#Seo kyeong Jeong

[genevieveetguy]

Decision to Leave (Heojil kyolshim), Park Chan-wook (2022)

[shesnake]

that vote was the last bit of autonomy shiv had, she will never hold that much power in her hands ever again and so she Decided to Leave by staying. chained

[brokehorrorfan]

Decision to Leave will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 10 via Mubi. The 2022 South Korean romantic mystery thriller is currently available on Digital and streaming on Mubi.

Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker) directs from a script he co-wrote with frequent collaborator Jeong Seo-kyeong (The Handmaiden, Lady Vengeance). Tang Wei and Park Hae-il star.

Special features are listed below, where you can also watch the trailer.

Special features:

Introduction by Tang Wei and Park Hae-il

Interview with director/co-writer Park Chan-wook

NYFF Talks: Park Chan-wook

Moments of Decision to Leave - Making-of featurette

Behind the Scenes in Cannes featurette

VFX reel

From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei) may know more than she initially lets on. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, Hae-joon finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire, proving that the darkest mysteries lurk inside the human heart.

Pre-order Decision to Leave.

[cicerobussytransplant]

a thing im trying to be more mindful of when talking about movies is trying to remember that it's a collaborative project, more so than other mediums, and that something is lost if anything good/bad is attributed exclusively to the director.

like it makes sense to some extent to give credit to the person who oversees the whole deal, but a lot of individual creativity and talent really gets lost in the shuffle. and it is more useful when discussing how somebody's filmography has evolved to sort of keep track of how the crew ~shifts and what that means for a movie's many moving parts

[addictivecontradiction]

아가씨, 2016

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/12/2022: THIRST (2009)

As I have a healthy respect for Park Chan-wook, I was embarrassed to realize that I couldn't really remember very much about this movie. Even when I've found his movies less successful emotionally or narratively speaking, they usually leave a stamp with their images and atmosphere. In my attempt to rectify the gap I had with THIRST, I remembered that there is just something about the whole movie and its motivations that eludes me. This may or may not be my fault.

Park Chan-wook's adaptation of the oft-adapted Emile Zola novel Thérèse Raquin, which he wrote for the screen with frequent collaborator Jeong Seo-kyeong, concerns a Catholic priest whose drive toward martyrdom accidentally renders him a vampire. Beset by ennui, Sang-hyun (the great Song Kang-ho) subverts his suicidal impulses into a more noble-sounding act of self-sacrifice, participating in an experimental vaccine test for the treatment of an Ebola-like virus. This nearly kills him, but he suddenly revives when he receives a blood transfusion—and thereafter he learns with horror that he has to keep drinking blood to continue staving off the virus. Though Sang-hyun feeds only on comatose hospital patients to avoid terrorizing or killing anyone, this doesn't totally cure him of his guilt, and he feels worse still when his "miraculous" recovery makes him into an involuntary faith healer with a powerful psychosomatic effect on his congregation. One of his new "patients" is an old friend, Kang-woo (Shin Ha-kyun), who lives with his overbearing mother Mrs. Ra (Kim Hae-sook) and his wife, the sullen, seductive Tae-ju. Soon, Tae-ju tells Sang-hyun that she was adopted as an orphan by Mrs. Ra, and she has been treated like a slave by the family all her life—especially by the sickly and feeble-minded Kang-woo, who does all sorts of perverted, sadistic things to her. With Sang-hyun and Tae-ju's inevitable affair comes the revelation that he is a vampire, and when Tae-ju witnesses his supernatural strength, she convinces him to kill her husband. The traumatic experience of the murder weakens the couple's bond, and Sang-hyun tries to resolve this by turning Tae-ju into a vampire, but this changes her into a remorseless monster—though perhaps she already was, as it turns out Kang-woo had never victimized her at all.

