#Seung-mok Yoo

[halorvic]

비밀의 숲 / Secret Forest, S01E03

[scenesandscreens]

Decision to Leave (2022)

Director - Park Chan-wook, Cinematography - Kim Ji-yong

"The moment you said you loved me, your love is over. The moment your love ends, my love begins."

[rookie-critic]

Decision to Leave (2022, dir. Park Chan-wook) - review by Rookie-Critic

Decision to Leave is a tense noir-ish thriller with a ton of style and great performances. The newest from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook, the film is a subdued effort from the filmmaker, who is normally noted for the striking brutal violence in his films like the Vengeance series and Oldboy. While the difference in tone and intensity is noticeably different, the visual style of the film is still unmistakably his, and it's great. The cinematography of this film is gorgeous, and one of the biggest triumphs the movie has is the lighting. All of the decisions regarding the way things were lit and framed in this film feel very intentional and like it was done with purpose. It's a truly beautiful film and everything on the technical and visually artistic level is near perfection.

On the flip side, while the story is also very good, it feels like it can't quite keep up with that stellar style. There are a good handful of scenes that definitely feel like they are done with a style-over-substance mindset, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it can be done to great effect, here I found it more distracting than anything. The story of a respected, hard-boiled detective that gets too emotionally invested in the personal life of a suspect in a murder case (the victim's widow, at that), this movie screams film-noir from a plot perspective, equal parts Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. It plays out with plenty of twists and reveals that are all very gripping, and the film manages to keep the audience's attention through most of its runtime. I can't really say the film dragged or rushed itself at all, but there was something about the way it all plays out and that semi-frequent sacrifice of style over substance that kept this from being truly great for me. In the spirit of full transparency, I did see this on a day where I was particularly physically and mentally fried, and I don't think I really gave this film the full breadth of my attention and mental focus, so maybe upon a re-watch (which I do plan on doing at some point) I will change my tune, but for now, I will give it this score, which is still pretty great, if you ask me.

Score: 8/10

Currently streaming on MUBI.

I really do hate when I feel like I haven't given a movie everything I've got prior to writing its review, and I thought about not even putting this up right now until I did have that chance to re-watch. So, with that in mind, I might make an amended review once that happens.

[whenthegoldrays]

ELLY’S PLAYLISTS

k-dramas

My Sweet Mobster

eunha x jihwan 🧸

Cinderella at 2am

yunseo x juwon 🍄

Queen of Tears

hae-in x hyun-woo 🧸

Lovely Runner

sol x sun jae 🧸

Marry My Husband

kang jiwon / jiwon x jihyuk 🧸🪩

jeong su-min / su-min x min-hwan 🧸🪩

Tell Me That You Love Me

moeun x jinwoo 💌

Twinkling Watermelon

eun gyeol x eun yoo 💌🧸

yichan x cheong-ah 💌🧸

on eun yoo 💌🧸🪩

yichan and eun gyeol 🧸

twinklemelon as a whole

my euneun au 💌

Live Up To Your Name

im x yeon kyung 💌

Crash Landing On You

jeong hyeok x se-ri 💌🧸🪩

dan x seung-jun 🧸

The Matchmakers

jung woo x soon deok 🧸

Castaway Diva

seo mok-ha / mok-ha x ki-ho 🍄

Our Beloved Summer

yeon-su x ung 🧸

Familiar Wife

ju-hyeok x wu-jin 💌🧸

Hometown Cha Cha Cha

hye-jin x du-sik

The Wind Blows

do-hun x soo-jin 🧸🍄

Hidden Love (c-drama)

zhizhi x jiaxu 🧸

period dramas

Emma, Jane Austen

frank x jane 💌🧸

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

marianne dashwood / marianne & willoughby / marianne x brandon 🧸🪩

The Blue Castle, Lucy Maud Montgomery

valancy x barney 💌

Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

fanny price / fanny x edmund 💌

maria bertram / maria & henry 🧸

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell

molly gibson / cynthia kirkpatrick / cynthia & roger / molly x roger / etc 🍄💌

North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell

margaret hale / margaret x john 🧸

john thornton / my reading playlist 🍄

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

jo march / jo x friedrich 🧸

Poldark (TV)

morwenna x drake 💌🧸

Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare

romeo x juliet 🧸🍄

my ocs

seon-hwa x henry (Hardwick House) 🍄

kang eun-joo / han do-yoon (TEYOKEJ) 🍄

other

colt x jody (The Fall Guy) 🍄

twilight x yor (Spy x Family) 🍄

rapunzel / rapunzel x eugene (Tangled) 🪩

anna x william (Notting Hill) 🧸🪩

diana & charles (The Crown) 🧸🪩

margaret & peter (The Crown) 🧸

milo x amanda (Milo Murphy’s Law)

phineas x isabella (Phineas and Ferb) 🧸

candace x jeremy (Phineas and Ferb)

barbie & ken (Barbie, 2023) 🧸

💌 = favorite

🧸 = play in order

🍄 = needs work

🪩 = taylor swift centric

[agendaculturaldelima]

