So, while still floating on my little cloud of happiness after watching Bros, there was a moment in it that stuck with me for… other reasons. It’s when Bobby talked about gay romance films like Call Me By Your Name, where the appeal is out of things not ending happily because mainstream audiences like seeing Gays be miserable. And while there’s some truth to that (same deal with white audiences and Black cinema; the depressing shit tends to get more pop traction), I feel like it leaves out a weird truth about romantic media: The better stories tend to be the ones that don’t end well. Mulholland Drive, Romeo & Juliet, Her, Phantom Thread, Being John Malkovich, Chasing Amy, Behind The Candelabra; either they end with the main couple not being together, or they are together despite how unhealthy the relationship is for them both.
Okay, I’m going with examples of the stuff I like here, and I could probably make another connection between that and my love for edgy shit… but that leaves out how these kinds of stories are just more interesting than the more idealistic romances. Maybe it speaks to the more toxic ways that affection can manifest in people, maybe it feels more realistic if it doesn’t have a happily-ever-after conclusion, or maybe we just like seeing fucked-up people find love as some perverse pat on the back that there’s still hope for us; whatever the case, there’s a certain pull to these stories. And the latest from Korean auteur Park Chan-wook falls into this same broad category.
On the surface, it has a similar premise to something like Basic Instinct, where our leading detective (Park Hae-il’s Hae-jun) is brought into a suspicious death case and starts to fall for the prime suspect (Tang Wei’s Seo-rae). However, where Basic Instinct is emphatically an erotic thriller, this leans more into old-fashioned romance; barely any skin, save for when Seo-rae shows some scratch marks on her leg, and the words “I love you” are never uttered. Well, not explicitly, at least.
More so than anything to do with direct lust, how the attraction manifests between Hae-jun and Seo-rae is a matter of obsession. Their topsy-turvy relationship is a refraction of the usual obsession to do with noir stories, where the detective’s need to catch the criminal becomes a life-consuming pursuit. Hae-jun himself definitely has that gene in his character make-up, and it’s extended into his home life as well, making for some particularly strained interactions with his wife (Lee Jung-hyun’s Jung-an). At times, it feels like a more serious take on Nicholas Angel from Hot Fuzz, where that insistence on holding onto this stuff has done a number on his ability to interact with people in anything resembling a healthy fashion. And as he sinks deeper into his want for Seo-rae, she starts to reciprocate in her own way.
It's basically a refinement and modernisation of older styles of cinematic storytelling for detective and romance stories, and that shows through in the use of technology in the film proper as well. Text messages and recorded voice memos play a large role in the plot progression here, along with prominent use of Apple Watches, and it manages to make the story feel modern without falling into the common trap of feeling trendy for the sake of it. Or worse, like a glorified paid advertisement.
The visuals help with that too, turning what could have been rather static conversations over text into proper cinema thanks to Kim Ji-yong’s vibrant cinematography and Kim Sang-bum’s smooth-as-butter editing and transitions. This goes beyond two hours, and yet between the frames and the slick pacing, it never sags at any point.
I’ll admit that I’m not as familiar with Chan-wook’s work as I probably should be, but this has most certainly sparked my interest in digging more into his filmography. It’s a romantic thriller that plays around with the modern conventions of its genre components, creating a truly compelling coupling between Park Hae-il and especially Tang Wei (2022 MVP contender right here) that says a lot about how easily the line between love and obsession can blur and, in its own way, become just as important for the health of the human heart.
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