This review is primarily written to give some explanations with in-depth knowledges about Korea.
lilyengleman expressed his disgust with valid points - by western standards.
However, if he knew the Korean culture and laws back in 90's he would have found the film to be realistic.
Seoul is divided in two parts, north and south of the river, the south being the more wealthy one. While the southerners mostly don't exactly look down at people from other parts, the northern people very often have so called poverty-complex. That applies to the boy.
Similarly, there is something that can be called province-complex: people not living in Seoul feel like 2nd class citizens. This applies to the girl from Jeju island (almost southern most touristic location)
Below is the list what the girl said and did:
1) She is an outsider in her music class. The other girls look down at her for having no "class"
2) She praises the senior student for being handsome, tall, and rich.
3) She dreams of becoming a famous TV announcer and getting married to a rich man.
4) She keeps riding with the senior student even after the boy is pi$$ed and gets out of the car. (fake GUESS incident)
5) She moved to the crappy base floor room. (presumeably only to have an address in the southern part)
The boy was too young and inexperienced to know that the girl most probably did 2) to make him jealous. In addition, he didn't understand that 3) and 5) are perfectly normal for a young girl, especially from a province.
Now let's take a look at an old Korean law: marriage scam was a capital crime, almost as severe as rape If a man beds a woman with a promise to marry her, he's stuck. The woman can sue him unless he actually marries her.
Many women misused this law: allure a young man from a rich family, sleep with him once, and force him to marry her - poverty problem solved. And that's what the boy thought the girl was doing.
I hope my explanation to clarify things that seem odd to some foreign people.
The film was quite a pleasant surprise for me since I usually don't watch Korean films. The film is a really well produced one with decent actors except for the main actress(presence). She can't act!!!
That's why I don't give a perfect 10 but a 9.
lilyengleman expressed his disgust with valid points - by western standards.
However, if he knew the Korean culture and laws back in 90's he would have found the film to be realistic.
Seoul is divided in two parts, north and south of the river, the south being the more wealthy one. While the southerners mostly don't exactly look down at people from other parts, the northern people very often have so called poverty-complex. That applies to the boy.
Similarly, there is something that can be called province-complex: people not living in Seoul feel like 2nd class citizens. This applies to the girl from Jeju island (almost southern most touristic location)
Below is the list what the girl said and did:
1) She is an outsider in her music class. The other girls look down at her for having no "class"
2) She praises the senior student for being handsome, tall, and rich.
3) She dreams of becoming a famous TV announcer and getting married to a rich man.
4) She keeps riding with the senior student even after the boy is pi$$ed and gets out of the car. (fake GUESS incident)
5) She moved to the crappy base floor room. (presumeably only to have an address in the southern part)
The boy was too young and inexperienced to know that the girl most probably did 2) to make him jealous. In addition, he didn't understand that 3) and 5) are perfectly normal for a young girl, especially from a province.
Now let's take a look at an old Korean law: marriage scam was a capital crime, almost as severe as rape If a man beds a woman with a promise to marry her, he's stuck. The woman can sue him unless he actually marries her.
Many women misused this law: allure a young man from a rich family, sleep with him once, and force him to marry her - poverty problem solved. And that's what the boy thought the girl was doing.
I hope my explanation to clarify things that seem odd to some foreign people.
The film was quite a pleasant surprise for me since I usually don't watch Korean films. The film is a really well produced one with decent actors except for the main actress(presence). She can't act!!!
That's why I don't give a perfect 10 but a 9.