I liked this beautifully photographed Korean thriller, which is on many top ten lists and is somehow both languid and stirring. Park Hae-il plays a driven, insomniac detective, Lee Jung-hyung is his lovely (in every way) wife, and Tang Wei is the beautiful, mysterious widow of the murder victim in the detective's case. She says several times, "I am Chinese so my Korean is insufficient," and the actress is indeed Chinese. Pay attention, because there's a lot of detailed dialogue in the subtitles.
Director Park Chan-wook works from a script co-written by him and Chung Seo-kyung. The widow utters the words "decision to leave" about 2/3 of the way through. The composer's name, listed as Cho Young-wuk in the movie, has a myriad of English spellings on imdb, and the last track of his evocative score, repeated for over an hour as far as I can tell, can be streamed on YouTube under the name Joe and the Soundtrackings.
Cinematographer Kim Ji-yong's gorgeous images include lots of mirrors and inventive framing. You'll have plenty of time to appreciate the images in its 2:18 running time.
None of the filmmakers above has made an appearance in this blog, though all are accomplished. Tang starred in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (2007), which I did see when it was new.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics have decided to stay, averaging 94%, and its audiences, at 88, are mostly lingering as well.
I watched it on Amazon Prime Video on December 17.
No comments:
Post a Comment