The Unforgiven (Screen Daily Review)

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http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?st ... 880&r=true

The Unforgiven (Yongseobadji Mot-hanja)

Jonathan Romney in London 19 April 2006

Dir/scr: Yoon Jong-bin. S Kor. 2005. 126mins.
The traumas of masculinity and the military life are sensitively and obliquely probed in The Unforgiven, the debut feature from Korean writer-director Yoon Jong-bin. Despite currents of menace and brutality, it lies at the more contemplative end of South Korea’s cinema spectrum, its elliptical, two-strand structure making it akin to the teasing narratives of Hong Sang-soo (The Day A Pig Fell Into A Well, Woman Is The Future Of Man).

The winner of several awards at Pusan late last year, The Unforgiven merits wider festival exposure, where its intelligent, quietly emotive approach should attract buyers looking for subtler, non-genre Korean fare.

The narrative, weaving together two time frames, focuses on Lee Seung-young (Suh Jang-won), an army recruit in his late 20s, who reports for duty at a camp, where his seeming naivety and gentleness attract the attention of higher-ranking bullies.

The supposedly merciless sergeant commanding Seung-young’s platoon turns out to be Yoo Tae-jung (Ha Jung-woo), an old high school friend of his. Although the rigidly hierarchical army structure forbids the two men from fraternising, Tae-jung shows his friend the ropes - at least until his gentle treatment of Seung-young starts to compromise.

Seung-young himself disapproves of the routine bullying of recruits, but once he rises in the ranks, his own forbearance is tested by Huh Ji-hoon (played by director Yoon), a slow-witted private from Pusan.

Some time later, Seung-young visits the now discharged Tae-jung in Seoul, and finds his old friend apparently on the skids. Awkwardly driving a wedge between Tae-jung and his girlfriend Ji-hye (Kim Sung-mi), Seung-young is insistent and needy and – as becomes increasingly obvious - has something on his mind that he can’t quite get round to saying.

Tantalisingly threading its two time frames, the drama expertly leads us to twin tragedies, both evoked with impressive understatement.

Specifically rooted in South Korean society, Yoon’s story comments on that nation’s mandatory period of military service for young men. The film’s thesis is that the army’s institutionalised system of bullying and servility inescapably causes emotional scars, both to abused subordinates and to the higher ranks who are routinely expected to be oppressors.

The images of roughhouse army life may seem muted, even tame, to audiences used to the rigors of Full Metal Jacket or Jarhead, bullying here involves junior soldiers acting as deferential servants, evoking something more akin to the fagging system of British public schools.

No doubt financial constraints are partly responsible for Joon’s chamber-drama depiction of the camp, which suggests a rather aimless and leisurely existence rather than the full-on manoeuvres and drills expected from army drama. But all this, however, only makes the The Unforgiven more effective as a psychological piece.

In the Seoul sequences, set during a single night, Joon keeps the audience guessing about how his two lead characters have changed since they served together. Always hanging over the drama is the suggestion that Seung-young is gay and in love with his former sergeant; homoerotic currents are implicit rather than obvious, shower scene notwithstanding.

Relaxed performances all round, together with Yoon’s penchant for long takes and a detached camera style make this a poignant, quietly impressive debut. Director Yoon also gives a poignant, notably vanity-free performance as the gauche Ji-hoon, the drama’s catalyst.

Production companies
Chungeorahm Film
A&D Pictures
Yoon Jong-bin Film

International sales
Film Messenger

Executive producer
Choi Yong-bae

Producers
Lee Dong-joon
Lee Young-ki

Cinematography
Kim Byung-chul

Editor
Kim woo-il

Production design
Yoon Jong-bin
Sohn Sang-bum

Main cast
Ha Jung-woo

Suh Jang-won
Yoon Jong-bin
Lim Hyun-sung
Han Sung-chun
Kim Sung-mi