Haepi-endeu

An excellently performed movie about our age of the equality of the genders. If men lose their jobs and their wives have wild affairs can a man forever hold his horses? An original story with a touching motherly daddy who knows when enough is enough...

Great actors, interesting story, this could be a very good movie, at least for someone who like this genre. Unfortunately, pace was terrible. One of the worst movies' paces of all time. I don't mind slow burn movies but a movie of this particular genre (something like drama/romance/neo-noir) should be faster. A slow movie should have great cinematography, should raise philosophical issues or something like that. This is the story of a man whose wife is cheating on him. Not an art movie. No need for shots that doesn't serve the plot, this is not a magical Wong Kar Wai movie. As it was progressing, it was more frustrating. It was very difficult to watch. At some point, it took almost a minute for the leading character to open the refrigerator. Come on, what is this?

Someone more patient than me might like it.

The female actress playing ML's wife was extraordinary in her versatility: I saw her in other roles, she was pretty incredible in how varied the characters she interpreted were. The actor playing the husband was also incredible. I mean, when I have seen him in Old Boy I was stunned to see the difference, that was definitely impressive. The same could be said about the actor playing the lover.

This was an exceptional cast, and the director was also the guy that directed Somebody, which was one of my favorite dramas... talk about not knowing what you were going to get until the very and, and the writer/director pulling off a surprise ending.

This film has all the ingredients to be miysogynistic and that's one of the possible readings. And it's quite legitimate. But, in fact, it seems to be more about mysoginy and the consequence of misogynistic behaviour and its consequences. Not advocating them. Nobody gets what deserves in this one and there are more victims (but one of them is being that absolutely and more than others). But what seems to be some morale here is that after the act there's just no way back. Either you get your life broken or, even worse, you don't get even that. I watch a lot of Asian films latelly and most of them look like statements about gender antagonisms. And mostly, their outcome on the end is unpopular and brave. And out there for everyone to see what it looks like when you don't paint them in unrealistic colors. As it should be. This film has a dreadful conclusion but it must be seen for what it is. That's why it's good ...

I only recently realized that Jung Ji-woo also did the kdrama series Somebody... I can certainly see where the tendency to plot twist and surprising endings came from. Another similarity, I guess, is the sexually explicit nature of the work, and the way the sex was actually instrumental in conveying something about the atmosphere that would have been hard to show in other ways. In other words, this is really not a situation where the sex was instrumental or there for fan service purposes, in my opinion: it was part of the characterization. Not as central as in a movie like Lust, Caution, but still... not gratuitous, contrary to other comments I had read.