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Yeom Jeong-ah
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[MOVIE REVIEW]Tak Jae-hoon far from 'Worst Guy'
![[MOVIE REVIEW]Tak Jae-hoon far from 'Worst Guy'](/kmovie_news/thumbnail/070830_Tak Jae-hoo_thumb.jpg)
For three minutes, actress Yum Jung-ah heats up the screen of her new movie "The Worst Guy Ever," wearing leather and fishnet stockings while executing a purposefully amateurish pole dance. . Yum said awkward sexy dancing wasn't an activity she was looking forward to. It took some prodding from costar Tak Jae-hoon to make her feel comfortable. "It took five or six hours to shoot and the costume was strange. It wasn't a situation where I was supposed to execute a good, sexy dance, but (rather) it was intentionally bad. And so I was embarrassed throughout and the filming was a bit difficult," Yum said at last Thursday's preview of the movie. "But with Tak Jae-hoon's support, I was able to act without much persuasion." Though one can hardly tell by Tak's negative reaction in the film, it wasn't the first time he'd seen this dance. It was actually a previous firsthand experience that inspired the comical dance. "When I was a newlywed, we danced a similar dance," Tak admitted. "I took that experience into account and suggested this idea." The pole dance is just one of the sequences that contrast Joo-yeon (Yum Jang-ah) and Seung-tae (Tak Jae-hoon), who decide to tie the knot after finding themselves together in bed on two separate nights of drinking. Friends for ten years, their first nights of newlywed life are enjoyable, but things quickly go sour and their marriage turns into a nightmare as they figure out they are completely incompatible. Joo-yeon feeds her husband nothing but ramen noodles and preservative-saturated food -- when she feeds him at all -- while filling the house with ugly furniture that Seung-tae thinks should belong in an antique museum. Perhaps such sentiments echo in the actor himself as Tak was quick to point out what he saw was a mistake in the title. "Right now, I seem to be holding the improper title of the 'Worst Guy Ever,' because in the movie, Yum Jung-ah comes across as the naughtier person, and so I asked on several occasions to change the title of the movie, but it never got done," Tak said. Meanwhile Joo-yeon thinks it's Seung-tae who is the antique relic as he spends more time with his books than with his wife, and drives her crazy with incessant nagging. To complicate matters, they each meet co-workers who seem to be their perfect matches and begin to have doubts about their marriage and their individual will. "I am married. I am married," is a line Joo-yeon repeats to herself as she finds herself swooning over a new co-worker, Jae-hoon (Shin Sung-rok). Seung-tae's predicament is similar as his career-oriented boss Mi-yun (Yoon Ji-min) is touched by his awkward kindness and goes on the offensive, ignoring him as he shouts reminders of his marriage. From being locked together in a wardrobe to engaging in a heated kiss, the extramarital relationships grow in intensity and the situations compound themselves until everything becomes a tangled mess. Eventually, every relationship falls apart and nobody is left the better. What does come through in the midst of this chaos is a shining starring debut role for Tak, who was charged with the responsibility of taking center stage. Though Tak has been in the Korean entertainment scene for over a decade, this movie marks his first major breakaway from singing and television appearances. "When I was offered the role, Yum Jung-ah was already cast," Tak said. "I felt a bit of a burden because she is such a good actor with plenty of experience and is a veteran in the field." But in the movie, the two stand as equals, matching each other punch for punch. "The first starring role has special significance to anyone. Beyond giving my full effort to the mere filming, I tried to draw upon my experiences and thoughts to enhance the film as a romantic comedy," Tak said. "I collaborated with the director (Son Hyun-hee) often, and it led to ideas like the pole dance scene and (Yoon's) yoga scene." While Tak holds his own among the cast, and even took a leading role in the development of the film, powerful cameo appearances often steal the spotlight from the regular cast. But they are also of the strengths of the movie, bringing explosive laughter into the theater just when the comedy seems to come to a lull. A cameo from Shin Hyun-joon, with whom Tak forged a tie on the set of the movie "Barefoot Gi Bong," delivers a hilarious performance as a flippant and perhaps mentally abnormal employee at