So that's a mouthful right there. On the one hand, THIRST is a familiar story about the moral conflicts of the vampire, wherein the monster clings to his humanity by "rescuing" his lover from her torment, and feeding in what he considers to be the least harmful way. There, Catholicism is leveraged to emphasize the guilt felt by the sinful creature that was once a man. On the other hand, we have a tawdry melodrama about a pair of selfish lovers who sacrifice another person to their forbidden affair, only to realize that their relationship can't bear the weight of their crime. There are connective threads throughout the piece: Intermittently, someone opines bluntly that suicidal ideation and ambitions of martyrdom are essentially the same. Occasionally, characters debate each other about whether an afterlife is possible, or whether death is the end. In the beginning, Sang-hyun notes the psychosomatic reactions of the faithful who beg him for healings, and then after the murder, he and Tae-ju struggle to convince themselves that the mocking apparition of Kang-woo that ruins their sex life is all in their minds. However, repetition of ideas doesn't always equal coherence, and I'm not sure all of these various philosophical musings really add up to a unified statement about anything.

While these diverse themes compete for dominance, the most consistent thing about THIRST is that it is intensely repulsive. In a way, this is refreshing for the vampire subgenre, which is so often sexy and elegant. Diseased blisters, peeling fingernails, bloody vomit, gnarly acts of flagellation, the snot-smeared Kang-woo sweating and farting and humping air, and even Sang-hyun's relatively sanitary method of feeding all make for an extremely queasy two hours and thirteen minutes. Sure there's a lot of steamy sex in the middle, but somehow, this tends to make the experience all the more noxious. Maybe that's part of the director's point—that we're supposed to participate in Sang-hyun's guilt (however wavering that guilt may be), that moral revulsion is the main mood here. But still, it was hard for this viewer to determine who she is meant to care about, and what she's supposed to hope will happen to them. Sang-hyun is a pious fop and a hypocrite who condemns others for their suicidal thoughts, while using the loophole of martyrdom to justify his own self-destructive urges. Tae-ju is at once infantile, and also cold and cruel, which we forgive when we think she's being abused—though that delusion is soon dispelled, and we're just left wondering what her problem is.

The Zola novel on which this is based met with disgust upon its debut, being called "putrid" by one prominent critic, so maybe all this ickiness is an appropriate way to honor the source material. Still, I'm not sure what Park Chan-wook is driving at, if THIRST isn't just a grand demonstration of abject cynicism. The moral conflict that he explores so deftly in his Vengeance trilogy seems to be replaced here by pure disillusionment. Familial love is rotten and incestuous, romantic love is just selfish ego-stroking, self-sacrifice is an act of vanity, and the body that gives and gets orgasms also produces pus, blood, mucus, and gas, while taking sustenance from the suffering of other living creatures. Sure, the movie is beautiful and inventive visually, aided by great performances from the ensemble, but I'm not sure what it ultimately wants from me. It's funny, sometimes when I see a movie that is populated by unlikable cretins and fueled by misanthropy, those things are exactly what I love about it. Other times, I can't tell what I'm supposed to get out of all that bitterness and loathing. THIRST, despite its creative pedigree, falls into the latter category.

[stuff-diary]

Decision To Leave

Movies watched in 2023

Decision To Leave (2022, South Korea)

Director: Park Chan Wook

Writers: Chung Seo Kyung & Park Chan Wook

Mini-review:

Park Chan Wook is probably my favorite director, so you can imagine how excited I was about Decision To Leave, with it being his first movie in 6 years. And, of course, he doesn't disappoint. Sure, it's definitely not at the level of his best movies, but it's still a great film in pretty much every way. It may take its time when setting up the story and the characters, but it's never boring because the acting, the directing and the writing are masterful. Tang Wei and Park Hae Il give spectacular performances, and it's obvious that Park Chan Wook had a lot of fun making this movie. I admit the storyline was much more simple and straightforward than I expected, but maybe that's what allowed the director to experiment and play around with the cinematography, the editing and the structure of the scenes. All this results in a visually fascinating movie.

I seriously hope it doesn't take 6 more years for Park Chan Wook to release another movie.

[bookwormlily]

"This is too dark." "But still, you're pretty."

Decision To Leave, Park Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-kyeong

[thebutcher-5]

I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK

Benvenuti o bentornati sul nostro blog. Nello scorso articolo abbiamo deciso di parlare nuovamente di horror, spostandoci in Spagna e discutendo di un’opera affascinante ossia Marrowbone. La storia parla di questa famiglia che si trasferisce dall’Inghilterra agli Stati Uniti e vanno ad abitare in una casa isolata. Qui si nascondono da qualcuno o qualcosa e riescono a passare dei momenti felici,…

[screenzealots]

"Decision to Leave"

DECISION TO LEAVE's complex storytelling and stunning visuals elevate this haunting noir tale of obsession, desire, and murder.

