Lies

In Seoul, the eighteen years old student Y (Tae Yeon Kim) decides to meet the thirty-eight years old sculptor J (Sang Hyun Lee) and loose her virginity with him. After a few sexual meetings with J, Y is introduced in SM games, being spanked by Y and becoming addicted in sadomasochistic practice. "Gojitmal" is a very unconventional and daring love story. I saw this DVD on sale and I was really surprised with the boldness of Tae Yeon Kim, Sang Hyun Lee and director Sun-Woo Jang. When I worked in South Korea, I found a Confucian society, with costumes and moral values totally different from western societies, and I respected that a lot. My local colleagues informed me that, for example, the exhibition in the movie theaters of Louis Malle 's "Damage" had been forbidden, since their society would never understand the situation of a father having an affair with the wife of his son. At least, the "soju" remains the same in the present days. Therefore, when I saw that "Gojitmal", which is indeed a soft porn with very kinky sex, I was really astonished with the behavior of the characters. This movie is not bad, but it is interesting to read that most of the IMDb viewers liked it: the camera is amateurish, the lead actor and actress do not have the usual standard pattern of beauty and the locations are very simple. However, the screenplay is very unconventional and provocative, slightly recalling "The Last Tango in Paris", and the presentation looks like a documentary. "Gojitmal" is recommended for very specific audiences only. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Mentiras" ("Lies")

"Lies" tells about an affair between an 18 year old bucktoothed female student and a scrawny 38 year old married man with the pair of protags spending about half the screen time engaged in naked sex and hokey whipping and the other half meandering through the pathetically naive storyline which seems little more than an excuse for the sex scenes. With very poor production value including obvious sanitary appliances and phony softcore sex to a story which is a messy mix of comedy and drama, "Lies" quickly becomes redundant ad nauseam. With an almost 2 hour run, subtitles, and so little substance, "Lies" is simply not recommendable. (C-)

I just got back from seeing the new Korean film "Lies," a portrayal of a consensual BDSM relationship between an 18-year-old student and a 38-year-old sculptor.

First, the bad stuff: it's not a very good movie. Amateurishly filmed, with shaky camera work and some of the weirdest directorial decisions I've ever seen. This is not "Last Tango In Paris" or anything like it.

But if you can get past that, what's left at the core is one of the most sympathetic, honest and realistic portrayals I've ever seen of BDSM as it's actually played. The two types of players -- the sculptor is a primary sadomasochist, whose needs for BDSM play are strong, innate and non-situation-dependent; the student is a secondary sadomasochist, who derives her enjoyment of BDSM from her partner's reaction -- are accurately and sympathetically portrayed. Consent is scrupulously observed, with plenty of check-ins and other good communciation. The emotional reactions to play are dead-on. The bad things that happen in the movie take place because of outside intervention by the vanilla world, not because there's anything wrong or sick about the couple themselves.

As far as I could tell, most of the scenes of BDSM play were real, not staged or faked -- and they're intense. Switchings, canings, paddlings -- with lingering camera shots afterwards of welts and bruises. (One scat play scene was apparently faked, which was OK by me - shudder.) Some of the play was not up to community standards of safe technique; a shot of a garden hose thudding down right across the woman's kidneys had me cringing. But it also seemed true to what might happen in a culture which provides no information or support for its kinkyfolk.

Well worth seeing in a theater if you live in an urban center where it's showing, or adding to your video collection later on if you can find it.

Lies is a story of two people who have a sexual obsession. That is the whole plot, in a nutshell. They don't come together for any other reason than to have all out, straight up, kinky, beat-each-other-up sex and they're not pretending there is any other reason. They glory in it, they obsess about it, they talk about their last encounter and look forward to the next one. The best thing about it is the way it draws you in and makes you watch just to find out - where will all this end? To all the reviewers who complained about the grapehic sex, so, why did you watch it? You can't see five minutes of this movie without getting the idea, so what were you doing? Tied to your chair, maybe? Couldn't get free to turn it off? Held at gunpoint? What a bunch of hypocritical goober heads.

Neither of the protagonists is particularly attractive, not in the conventional way, and I didn't feel that anything was shown for pornographic purposes (although that would have been OK with me). It is simply an account of an intense sexual relationship, where the whole reason for being together is kinky sex, and this idea is followed through the film. You may not have any sympathy with the characters, or like them, or even be able to empathize at all; but you have to watch because you just know it is going to get more intense, and it does.

Each time J and Y come together, the sex gets more intense, more brutal, kinkier and nastier. They beat each other unmercifully, finding ever more severe objects to whale on each other with. Sounds kinda fun, doesn't it? The intent, though, is to show such a relationship and show how it develops, where it can go, and how it could happen. It even goes one better by making J an older man, an artist who is very class sensitive and somewhat tormented. Y is a schoolgirl, and her motives are never completely clear, as they probably wouldn't be to someone her age in this relationship.

I would never have watched this except for the reviews complaining about the graphic sex and violence. That got my interest quick, but then I was sucked in by the plot. I just had to know where this was going and predicted some big blow up at the end. I thought that possibly one would kill the other during a beating, or their families would intervene. Either way, I had to know what happened, and that, to me, is the best part of this movie.

When I first popped this DVD in, I had no idea what I was in store for. Sure, I read the description on the back and the reviewers quotes and I knew it was unrated, but I had no idea... Lies is a bold film. Whether you despise the places it dares to go or admire it for going there, you cannot argue the fact that it goes to the outer most limit. At times I found myself queasy, sometimes out of how graphic the sex was and other times out of a feeling that I was uncomfortable for the actors for being that naked -- i'm not talking about just their skin -- i mean their vulnerability being in those scenes to begin with. Although I would usually ask what the point of a movie this raw is, in this case I have to say that I'm really glad that I saw it. I don't know what you walk away with from it, but I do know that I'm always psyched to see something different cinematically than what I already know and surprisingly satisfied to discover a film that I didn't know existed. Lies delivered both. I can't really put my finger on what it is about the film and it's not my type (AT ALL) but it's worth it. For some intangible reason, it is worth it and has much merit.

If you're not uptight and can deal with watching thing that you would probably not venture nor wish to do and want to see a filmmaker totally unashamed and unfazed at exploring a genre, then this is a movie that is definitely worth seeing. 7/10.