Cheob-sok

This is an interesting movie. On one side you have a music producer who received an lp from someone in his past. He decided to play the song on his radio program. On the other side, you have a tv shopping network telemarketer out for a night drive and while listening to the song played by the music producer she found herself in a road accident. The song by the velvet underground took new meaning for Soo-hyun and she emailed a request. Dong-hyun, the producer, met Soo-hyun through chatting. Later as they shared stories and problems they realized that each one was entangled in a love triangle (past and present).

One might think that this film seems familiar when compared with some foreign box office hits. However, I enjoyed the most its attention to tensions in conversations, how the characters' actions and facial expressions revealed what they did not want to know and did not want others to know. The film also focused on scenes depicting the characters in the same place but not seeing each other (literally and symbolically). A play on its title, contact.

In the last scene, some members of the audience could not believe at what's happening (shots before the film's end). Some would verbalize their thoughts on the matter. I guess they felt the tension and urgency of the scene. I think that is the beauty of the last scene. I guess you just have to see it and judge for yourself.

This is the feature film debut of actress Do-yeon Jeon who went on to win best actress by unanimous decision for her role in Secret Sunshine at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. If you are a fan of her work you should definitely see The Contact. It's not a great film but her performance in it makes it more than worthwhile.

The Contact is the story of two people, each involved in their own forlorn love triangles, who meet on the Internet and slowly build a friendship acting as advice-givers to one another. They share the same space on screen several times without knowing it because neither one knows what the other looks like. Comparisons have been made to You've Got Mail which came out a year after The Contact, but beyond the, uh ... internet connection, there's not much else in common. You've Got Mail was a romantic comedy, which suited the actors starring in it, while this film sports a somber quality, more suited to the actors starring in it. Do-yeon Jeon has a wistful glamor about her that comes from the inside, and Suk-kyu Han, who plays the male lead, has a "woe is me" air about him that is not the least bit amusing and comes off as a little introspectively self-important.

There is about three minutes of (in)-action just before the end of this film in which you will hate Han's character for the decision he seems to be making and the effect it has on Jeon's character. If there were a little more plot substance to account for his inaction, well ... there'd be a little more plot substance.

It's substance that this film lacks in the overall, especially in Han's character. He's a radio show producer who is always being reprimanded for inserting 20 minute songs into the playlists. He receives an anonymous package one day that contains a Velvet Underground album which becomes the link between our protagonists. Han is convinced his long lost love sent it to him but doesn't know why. He plays "Pale Blue Eyes" from the album and receives a request via the internet the following night for the same song, and that's how he connects with Jeon.

Han contacts the person, Jeon, who made the request, hoping it is his old flame or someone who knows her and made the request on her behalf. Jeon lies and says she knows the person Han is looking for. As that little fiction plays out, so do the characters' back stories.

Han's long lost love broke up with him many years ago and fell for his best friend, an army buddy. When the army buddy is killed in an accident, Han thinks the girl will come running back to him, (now that the competition is dead!) but Han is somehow implicated in the cause of the accident and a tangled web is weaved. Han also deals with internal office politics complicated by a beautiful woman who becomes his main writer for the radio show and an emotional distraction.

Jeon, on the other hand, marches forward emotionlessly after her unrequited true love falls for her best friend and roommate instead of her. While Jeon's love triangle plays out a little more interestingly than Han's, it's the emotionlessness of her character, which isn't cold and unkind, but sympathetic and sad, manifested in her inability to cry, that we come to focus on. In a train wreck of plot development, Jeon is driving her car the night Han first plays "Pale Blue Eyes." She witnesses a terrible accident, but it is the song, not the tragedy, that almost makes her cry. Hence her request to hear the song again. She wants to cry.

The Korean film's plot was made more complicated to this viewer, as train tickets, movie stubs, and other written materials are passed around without translation. Even without a good story or all the facts to go on, I was swept away by Jeon's portrayal of a woman who wants to find love but must discover first what it might look like. She's a tremendously skilled and nuanced actress. I recommend this film for those looking for a night of romance rental theater or a romantic character-study piece.

This is plain melodrama with computer and cool young man - woman. Interesting, worth to see, but not great movie. You've seen such a melodrama for a long time.

This film swept the Corean Grand Bell awards (Corea's in-country equivalent to the US' Oscars) when it was released in 1997. The story is about two lonely late-twenty/early-thirty types and the new craze that was then "The Internet". Something like a romantic drama version of the film You've Got Mail released a year later, the film sets up unrequited loves and two people who are lonely because they are unable to move on.

The two are connected through a record that the man plays, a Velvet Underground song that was a gift from his ex. As their friendship develops, they confront each other regarding their own current states and slowly begin to realize that even though they'd only met electronically (although they'd actually physically been very near each other a couple times without realizing it--think Chungking Express), that their friendship is more meaningful than they realized, Internet or no internet.

In some sense, the film is about connecting with people in loneliness, even through the internet, to find healing for your own ongoing situations. The themes of the film are just fine. The production is top notch for the state of the Corean film industry in 1997. The acting was good.

However, the film still failed to fully impress on me and I attribute it to the somewhat excessive story--or perhaps editing. The film spends a little too much time on the male lead's angst, which isn't expressed through action, but a lot of inaction. So we get the typical "gee, i'm reflecting on how my life sucks" shots far too frequently. The other problem is that the film doesn't adequately develop the characters relationship such that the end is particularly rewarding.

The end effect of the film is "oh, it's nice." But nice doesn't make a film worth watching again. The Contact has a lot going for it in terms of explorations of loneliness, unrequited love, letting go, and connecting with others as well as capable direction in terms of developing a moody atmosphere befitting the characters, as the camera traces lonely halls and corners of rooms, but in the end, the story isn't particularly compelling. Or maybe it was just me. It's an okay film; you won't hate yourself for watching it. But at the same time, it's certainly not a must watch.

On the other hand, it did get me interested in The Velvet Underground. It's an all right film. 6/10.

This was the first korean movie I ever saw and I admit I loved it at that time. For once it was fitting my own situation quite perfectly... I found my match through the internet and she sent me that movie. In Germany they bought the rights and made a (bad - like most remakes see Nikita or three man and a baby) "copy" of it. When "You've got Mail" came out I only thought that the American one was a poor and boring remake of that lovely and romantic piece of art that "The Contact" is.