Unexpectedly Poignant

If you read the synopsis, it seems like this would be about a man sexually abusing a disabled person, but it isn't that story at all. The film is full of symbolism from the very first frame, and, while a bit dark, I liked how it ended. The last 40 minutes were quite satisfying. You do have to get through the first half though.

The film starts out a bit slow but if you pay attention to all the details, it will reward the astute viewer later. Be warned there is some violence in this one, and a lot of suggestive scenes though nothing overtly pornographic, in my opinion.

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Cute Rom-Com

I've only recently started watching old Korean movies and dramas and wanted to check out Choi Ji Woo's filmography after seeing her cameo in Crash Landing on You. This seemed to be the only romantic comedy in a string of melodramas (at least in the early years).

I was pleasantly surprised by how charming this series is. The love story is very organic and the supporting characters are fun to watch. The plot is predictable at times but the way everything unfolded is very enjoyable to watch.

The Pros and Cons listed below are mildly spoiler-y (no names provided) but they do factor into what I liked/disliked about the show. The Cons list is quite subjective too - I suspect it has more to do with my sensitivities so these same things might not matter to another viewer.

PROS
The female lead is a delight. I particularly love how she behaves once she figures out she loves Yong Nam.
I like how they turned a female supporting character - who is suspiciously being positioned as a rival for our male lead's affections - into someone far nicer.
The ragtag team supporting Yong Nam is more capable than I thought they would be. I love them.

CONS
I'm not okay with a bit of the dialogue that our male lead says to his young male friend in an early episode about his view on women vs male friends.
I'm also not okay with how one of the main supporting characters flirts mildly with his ex-girlfriend without his wife's knowledge and the audience is supposed to find that acceptable.
There is a bit of torture that happens to a couple of characters midway through the series that seems to be played for laughs. It's not funny.

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I would describe this movie as a slice-of-life story of a young girl's first love, set in rural Korea in the early 1960s. It is not particularly romantic, though you can see how certain scenes are romanticized and fraught with meaning from Hong Yeon's (the student) point of view. For anyone who ever had a serious crush during their teen years, where every action by your beloved can cause one to fall into depths of despair or rise to ecstatic flights of fancy, the moments shared in this film will be very familiar.

The story unfolds in scenes from the everyday life of our three protagonists, so expect the pacing to be slow and meandering, punctuated by lovely songs from that era that would be familiar with Western (i.e., non-Asian) audiences. The ending and credits come as a lovely surprise.

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A film about losses/endings

You have to be in a certain mood to appreciate this film, where all the scenes are between our protagonist and only one other person that he's having a conversation with.

If you listen closely, you'll notice all the scenes involve talk of some kind of loss or ending - but they can be divided into chosen actions or ones that were not chosen/ involuntary/ out of one's control.

SPOILERS

Chosen actions mentioned: terminating a pregnancy, contemplating suicide, resigning from a job.
Unwanted losses revealed: death of a loved one, losing one's memory (due to dementia), end of a marriage, losing one's sanity

All melancholy topics - but I rather like how it's done. Actions or situations aren't depicted as right or wrong, they just are what they are. That's life.

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Cute Start, Frustrating Middle, Redemptive End

Where to even begin with this review? It was not good.

The male lead, Lee Kyung Min, is a dishonest jerk. He keeps LYING. Big lies, little lies, and not even white lies. Sometimes there’s not even a good reason for his lies that I can deduce; it just seems to be a habit he can’t break. It’s hinted that he’s quite smart but I don’t see it.

The female lead, Nam Jung Eun, is stubborn and doesn’t learn from her mistakes. While not exactly a doormat, she doesn’t know how to set boundaries, keeps giving in to the male lead’s whining, and also doesn’t know when to tell the truth. Also, I felt that she didn’t have the right to get angry at the ML when he goes out with the second FL. She does get better in the last two episodes after she finally calls Kyung Min out.

They are BAD FOR EACH OTHER. Toxic. They need to stay far away from each other.

I’m rating it a 6 though because there was an attempt to redeem Kyung Min, and Jung Eun did finally do something good for herself towards the end. I wish we saw some of that growth though. Kim Rae Won was very handsome here, I have to say.

The reason I wanted to watch this drama was because of Kim Seon Ho. No, he isn’t in this drama (he would have been 17 when this drama aired), but he did play the male lead role of Lee Kyung Min many years later in a play based on this drama. This show had very high ratings when it was on the air, and apparently it was so beloved that a play was made based on it. That made me curious about it, knowing I will never get to watch Korean theatre (since I don’t speak Korean). Maybe the play was better? I would have loved to see Kim Seon Ho’s take on the male lead.

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Thought Provoking

The Anarchists is a gem of a movie. Written by Park Chan Wook (The Handmaiden), it includes some actors that Korean drama viewers may recognize: Handsome Jung Joon Ho (one of the dads in SKY Castle), baby-faced Kim In Kwon (he was Go Mi Nam’s manager in Hong Sisters’ You’re Beautiful), charismatic Jang Dong Gun (A Gentleman’s Dignity, All About Eve), and charming Kim Sang Joong (Doctor Stranger, Bad Guys, etc.) are all part of the main cast. The last member of the main cast – Lee Bum Soo – is the only one not quite familiar to me as he seems to be more in movies rather than TV dramas.

The movie is actually quite poignant and is peppered with bits of funny moments, but it is also incredibly violent, as can be expected from the title. We follow the five main characters as they fight for what they believe in and during the process, we witness murder and betrayal as well as love and friendship and even little acts of kindness.

If you can get past the violence and look instead at the story, you will find yourself thinking of this movie long after the last image has faded away.

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