   #ProyeccionDeVida

🎬 “CRONICA DE UN ASESINO EN SERIE” [Salinui Chueok /Memories of Murder]

🔎 Género: Intriga / Thriller / Crimen / Años 80 / Policíaco / Asesinos en Serie / Neo-Noir / Basado en hechos reales

⌛️ Duración: 130 minutos

✍️ Guión: Bong Joon-ho y Shim Sung-bo.

📘 Historia: Kim Kwang-rim

🎼 Música: Tarô Iwashiro

📷 Fotografía: Kim Hyeong-gyu

🗯 Argumento: En el año 1986 en Corea del Sur, una joven aparece violada y asesinada. Dos meses después, se producen una serie de violaciones y asesinatos en circunstancias similares. Para buscar al asesino, se organiza un destacamento especial, encabezado por un detective de la policía local (Park Doo-man) y un detective de la policía de Seúl (Seo Tae-yoon), que ha solicitado ser asignado al caso.

👥 Reparto: Song Kang-ho (Detective Park Doo-Man), Park Hae-il (Park Hyeon-gyu), Kim Roi-ha (Detective Cho Yong-koo), Kim Sang-kyung (Detective Seo Tae-Yoon), Lee Jae-eung (Chico en la escena inicial), Yoo Seung Mok (Periodista), Jung In-sun (Chica en la escena final), Seo Yeong-hwa (Mujer en la colina) y Choi Jong-ryul (Padre de Kwang-ho).

📢 Dirección: Bong Joon-Ho

© Productoras: CJ Entertainment, Sidus & Muhan Investment

🌎 País: Corea del Sur

📅 Año: 2003

📽 Proyección:

📆 Jueves 05 de Setiembre

🕗 8:00pm.

🎦 Cine Caleta (calle Aurelio de Souza 225 - Barranco)

🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️ Ingreso libre

🙂 A tener en cuenta: Prohibido el ingreso de bebidas y comidas. 🌳💚🌻🌛

[comalma]

BOULEVARD DO CINE: Decisão de Partir

Dirigido por Park Chan-wook, 2022, Coreia do Sul, 138 min. Elenco: Tang Wei, Park Hae-il, Lee Jung-hyun, Park Yong-woo, Go Kyung-pyo, Kim Shin-young, Yoo Seung-mok, Jung Yi-seo, Jung Young-sook, Lee Hak-joo, Park Jeong-min, Jeong Ha-dam, Seo Hyun-woo, Yoo Teo, Jeong So-ri. O detetive Jang Hae-joon (Park Hae-il), um homem entre seus 40 e 50 anos, um pouco abatido, com um casamento insatisfatório,…

[k-star-holic]

'Resolution to break up' Seung-mok Yoo Father's death...Keep Mortuary in sadness

Source: k-star-holic.blogspot.com

[whumpetywhump]

Pipeline (2021)

[inkingtwice]

Still in the middle of an S1 rewatch, but I have so many thoughts already. Oof.

The first time I was mostly focused on characterization—it is, as I have babbled before, kind of my jam—so this time around I wanted to try to focus on the gloriously convoluted plot of this show. And inevitably this ended up with me focusing on Eun-soo (and therefore character: surprise), because so many of the pieces of it turn out to be carried by her doomed quest to clear her family name.

I think the first fan discussion of the show I read back in 2017 (I can’t even remember the name of the forum now, agh) was an argument about her character, and I kind of skimmed past it at the time: my interest was mainly for the leads, and I never saw any likelihood that she was a love interest, which was what the argument was about.

Still pretty confident of that read on a rewatch: she’s so much more than that.

Eun-soo begins the show as an innocent: a trainee with a difficult mentor she wants to but cannot bond with, easing her way into a political landscape that eats people alive. We only learn later that her motives aren’t pure—but they are sympathetic. She is dragged into that landscape when Lee Chang-joon puts her in the crosshairs by giving her the Huam-dong case. I suspect he does it to see what Si-mok and Dong-jae will do: will they try to protect her or will they let her take the fall? It’s not done, I think, out of any desire to harm her. He is looking for the prosecutor who will carry his plan forward when he is dead, and Eun-soo is the perfect foil. It doesn't seem to be done with any particular concern for her well-being, though, either.

