Untold Scandal (E J-yong, 2003): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3pm
This 35mm presentation, part of the Golden Age of Korean Film season, also scrrens on Decembner 20th. Full details here.
Time Out review:
Ennui and overexposure in the sexual arena are key stimuli for the
libertines in Choderlos de Laclos’ ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’, and after
‘Dangerous Liaisons’, ‘Valmont’, ‘Cruel Intentions’ and more, any
filmmaker attempting another adaptation runs the risk of incurring
similar sensations in the audience. This Korean remake re-spins the
story in the late-nineteenth century twilight of the country’s Chosun
dynasty, and arranges the tale’s erotic strife as a contest not only
between the precepts of official high-Confucian morality and its
trustees’ decadence, but also between that local-grown hypocrisy and the
threat of religious puritanism imported from abroad. Thus Laclos’
chaste Madame de Tourvel becomes the persecuted Catholic Lady Chong
(Jeon Do-Yeon), and her would-be corruptor Cho-Won (Korean TV star Bae
Yong-Jun, genially rakish) must feign theological dissidence as well as
personal virtue to conquer her. Not that the film pushes such
points. A prologue alerts us not to take it as historical gospel: ‘The
men and women who appear here are lecherous and immoral beyond belief,’
it promises. ‘One is led to doubt whether they indeed existed.’ In the
event, it’s a shame that the film takes itself increasingly seriously as
it proceeds. Rarely outright salacious, it unfolds its intrigue with a
certain dramatic equanimity and visual period splendour – it’s richly
shot by Kim Byeong-Il, Park Chan-Wook’s cinematographer on ‘Sympathy for
Mr Vengeance’. But that much good work done, the film runs out of
ideas, and the endgame plays out as doggedly prosaic. It’s hard not to
pine for the nudie-painting, virgin-breaking Cho-Won in the full flower
of his pre-comeuppance mischief.
Nicholas Barber
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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