 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Product Detail |
 |
|
Audio Format: DD 5.1, DD 2.0 Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 (Anamorphic) Languages: Korean Subtitles: English, Korean Region Code: 3 Year Made: 2007 Running Time: 98 + 16
 "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife". The interpretation: There are plenty of men coveting their neighbor's wives, so the practice should be strictly banned to maintain the society's declining morality.For many (if not all) human beings, however, making something forbidden only increases its tempting allure. Coveting a neighbor's wife, therefore, is a pithy statement about human desire and limitation, which is also an intriguing theme of "Cheaters" (Nae-yeoja-ui namja-chingu), a small-budget film directed by Park Seong-beom.
Seok-ho (Choi Won-yeong) does not covet his neighbor's wife - technically. He's married to a beautiful wife, but he does not want to remain faithful. A self-styled playboy, Seok-ho covets, well, unmarried women. He's maintaining sexual relationship with Ji-yeon (Ko Da-mi), a voluptuous photographer who wants something more than capturing a man's body through her camera lens, and also wants to seduce Chae-young (Kim Poo-reun), a college student who seems to be the most virtuous girl in Korea.The neighbor's-wife-coveting dynamics is also at work here. Ji-yeon keeps romanticizing about Seok-ho, an easy-to-play game that he thinks is obviously in his favor. Given that he has firm control over the photographer, it's a waste of time for Seok-ho to invest more time and energy in their relationship.
He obsessively ventures out to conquer more, and the target is the paragon of innocence - Chae-young. No matter how hard he tries to seduce her by offering expensive gifts and usual date tricks, Chae-young doesn't budge at all. Of course, her persistent refusal heats up Seok-ho's inflammable passion further - more evidence suggesting that a human desire, when the fruit is forbidden, gets magnified to an extreme.So far, so plain, in terms of cinematic techniques. Director Park, however, reveals his real intentions gradually from this point on. He shifts the omniscient camera angle to Chae-young, who turns out not to be so chaste. Juxtaposing Seok-ho's images, the director discloses what the girl is really up to at each scene. In most cases, she's sleeping with her boyfriend, a college student who spends more time at a motel than in the library.
 Sounds familiar Director Hong Sang-soo already experimented with the double-perspective technique in his classic satiric comedy "Oh! Soo-jung (Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors)" in 2000."Cheaters" seems to imitate the trick for a while, but it gradually begins to assert its unique features by incorporating new subplots and characters into the main story, and amplifying the revelation effects to the fullest.
Young-su seems extremely shy and even clumsy, but he is not a person who sits still and wishes for something good. He sets his eyes on Ji-yeon, not knowing that she is already sexually and emotionally committed to her freewheeling Casanova Seok-ho. What Seok-ho does not know is that his best buddy is actually sleeping with his wife.Interestingly, Young-su does not get excited much about the established adultery with Seok-ho's wife. Instead, Young-su focuses on what he doesn't control yet: Ji-yeon, the photographer whose heart - yes, another covet | | | | | | |
