re:mote voices

Title: So Cute [Gwiyeowo]
Cast: Seok-hun Kim, Jae-yeong Jeong, Ji-won Ye, Seon-woo Park, Hie-sun Park, Ji-seon Lee, Sun-Woo Jang
Director:Su-hyeon Kim

So Cute is about a girl who becomes involved with a man and his three sons. Soon-yi presumably being the "so cute" of the title, repeatedly wishes that all men will like her, and certainly the father and his three sons seem to be enamoured of her charms.

The father has a certain reputation for selling successful charms, particularly related to fertility. Though it turns out his ability stems from being able to take the woman into a secluded spot and take care of her himself. This is how he has a range of sons from different mothers. 963 and Dognose live with him, slobs and losers the pair of them. The father talks about his possessed penis, and how he is filled with a spirit - but recently the spirit seems to have left him. So Dognose brings Soon-yi to meet his father, with the hope that if he spends some time with her then the "spirit" will return.

To complicate matters we have So-So, who is no sooner out of prison for murder than he has killed again. The gang boss decides he can make up for it by evicting the father and his sons from their derelict apartments so they can be knocked down. However it turns out that So-So is also one of the man's various sons.

The film is chaotic, patchy and unpredictable. Following the man, his three sons and how Soon-yi becomes involved with all three of them. To a degree its about the what the characters tell the world and themselves, the deceptions that are supposed to make them feel better, but we see through. Soon-yi flirts and flits between them, enthusiastic and happy to enjoy all the activity that goes on around the decrepit apartments.

So Cute [Gwiyeowo] is written and directed by Su-hyeon Kim, who may be familiar from having been in the recent big Korean success Old Boy. Especially at the start of the film, Su-hyeon Kim seems to be influenced by Wong Kar Wai - which is more than just a "well they are both Asian directors" kind of comment. When we meet 963 he is riding about the city on his motorbike and providing a voice over narration, both of which recall Fallen Angels. Later the film perhaps has a dash of Last Life In The Universe thrown in there, with the edge of delirium and hallucination that creeps in at points.

so Cute is a curious film, which sort of leaves you bemused to start with, though gradually becomes just this quirky odd Korean film. My big problem with the film was perhaps the subtitles, which were patchy, used the wrong words, the wrong word order and the like. Which didn't especially reassure that we were getting the right idea from the text. Even just trying to check up on character names I’ve Soon-yi spelt two different ways from how it was in the subtitles, and the suggestion that 963's real name was actually something like "shithead".

On the whole, despite its problems, I enjoyed So Cute.