this is the voice of re:mote induction.Saturday, August 21, 2004
One To Watch: Take Care Of My Cat
BBC2 Wednesday 11.50pm
Korean film on UK TV this week, worth watching.
-review from when i saw it in the cinema...
Title:
Goyangileul Butaghae [Take Care Of My Cat]
Starring:
Du-na Bae, Yu-won Lee, Ji-young Ok, Eung-sil Lee, Eun-ju Lee
Director:
Jae-eun Jeong
I am suspecting that the direct translation of Goyangileul Butaghae from Korean is probably not Take Care Of My Cat, but that is the title this film has been given in English, and it must have been fairly deliberate given the way it is integrated into the title sequence. Take Care Of My Cat starts with five girls on their last day of school, having a great time. However the film follows how quickly they drift apart after school. While there are 5 girls the twins are secondary to the core story, turning up to complete the group at get togethers and to witness scenes to be reported to the other girls. Which leaves the other 3 as the main characters.
Hye-ju gets an office job, all dressed up in her smart suit and struggling hard to please from her bottom rung. Despite being low on the pecking order it is still a better job than any of her friends, so by their standards she is making a lot of money, and she is never available. From the start it is clear that she is selfish, as one of the other girls puts it she has something of a "princess syndrome". Which seems to be the source of much of the friction, especially with Ji-young, who used to be her best friend. Ji-young wants to be a textile student and spends a lot of her spare time making designs. But her parents have died and left her with her elderly and poor grandparents. This puts Ji-young at the opposite end of the scale from Hye-ju. For Hye-ju's birthday Ji-young gives her a kitten she has found and while Hye-ju takes it initially she soon throws it back at her friend. From there things escalate to the point where they seem more like enemies than friends, with Ji-young's life getting worse all the time besides.
Caught between the two is Tae-hie, who works in her father's hot stone practice most of the time and helps a poet with Cerebal Palsy the rest of the time. As the one who is always trying to get the group together she is particularly distressed by the emergent frictions. Which coupled with her restlessnes starts to express itself with a certain frustration. Keeping track of the cat, when Ji-young's life becomes too complicated the only person that is there for her is Tae-hie, so in turn she takes care of the cat for Ji-young. Following that a resolution is attained, one which sees the cat move again, reaching the carefree and bubbly twins at last.
Some describe the five girls as being illustrations of the various levels of women in Korean society, personally I don't enough to comment on that, though it is a curious idea. In narrative terms the film keeps reasonably upbeat thanks to the young cast, despite the darker side of the story that is included. Visually the film stock is clearly of good quality, which comes across in the colour and vividness of what we are seeing. With that there are some nice tricks, which bring comparison to the last Asian film I saw - All About Lily Chou-Chou, things like the text messages the girls are always sending each other appearing on the screen, either as representations of a mobile screen, or scrolling text in the background.
As was evident from the couple of people that left half way through this is perhaps not a film for everyone. But certainly gives an insight into a contemporary culture and the differences that 5 characters can have in the way they go about things once they are outside school.
RVWR: PTR
April 2003
BBC2 Wednesday 11.50pm
Korean film on UK TV this week, worth watching.
-review from when i saw it in the cinema...
Title:
Goyangileul Butaghae [Take Care Of My Cat]
Starring:
Du-na Bae, Yu-won Lee, Ji-young Ok, Eung-sil Lee, Eun-ju Lee
Director:
Jae-eun Jeong
I am suspecting that the direct translation of Goyangileul Butaghae from Korean is probably not Take Care Of My Cat, but that is the title this film has been given in English, and it must have been fairly deliberate given the way it is integrated into the title sequence. Take Care Of My Cat starts with five girls on their last day of school, having a great time. However the film follows how quickly they drift apart after school. While there are 5 girls the twins are secondary to the core story, turning up to complete the group at get togethers and to witness scenes to be reported to the other girls. Which leaves the other 3 as the main characters.
Hye-ju gets an office job, all dressed up in her smart suit and struggling hard to please from her bottom rung. Despite being low on the pecking order it is still a better job than any of her friends, so by their standards she is making a lot of money, and she is never available. From the start it is clear that she is selfish, as one of the other girls puts it she has something of a "princess syndrome". Which seems to be the source of much of the friction, especially with Ji-young, who used to be her best friend. Ji-young wants to be a textile student and spends a lot of her spare time making designs. But her parents have died and left her with her elderly and poor grandparents. This puts Ji-young at the opposite end of the scale from Hye-ju. For Hye-ju's birthday Ji-young gives her a kitten she has found and while Hye-ju takes it initially she soon throws it back at her friend. From there things escalate to the point where they seem more like enemies than friends, with Ji-young's life getting worse all the time besides.
Caught between the two is Tae-hie, who works in her father's hot stone practice most of the time and helps a poet with Cerebal Palsy the rest of the time. As the one who is always trying to get the group together she is particularly distressed by the emergent frictions. Which coupled with her restlessnes starts to express itself with a certain frustration. Keeping track of the cat, when Ji-young's life becomes too complicated the only person that is there for her is Tae-hie, so in turn she takes care of the cat for Ji-young. Following that a resolution is attained, one which sees the cat move again, reaching the carefree and bubbly twins at last.
Some describe the five girls as being illustrations of the various levels of women in Korean society, personally I don't enough to comment on that, though it is a curious idea. In narrative terms the film keeps reasonably upbeat thanks to the young cast, despite the darker side of the story that is included. Visually the film stock is clearly of good quality, which comes across in the colour and vividness of what we are seeing. With that there are some nice tricks, which bring comparison to the last Asian film I saw - All About Lily Chou-Chou, things like the text messages the girls are always sending each other appearing on the screen, either as representations of a mobile screen, or scrolling text in the background.
As was evident from the couple of people that left half way through this is perhaps not a film for everyone. But certainly gives an insight into a contemporary culture and the differences that 5 characters can have in the way they go about things once they are outside school.
RVWR: PTR
April 2003
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