Ditto
Director: Kim Jeong-kwon
Year: 2000
Rating: 7.0
Country: Korea
This one made me feel a little gooey inside
like a caramel left in the sun too long. It managed to breach 67 years of
cynicism and a thick crust growing around me and tug on some emotional strings.
Yet, I am not exactly sure which strings. Sentimental ones for sure but nothing
that is easy to define. If you look at this film from afar there is nothing
really tragic about it or really romantic, but it slowly quietly sneaks up
on you and sucks you into this amber lit fantasy and then lands a melancholy
blow to your heart. It was inevitable, you see it coming and yet you still
feel it. The film is admittedly as gooey as I felt - all soft lighting, a
bittersweet piano score, quietly spoken words, beseeching eyes, withheld
tears - but I guess I was in the mood for it.
So-Eun (Kim Ha-neul) is a junior at university
very much enamored with her classmate Dong-hee (Park Wong-yoo) who is just
back from his stint in the military. The year is 1979 and the students are
protesting against the military rule. Due to circumstances she ends up having
to take a broken down ham radio home though she has no idea how to use it.
One night after the eclipse of the moon, she suddenly hears a voice calling
through the radio. This is In (Yoo Ji-Tae) who is just seeing who he can
get. They talk a bit, learn that they go to the same school, he says he will
give her a book on ham radio tomorrow at the Clock Tower on the school grounds.
He waits two hours in the rain. She doesn't appear. She waits two hours on
a sunny day. He doesn't appear.
It takes a while but they eventually realize
that she is in 1979 and he is in 2000. He tells her things that will happen,
but they both agree that it would be immoral for him to give her information
that could make her rich. Fools. That would be the first thing I would want
to know. Invest in Apple and Microsoft. What the hell is that? Meanwhile
their lives go on in their own time - So-Eun and Dong-hee are getting closer
and In is beginning to love the girl that won't leave him alone (Ha Ji-won).
So love between the two ham operators is never really an option - they just
become good friends. And then that melancholy blow shows up and the film
takes on a hue of fate and sadness that digs into you. It is a very slowly
paced film - beautifully shot - a lilting score - and terrific acting.
The four main actors were very near the
beginning of their careers and all of them have gone on to fine ones. Yoon
Ji-tae has One Fine Spring Day, Natural City, Old Boy, Woman is the Future
of Man on his resume. Kim Ha-neul is a fave of mine in films like Too Beautiful
to Lie, Ryeong and My Girlfriend is An Agent. Park Wong-yoo was in My Scary
Girl, Blood Rain. And perhaps my favorite Korean actress Ha Ji-won has been
in a lot of films that I like - Phone, Sex is Zero, Duelist, As One and I
am currently watching her in a TV wuxia she starred in titled Damo. I had
no idea she was going to be in this one so it was a pleasure seeing her.
But it is the performance of Kim Ha-neul that drives this film and she is
great and won some awards for it. She is as soft and sweet as honeysuckle.
No doubt this film is doing its best to manipulate your emotions - welcome
to the world of Korean drama. And you are fully aware that it is manipulating
you like an ex-girlfriend who needs money - but you go along with the ride
- like a taxi taking you to your destination. It just comes with the territory.
Every time director Kim Jeong-kwon goes in for a close-up of Kim Ha-neul's
buttery eyes you want to pet them like a homeless kitten.
The film Il Mare with a similar theme came
out the same year. Independently? Il Mare became the more famous one for
sure and an American re-make of it was made called The Lakehouse.
