Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors

Hong Sang-soo really is probably the greatest director almost no one has heard of, at least from Asia if not the whole world. That said, I'm not sure I like this one quite as much as his earlier "The Power of Kangwon Province", if only because it doesn't quite have the same sense of distinct urban anomie that I love. It might be an all-around more well-constructed film though, if borderline too strictly formalist. It's too bad these are the only two films of his available on DVD because otherwise I'd make watching all of them a priority. It's funny that the film has such a rigid sense of structuralism and yet is infused with such a real, intimate sense of humanism. The film is divided into two halves (each with eight chapters), showing roughly the same courtship between a man and a woman, first from what appears to be his perspective, and then from hers (although the specific point-of-view is never directly announced and it is possible they overlap somewhat). This sounds pretty gimmicky, and in a sense it skirts that line, but like I was saying it is presented in such a straight-forward, empathetic way that it barely seems cerebral or detached at all. It's really quite remarkable, i think, what a truly empathetic tone the film has. Although visually somewhat similar to the work of the great Tawainese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, the film has none of Hou's pronounced sense of detachment or aloofness. Instead it feels incredibly intimate and humane. Still, the rigid structural devise, if not quite gimmicky, does create a certain repetitiveness, since unlike "Rashomon" the two versions of events don't usually differ in very overt ways (although there are some differences). I wouldn't normally call the film slow (as minimalistic as the camera style is, it moves along fairly briskly), but the repetition does make it seem like it drags at times over the course of it's two hour length. Still, it's overall a pretty great film. Some of the most honest, heartfelt, no-frills relationship stuff I've ever seen in a film, actually. The last scene in particular is one of the nicest things I've seen in a while.

The director has a knack for dissecting (or exposing) the human psychology, especially when it comes to sexual or relationship encounters in general. The nuances that we all experience intimately, but rarely discuss, are ever-present in his films, which is an aspect I enjoy. I also enjoy his minimalist approach to film making. Again, the meat of the story is about the relationships between people, so make-up and stunts are almost non-existent. I read somewhere that the director really likes the idea of spontaneity, and this is especially evident when he casts the extras. Watch how the extras look and behave like "normal" people. In other words, their roles are not contrived or over-played. If you enjoyed other works of this director (Sang-soo Hong), then this is a must see.

I really enjoy movies shot in black & white, because they don't divert the viewer's attention too much from what actually is going on. I felt the movie was rather slow, but nonetheless makes some interesting social commentaries on dating in Korea. Whether they are true or not... beats me. Someone said that they felt the movie shows 7 days of courtship from two points of view. I almost felt like this was the "Sliding Doors"-like alternative time lines, but I suppose either one would work. Either way, not a bad movie.

Well, here's a Korean movie that even lovers of Godard (and Bergman, to a lesser extent) might love. Shot in radiant black-and-white (gorgeous), this film tells the story of a young woman Soo-jung (LEE Eun-Joo), "courted" by one acquaintance (and also pursued by her boss) in two equal parts -- first from the perspective (mostly) of the young woman's would-be lover, and then (from the top) from the woman's point of view (but again, mainly only mostly). Sometimes the matching scenes are almost identical, other times they are radically different. Most interesting, however, are the matches when only relatively small details are slightly differently remembered (?). This could be sterile and abstract (and some critics have complained), but I found it quite accessible and enjoyable. Our heroine's sensibilities seem a bit more robust (despite her virginal state) than those of either of her men -- and the "second time around" of the story often seems a bit more humorous. Due to my imperfect memory, several viewing will be required until I can pull all the pierces of this film together. Nonetheless, I'd say this is very much worth watching.

The Korean movie Oh! Soo-jung was shown in the U.S. with the terrible title, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000). It was written and directed by Sang-soo Hong.

Eun-ju Lee stars as Soo-jung, a young woman who is a script-writer for a TV series, produced by Young-soo (played by Moon Sung-keun). Jae-hoon (portrayed by Jeong Bo-seok) is a wealthy art gallery owner. Young-soo hopes to get Jae-hoon to finance a film that he is directing.

Soo-jung is very beautiful, and both men would like to get into bed with her. As the title suggests, she is a virgin, although whether she would like to stay a virgin is never clear.

Sang-soo Hong is an interesting director, but you'll have to decide whether you like his style. The characters talk, smoke, and eat out at what I think are the Korean equivalent of our diners. Scenes start and stop almost at random. Sometimes we see the same scene from a slightly different point of view. The dialog is almost the same, but not quite.

One scene stops in the middle, and then picks up later in the movie. The movie isn't preseted in a linear fashion. Sometimes we see flashbacks of how scenes begin after we've viewed the scene itself.

The movie is all about sex, but we don't actually see much sex. There's one sex scene that's hard to watch. It's consensual--sort of--but it's about as erotic as the Korean dish kimchi.

We had seen another film by Sang-soo Hong, Claire's Camera (2017), and enjoyed it. That was a hit, but this was a miss.

The movie worked well on the small screen. It's shot in grim black and white, which is OK. I don't think it would have been improved by color. The film has an adequate IMDb rating of 7.0. I didn't think it was quite that good--I gave it a 6.