New Korean Films: Steamy Winter (2013 Week 3)

(by Fabien Schneider)

Despite all the snow that has recently covered the Korean peninsula, there will be no need this week to adjust the radiators to warm up all the movie-goers. By a strange coincidence that only the distribution companies bosses can explain, the two Korean movies opening this week are adults-only, due to their racy content. It will be very interesting to compare their approach and the resulting public reception. In fact, I could have also included in this article the co-produced (China, Korea and Japan) Speed ​​Angels, but I hesitated as it is more of a Chinese film shot in South Korea, and anyway the critics have reported that it’s not indispensable.

Tummy (배꼽)

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BIFF 2012: Park Chul-soo's B·E·D (2012)

Part of MKC's coverage of the 17th Busan International Film Festival.

A small and sensual chamber piece, Park Chul-soo’s new feature B·E·D (his 27^th) brings to mind Green Chair (2005), his most significant work of the last decade. However, whereas that erotic film was a fascinating study of an unconventional relationship, Park’s new film can’t seem to move beyond its bedroom antics. Granted, as intimated by the title, a bed is the chief component of the film: It is the principal location and also serves as a heavy metaphor for a man’s lifelong obsession with sex, and, by extension, all men’s carnal fixation.

Based on a short story by Kwon Ji-ye of the same name, B·E·D features a man, presented to us as ‘B’, whose life ‘begins on the bed and ends on the bed’. He has an affair with married woman ‘E’ and later, after she breaks up with him, he marries ‘D’, a single mother and career woman.

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