It’s an interesting move, considering the guilt Chang-joon carries for harming the Young family and ruining the mentor who is so much more a father figure to him than Lee Yun-beom—a ruthless and manipulative move, and also pretty dismissive. He doesn’t consider Eun-soo to be a candidate for his plan to reform the prosecution, though there would be some appealing symmetry to that choice. Is it because he’s already seen how far she’s willing to go for her family (and if so, how and when?), or because she’s young, inexperienced, and a woman? Hard to say, though I lean toward the latter: there’s a lot of commentary in both seasons on gender roles and gender biases, and Eun-soo, even more than Han Yeo-jin, operates as the vehicle for that theme in season 1. Lee Chang-joon sees her as a victim of his actions, and probably doesn’t see much farther than that.

Her use of Dong-jae’s advice on her first trial suggests the beginnings of corruption. This is also an interesting move, as it’s both selfish and protective: Dong-jae objects when Chang-joon plans to set her up to take the fall for the case, and he has a clear interest in the trial’s outcome—there’s plenty of self-interest there, as there usually is with Seo Dong-jae—but there’s also an impulse to keep her out of harm’s way. There is also, not surprising considering his general treatment of women, a lack of respect for her intellect and skill, which plays out nicely later on, when she corners him and he reacts with violence. She outwits him, he knows it, and becomes both warier and less dismissive of her afterward.

But Dong-jae tries, in his way, to keep her out of the line of fire, at least until it seems clear she’s chosen to help Si-mok bring him down. We only see real sympathy from him when Eun-soo confronts Chang-joon and is devastated by her failure to force an official clearing of her father’s name. I think this is an honest reaction, just as his claim later that he wishes her well is honest, if inevitably self-serving.

And when he suspects Chang-joon of authoring her murder, he puts himself at considerable risk to confirm that suspicion, an act which would be out of character unless he felt some impulse to avenge her. Dong-jae and Eun-soo have different origin stories and motivations, but for the first half/two-thirds of the season they seem to have similar arcs within the overarching theme of justice and morality: he is just farther along his path than she is.

Si-mok’s relationship with Eun-soo is definitely the most interesting to me. From the start, he seems aware of his failings as a mentor, if mostly indifferent to them. His disappointment in her use of tricks to win her trial is palpable—but so is his respect for her intellect, which is made clear when he refuses her father’s plea to protect her on the basis that she cannot be controlled.

Ironically, Si-mok does choose to first use and then manipulate Eun-soo once he concludes that she is too invested in taking down Chang-joon to be trusted—his surprise when he learns that she met with Park Moo-sung and hid that from him is a satisfying moment, because he also underestimated her, and revised that estimation immediately. He uses her to flush out both Dong-jae and also the extent of her own motives, and grows warier: he can see how far she is willing to go and how biased she is, but he respects her intellect.

This contrasts interestingly with his treatment of her later—he keeps her at a careful distance, appearing increasingly frustrated with her attempts to involve herself in the special investigation and the risks she takes to clear her father’s name. When Si-mok shouts at her after taking Kim Tae-gyun’s statement it reads like genuine anger rather than a shock tactic as it was with Kang Jin-sub’s wife in episode 2. The risks she takes get bigger; I would assume he can see how inevitable it is that she will be hurt.

Part of his anger with her for risking her life to catch Kim Tae-gyun seems to stem from the fact that she interprets his investigating Young Il-jae’s framing as a personal favor/sign of concern. I suspect part of it may be that even he isn’t 100% sure of his motive for doing so. Si-mok consistently resists people ascribing emotional motivations to his actions—which is his blunt honesty at work, but is perhaps also the protective self-deception that sits at the core of his character. Only two characters see that clearly, and see through it: Han Yeo-jin and Young Eun-soo.

In any case, all four of the men in Eun-soo’s life—I’m including her father here, who makes similar attempts to keep her at a distance from the action, passive though they are—persistently underestimate her drive and her desperation. The more they manipulate her for their own ends or shunt her aside for her own good, the shrewder and more desperate she gets; the more they push her out of the line of fire, the harder she works on the edges to achieve her goal. In the end she gets as close as any of them to the truth—and then gets much too close. And every attempt to shelter her works to place her exactly where they all were trying to keep her from ending up: right in the crosshairs.

Stopping there would be making the same mistake, though, and my read is that this is something Lee Soo-yeon is arguing against with this character arc.