the divorce registration center. Even Tak, who arranged most of the cameos, recognized the power and presence the short appearances had on the film. "It was nothing but fun when we were shooting the cameos, and I didn't think they would change the mood of the film as much as they did. If I had known this was going to happen, I don't think I would've used the cameo appearances," Tak joked. Comedian Kim Mi-ryeo delivers another stellar cameo performance as a sister-in-law who can't hide her contempt for Joo-yeon, especially when she starts to take a friendly card game too seriously. Several other cameos seem to emphasize the comedic dimension of the movie. Though classified as a romantic comedy, the movie in itself is short on romance and heavy on the comedy. The drama is difficult to believe -- seriously, what man would react to their wife's private pole dance by going to sleep? -- and some of the decisions made by the characters cannot be explained, even by the cast members themselves. "I couldn't understand how Jae-hoon could let Joo-yeon go so easily if he felt for her in such a way that he was willing to destroy a marriage and a family," Shin said, referring to one of the last sequences of the movie. If a believable romance movie is what you're looking for, "The Worst Man Ever" will fall short of expectations, but in the realm of non-stop laughter, the film delivers for the full 94 minutes. By Kim Kyu-heong
[DVD Review]Cost of courage is measured in tears
"The Old Garden" is a painful film. The audience has to watch a man suffer due to his political convictions until he hits rock bottom, knowing that history will roll right over him. The film is all the more uncomfortable because the lead character chooses impossible convictions as his destiny, while those around him get on with their lives. The film is an adaptation of the famous novel by Hwang Seok-young, a historical epic about the Gwangju Massacre, told through the life of a student activist. Although its subject matter is political, the story uses an emotional theme as its narrative vehicle. The film opens as Hyun-woo (played by Ji Jin-hee) is released from prison and learns that his lover has died while he was behind bars. He had been serving a 17-year sentence for admitting to a judge that he was a socialist. The movie them jumps back in time to the moment when the couple first met. The film moves between protest scenes and the peaceful countryside home where Hyun-woo hides under the care of Han Yoon-hee, an art teacher with whom he falls in love. Like Lim Sang-soo's other films, such as "The President's Last Bang" and "A Good Lawyer's Wife", this one looks at modern Korean history with a cynical eye, although there is nothing really sensational about the story itself. The film, unlike other Korean films about past political repression, refuses to turn itself into a political melodrama. It's neither sentimental nor does it deal with the massacre in a direct way. Instead it focuses on the emotional connection between Hyun-woo and Yun-hee to create the central part of the story, dealing in depth with the guilt they experience and the helplessness they feel as their loved ones suffer. The film is painful to watch because it is so apparent from the beginning that the characters do not survive their predicaments. Yun-hee dies, leaving a diary and a painting of her family that includes herself, her mother, Hyun-woo and their daughter. When he sees it Hyun-woo realizes that the life he wanted has vanished. Overall the film is undeniably Lim's; there is a wealth of cynicism. For example, he depicts a group of quasi-intellectuals sharing political gossip on campus by showing their big mouths moving across the screen like drifting balloons ― a scene that's both funny and sad. But perhaps the most captivating scene, which encapsulates the whole point of the film, is the expression that Hyun-woo has on his face when he looks up at the night sky, halfway through the film. He has just been released from prison and he comes out of a dinner with some of his embittered fellow activists. They have been expressing their pessimism about the current government. The look of loss and sadness in Hyun-woo's eyes is very moving. Lim had said that the film is about the insignificance of individual conviction, and there is no doubt that this is the message it conveys. "The Old Garden" is the story of a couple who were trying to be good people during bad times and learned the hard way that the price of their courage and resistance is their own lives. "The Old Garden" Directed by Lim Sang-soo Starring: Ji Jin-hee, Yeom Jeong-ah Running Time: 112 minutes Subtitles: English Genre: Drama
