Mi-jo (played by Son Ye-jin) is the thirty-nine year old director of a dermatology clinic. This is in Korean age mind you. Going by international age, they’re all either thirty-seven or thirty-eight, depending on when their birthday is. Anyway Mi-jo is going on sabbatical soon, but mostly just hangs out with her best friends Chan-yeong (played by Jeon Mi-do) and Joo-hee (played by Kim Ji-hyun-II) who are also thirty-nine.
Advertisement
I’m not sure what exactly to call this kind of genre fiction- about a bunch of women in their thirties talking about nothing in particular. They drink alcohol. They think about going mountain climbing, but then drink more alcohol instead. They eat spicy rice cakes, just like when they were kids. But now they drink alcohol with it. They go to the orphanage where Mi-jo was adopted from. They drink alcohol. And so on and so forth.
“Thirty Nine” is innovative when it comes to contriving excuses for women in their late thirties to constantly drink alcohol. But beyond that the structure and style is quite antiquated. The big comedy scene in the middle comes from a case of mistaken identity when Mi-jo is accused of being the other woman in a love affair. This leads to another case of mistaken identity as we see that Mi-jo met her two best friends through an abortive attempt to locate her birth parents.
The fact that Mi-jo is adopted is played up a lot in the story despite almost never feeling relevant to the character. The adoption thing first comes in regards to some petty sniping with Mi-jo’s older sister Mi-hyeon (played by Kang Mal-geum), then the backstory, and then the orphanage. Yet Mi-jo herself acts almost completely indifferently to the subject. The plot device as well as Son Ye-jin‘s performance compares poorly to Lee Dong-wook of “Bad and Crazy” where the character’s being adopted is important to his characterization while not being the only interesting thing about him.
But to even imply that Mi-jo is an interesting character is going a little too far. Even after eighty minutes I’m still not sure why she’s so determined to go off on sabbatical. Early on Mi-jo narrates that she and her friends avoid marriages and kids because they probably won’t have either of those things. That’s fine, yet their alternate interests of obsessing about their appearance and going on trips are about as shallow and obligatory.
Review by William Schwartz
___________
“Thirty Nine” is directed by Kim Sang-ho-III, written by Yoo Yeong-ah, and features Son Ye-jin, Jeon Mi-do, Kim Ji-hyun-II, Yeon Woo-jin, Lee Moo-saeng, Lee Tae-hwan. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2022/02/16~Now airing, Wed, Thu 22:30 on tvN.
William Schwartz
Staff writer. Has been writing articles for HanCinema since 2012, having lived in South Korea since 2011. Started out in Gyeongju, then to Daegu, then to Ansan, then to Yeongju, then to Seoul, lived on the road for HanCinema’s travel diaries series in the summer of 2016, and is currently settled in Anyang. Has good tips for utilizing South Korea’s public bus system. William Schwartz can be contacted via william@hancinema.net. He also has a substack at williamschwartz.substack.com where he discusses the South Korean film industry in broader terms and takes suggestions for future movies to review.
[HanCinema’s Drama Review] “Thirty Nine” Episode 1 (2022/02/18)
Source: Laban Lang Philippines
0 comentários :
Post a Comment