringing people together.

Tae-hee works for her father in his traditional "hot-rock" healing spa and, in her spare time, types for a poet afflicted with cerebral palsy who has developed strong feelings for her. Twins Bi-ryu (Eun-shil Lee) and Ohn-jo (Eun-joo Lee) play minor roles as they try to scrape together a living hawking jewelry on the street but their characters seem included more for comic relief than to further the plot. The girl's world seems strange to the older generations but the harsh reality of survival is constant, their ambitions often at odds with the male-dominated society. Ji-young wants to be a textile designer but is unable to go to school, Hae-joo wants a respectable job in the business world, and Tae-hee dreams of escaping from the suffocating restrictions of her family, though recognizing that running away is "so tacky".

She comes into open conflict with her family in a restaurant when her traditional father, rather than admitting he can't read the menu, orders the most popular dish for everyone. Tension arises between Hae-joo and Ji-young when Hae-joo invites everyone to go on a shopping spree even though she knows that Ji-young may feel left out. Tae-hee is the most supportive and is there for Ji-young when tragedy strikes, willing to do whatever is necessary to support her. Take Care of my Cat has no peak dramatic moments, no plot contrivances that propel us toward certain emotional responses, only the sad undercurrent of the inevitability of change in a confusing world. Backed by the moody electronic sound track by Kim Jin-cheol and Byul, I found Take Care of my Cat to be a moving experience. Jae-eun Jeong does not provide easy answers as to the direction the girls will take, but, by avoiding cynicism, she allows us to see their life in terms of possibility.

'Take Care of My Cat' is a thoughtful, sensitive and perceptive look at the lives of a group of young Koreans living in Inchon (Seoul's port city) as they undergo the difficult transition from students to workers. The characters of the different girls, and the changing interactions between them, are depicted with considerable skill and subtlety, as the film observes how the proliferation of mobile phones in society has not necessarily eliminated loneliness, and explores the (neo-Loachian) idea of the difficulty in maintaining relationships that straddle class boundaries. For a European, the film also provides an interesting portrait of contemporary Korea; awash with modern technology, but nonetheless still suffering from a relatively impoverished urban environment. The details are convincing and fascinating; the themes universal and profound, yet the film makes its points lightly and with grace. The result is genuinely moving experience. Definitely recommended.