Eun-soo’s strengths are her intelligence and investigative skills, which she employs out on the fringes where she’s been forced, and her ability to see clearly the motives of others. Both of these she uses in service of her flaws—a mono-focus that leaves her defenseless at the worst moments, little interest in her own safety, and a questionable morality that she justifies by her family’s circumstances and the actions of those who benefited from her father’s downfall. I think it’s important to keep in mind that at least two these are classic failings of youth and inexperience. A sense of invulnerability and an inability to place one’s experiences within a larger picture are things that we all (okay, most of us) grow out of eventually, and one of the bigger tragedies of her death is that she will never get the chance to do that. I also think a lot about that team dinner, and how grateful she was to be included in it. Eun-soo is one of the most isolated characters in the show, partly due to her position straddling the line of morality, partly due to what’s happened to her family, and partly because her superiors keep her that way.

It’s tempting to view her murder as a fridging, and I do think there are elements of it that qualify, which I focused on in my first watch of S1. But on a rewatch I think that interpretation does a disservice to Lee Soo-yeon’s excellent writing. Episode 8 lays out the ultimate doomed trajectory of Eun-soo’s character arc plainly: sidelined repeatedly by the people who should be teaching her, she will use her brains and her training to get around both enemies and nominal allies, but will do so without any of the caution or political and moral awareness that experience would give her in time. It foreshadows her end quite nicely.

Her death does indeed propel the (semi)redemptive arcs of two of her male colleagues, and is the closing note on her father’s tragic/failed arc. But while it serves those purposes, it also functions as social commentary on the damage these power struggles do to a younger generation, on the cost of putting personal gain over justice, and on the unique challenges a woman in a male-dominated field faces.

Eun-soo is too complex a character, with an arc too pointed, to be interpreted as merely a plot device or a prop for another character’s motivation. She is a prosecutor that has suffered under the corruption of the system she works to uphold and thereby lost faith in it, who has confused justice with revenge, and who, due in part to her youth and her gender, nobody took seriously enough until it was too late. She is everybody’s blind spot.

In the end it’s not Seo Dong-jae but Yoon Se-won she most resembles. And in the end, she is as much collateral damage to Lee Chang-joon and Lee Yun-beom’s power struggle.

[fourorfivemovements]

Films Watched in 2022:

90.  헤어질 결심/Decision to Leave (2022) - Dir. Park Chan-wook

[meideixx]

시목창준

the look

[halorvic]

비밀의 숲 / Secret Forest / Stranger (2017), S01E12

[olivierdemangeon]

PIPELINE (2021) ★★★✮☆

[dramafics]

maengse by @theaggresivepacifist

Drama: Stranger/Secret Forest

Summary: “If you tell me to get stabbed in place of her, I can do it. But do you think it’s possible to control anyone?” Hwang Si-mok keeps the promise he made to Young Il-jae. Yeo-jin and Chang-jun are left to pick up the pieces.

Rating: General Audiences

Pairing: Hwang Shi Mok & Young Eun Soo, Hwang Shi Mok & Han Yeo Jin, Hwang Shi Mok & Lee Chang Joon

CW: Violence, Blood

Chapters: 1/1

Tags: Canon Divergence, Angst

Notes: Breathtaking. In a few short sections, the author uses a nightmarish "what if" to draw out what the presence of Hwang Shi-mok means to his surrounding cast and the inevitable domino effect that takes place in their internal psychologies. Beautifully written, with the same subtle effect as the drama.

[watchingalotofmovies]

1987: When the Day Comes

1987: When the Day Comes    [trailer]

In 1987 Korea under an oppressive military regime, the unlawful interrogation and death of a college student ignite ordinary citizens to fight for the truth and bring about justice.

A piece of South Korean history. Very grippingly told. It demands your full attention because of the many story strands. A compelling watch.

Living on a different continent, it's easy to forget that this transition to democracy happened only thirty years ago.

[screen1ne]

Review: Spiritwalker

“Spiritwalker is yet another classy action thriller with a side order of mystery from Korean cinema that will enthrall you until the final frame.” Read the Screen One review of Spiritwalker here #Spiritwalker #JiYeonLim #YoonKyeSang @cineasiauk @warrioragency

Movie with inventive plots these days are few and far between. Spiritwalker (released in 2020 in Korea) gets its long awaited UK release and if you are yet to see it, you are in for a real treat. Waking up with a gunshot wound, a mysterious man (Yoon Kye-Sang, Golden Slumber, The Outlaws) has no memory of who he is or where he came from, but soon finds himself transported into someone else’s…