Crush and Blush (Misseu Hongdangmu) (2008) directed by Kyoung-mi Lee

Hello, Steemit community!

It's time to discuss one more Korean movie - "Crush and Blush" by Kyoung-mi Lee. I paid attention to it because the script was written by Park Chan-wook (the director of Oldboy and The Handmaiden). I respect his movies and will try to watch everything he is involved in.

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It's hard for me to perceive Korean cinema because in their movies I see one thing and it's different on TV shows. Movies seem to have been filmed in the 70s, and TV series in the future.

Their movies are so realistic and cruel and the doramas are naive as a fairy tale. So that's why I have a cognitive dissonance every time. I'm watching several Korean TV series at the same time and the movie shocked me a bit. But first things first.

"Crush and Blush" is not a right translation of the movie's title. It's better to call it "Miss Carrot" or "Miss Blush". This title gives the film a special meaning and explains a lot. There is a cult of beauty in Korea. A girl or a guy can do a plastic surgery at lunchtime. While we are eating salad with tuna, thousands of Koreans have moved closer to the ideal face. The standards of beauty played a cosmic trick on the main character - a school teacher Yang Mi-sook. She has skin problems: her face is red and windblown and her lips are chapped. She tries to make herself look good, but no one can help her. She does not brush her hair, she does not wash. People laugh even more at her because of it.

Yang Mi-sook was a Russian language teacher. However, the Russian language was not popular and she was transferred to a new class, where she began to teach English....which she did not know). To ridicules over her appearance, schoolgirls ridiculed her pronunciation and ignorance of the language. The only thing that warms her heart is the love of the teacher Seo Jong-cheol. The first problem - he is married. But it is solved, she finds out he is going to get divorced. The second problem is that he is going to marry a beautiful teacher - Yang Mi-sook roommate. A bit confusing, right? I'm trying not to put here all their names.

After a while, it turns out that this is not just a comedy about an ugly girl, but an extremely intriguing tragic comedy about a stalker.

Events are mounting and by the end I've been waiting for an irreparable. I really liked the plot. He was very vital. I did not understand what was happening until the end. I would not say that this is a kind comedy with morality; on the contrary, it simply shows life with ridiculous moments. The film shows a very painful problem of society - the problem of social outcasts. This experience does not pass without any trace: some people are slowly going insane while the others take a gun and go to shoot offenders.

If you watch the movie, you will be surprised at the quality of the picture. It is gloomy and gray of poor quality as if I'm watching a movie from the 70's. But this color completely conveys the mood and inner world of Yang Mi-sook. It seemed to me that in moments of happiness her hair was smooth and brushed, but this thought came to me after watching and I do not want to check it out. We see that the heroine's sweater gets light toward the end. Does it mean that she found her happiness? I firmly doubt.

There are a lot of jokes in Crush and Blush, in some places these jokes are very sad. The main character as stubborn as an ox, she is perfectly supplemented by a student with whom they make up an explosive couple. In addition to them, we have a frivolous beauty, a poor rag of a man all the fuss is about and his strict wife.

It's a good movie about the kind of people who can not find mutual understanding with the world around them, adjust to the common wave and be like everyone else. Someone writes that this is an Art house, but in fact, the film is very naturalistic like the rest of the Korean cinema.

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