This film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival Director and co-writer Park Chan-wook‘s “Decision to Leave” is a slow-burn story of obsession, desire, and murder. This richly layered noir film offers a stylish homage to Hitchcock thrillers with its impressive visuals and intricate storytelling. Detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) is assigned to a potential murder case after a man…

[steveyockey]

park chan-wook and jeong seo-kyeong took a story about love between two women freeing them from sexual exploitation, set it in japanese occupied korea, and made the main villain a korean man masquerading as japanese who believes in the righteous subjugation of his own country and people and who forces his own japanese niece to subjugate herself to him so he can at last truly “become” japanese through her degradation. the patriarchy and the empire act as one. fighting for women and fighting against imperialism must go hand in hand

[filmnoirsbian]

how is the handmaiden made by queer people? don’t get me wrong, it’s one of my favorite films of all time, but i didn’t think either park chan-wook or jeong seo-kyeong were remotely queer

It's based on a lesbian book written by a lesbian

[shesnake]

Park Chan-wook on The Handmaiden co-writer Chung Seo-kyung's "queer friend"

[rosyfingered-moon]

2023 drama roundup

Unchained Love: I still hum the unhinged flute intro on a regular basis, easily my fave intro of 2023! I didn't actually finish the show due to dwindling interest, but for the first 14 episodes or so I took a keen pleasure in it (and it made me go on a eunuch webnovel spree, expertly curated by @mercipourleslivres). I love it when heroines are allowed to be truly funny, rather than just quirky or ditzy. Also appreciate the goofy Lamp Prince turning into a brutal incel tyrant the moment he got power.

Six Flying Dragons: I don't think I can write anything succinct enough for the roundup format so I direct you to my "my sfd tag" if you want to access my enthused livetweeting. Show of all times, lives were changed.

Tree with Deep Roots: I literally can't think of a better topic for a tv show than Sejong the Great constructing hangul together with his band of nerds, one of whom he has a weirdly intense, vaguely erotic relationship with. Han Suk-kyu carried this entire show on his trembling shoulders. What an actor! What range!!! It was such a treat to watch him smugly debate his ministers, roleplay a farmer, and hiss half-mad soliloquies to himself in the dark. It took nuance and depth to portray the kind of inner conflicts and generational trauma that Sejong battles in the background of this drama. To be honest I didn't always enjoy the Milbon subplot which I felt got repetitive, and often found myself wanting to fast-forward the wuxia scenes. In a better world the show would have centered the whip-smart palace maids and their alphabet workshops. But I will definitely rewatch this soon. And maybe also write a fix-it where Sejong and Soo-yi fuck idk.

Quartet: Cute little murder mystery about a found family of freaks, liked it a lot.

My Country: The New Age: As entertaining as ever. Very fun to rewatch this back to back with Tree with Deep Roots, since Jang Hyuk plays diametrically opposite characters with the same vigor and commitment.

Gone with the Rain: Sometimes you watch something which you understand is technically a masterpiece but it doesn't do anything for you, and sometimes you watch a piece of campy silly fun and it makes you tingle with joy. This was the latter category for me. I liked the first and middle parts enough to make up for the lukewarm fizzle of an ending.

The Autumn Ballad: Has some fucked up elements that are difficult to stomach, but the parts that are good are really good.

Not Others: Bingeable! But imo they could have cut out the stalker/murder cases and just focused on the excellent family drama.

The Matchmakers: This surprisingly swooped in towards the end of the year as my favorite comedy of 2023, all thanks to a rec by @haraxvati. I adore Cho Yi-hyun in this role!!! She is so hot as a shrewd matchmaker with a fake mole and a twinkle in her eye. Love the virgin prince with his yearning-induced panic attacks (Rowoon didn't work for me in The King's Affection in a quite similar role, but he's so much weirder and lamer here, which is something I like in a man). I am obsessed with the side plot of the crossdressing romance novelist and the solemn police officer who is trying to capture her and ends up giving her free home renovations and smouldering looks instead. Also, Park Ji-Young and Lee Hae-Young are two of my favorite villain actors on their own, and here they are married!! Still have a few episodes to go, but I intend to binge them as soon as I post this.

Dramas I dropped or paused:

Our Blossoming Youth: I shipped the heroine and her cute maidservant a little too much to bear the dull prince they stuck her with. But I might rewatch it some day bc I want to write a Sherlock Holmes fic for the girls.

Little Women: A real disappointment, because I love Louisa May Alcott and I love Jeong Seo-kyeong. Once again, letting the women kiss might have solved much of it.

Island: Casting Kim Nam-gil as an expressionless cool-guy action hero offends me personally. (Yes Song of the Bandits I'm giving you the stinky eye also.) But Lee Da-hee and Cha Eun-woo were delightful!

See you in my 19th life: I couldn't, even for my most darling Shin Hye-sun, go beyond episode 1. There's something about a kid dating another kid even though she's a literal adult inside her brain that I can't really vibe with.

My Dearest: I do intend to finish this, but I lost the thread after the first half. It got a little too dark for me I think.

[nine-frames]

"Then, die. And be born again. Over and over if you need to."

친절한 금자씨 (Chinjeolhan Geumja-ssi / Sympathy for Lady Vengeance), 2005. Fade to Black and White Version.

Dir. Park Chan-wook | Writ. Jeong Seo-kyeong & Park Chan-wook | DOP Chung Chung-hoon

[filmcompanion]

Park Chan Wook + Jeong Seo-kyeong when making The Handmaiden (2016): juxtaposes objectification with genuine representation of sex, in a way Sarah Waters said is true to her novel Fingersmith that the film took inspiration from. Male entitlement is rejected as violent and unwanted a contrast to love between women being embraced as a means for liberation. Films sex between two women as actual sex - the full-bodied, passionate union between two people, without objectifying the women by keeping a distant, neutral frame that has the body parts men want to leer at out of focus. Shows women having active desire for each other, with love and sex being two sides of the same coin for those characters, as a contrast to men's cold view of women as objects. Uses abundant POV shots and spends a multitude of scenes building up the sexual tension and emotional intimacy before going explicit. Fills the scenes with narrative motifs and symbolism, emphasizing Hideko and Sookhee as equals despite their class disparity, as well as creating the imagery that two women can fulfill each other without a man. Focuses on the women's faces, includes dialogue and lots of humor. The scenes sex are literally so emotionally charged and revolutionary for the characters they are ready to change their entire life course after - it's the only time they can be completely honest with each other, and that emotional journey is conveyed. Writes Sookhee reclaiming the Count's fake fuckboy line of "spellbindingly beautiful" with literally the most genuine emotion after seeing Hideko's *****. Films cunnilingus as equivalent, or even superior, to penetration as a sex act. Asked an actual lesbian what sex would make sense to include in the movie, and from her request includes scissoring while making the point is it's an advanced sex move. Addresses the complexity that while men can objectify sex between women, the concept can at the same time be appealing to women and it's possible to reclaim it for yourself. Visually spells out that men thinking something is for them doesn't mean it is (their entitlement leads to the men literally dying). Explicitly dismantles pretty much all lesbian tragedy tropes with intent, such as suicide/death/torture/mental institution, lesbian relationships as inconsequential or ending in betrayal, lesbians having sex with or being objectified by men. Literally makes the whole movie about lesbians reclaiming narrative tropes used against them, and has them Win Everything with the most happy ending ever.

People with gender and film studies degrees who make a living out of writing intelligently about these topics: two women naked so for men :) only men like lesbian sex, please cut to black next time bc my brain cannot comprehend anything important happened, as I associate women having sex with p*rn and nothing else :) it's "performing" for men when it looks pretty! (in a movie something is Real and not performing when it looks Ugly). we as a society can only move on from the dichotomy of lesbian dehumanization as either desexualized or hypersexualized by diving all wlw media into the pure a-touch-of-your-hand-made-me-cry-alone-in-my-room-for-10-years with endlessly obsession about chaste Gazing from a distance versus the icky icky sex stuff that only men want to see!