Screening at the New Directors/New Films Festival, New York City; March 29, 8:45 pm, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center; March 31, 6 pm, MoMA Film at The Gramercy Theatre.
The games that people play often have real and tragic consequences, especially when they affect the emotions in intimate relationships. But there always have been heartless and cruel people who take pleasure in using others and bending them to their wills. Such is the case in director E J-Yong's luxuriously filmed Korean version of the classic French novel Dangerous Liaisons. He has set the tale of deception in a period near the end of the Chosun dynasty when the worn-out rules of Confucianism were giving way to new expressions of independence. The ruling class lives in incredible comfort and beauty served by countless numbers of underlings.
Cho-Won (Bae Yong-Jun) is a scholar and martial artist. He has a reputation as a womanizer who has seduced and abandoned a large number of women. In the opening scene of the film, he is painting a naked beauty while Lady Chung (Jeon Do-Yeon) is being honored by the government for her strict adherence to Confucian beliefs. For nine years she has maintained her chastity following the untimely death of her husband. Cho-Won sees her as the next target for his efforts as an inimitable Don Juan.
He shares this plan with his cousin Lady Cho (Lee Mi-Sook), the first love of his life, who is now married and having sex with as many men as she can in secret. She has an assignment of her own for him: deflower So-ok (Lee So-yeon), a delightful young woman who is to become her husband's concubine. They end their chat with a bet: Cho-Won can sleep with Lady Cho if he succeeds in seducing Lady Chung.
What is it about Dangerous Liaisons that makes it such a universal story? The drama reveals the shadow sides of intimate relationships when the heart is open and vulnerable to others. In this portrait of sexual politics, the selfish Cho-Won uses every trick in the book to win the admiration and respect of Lady Chung, a devout Catholic who loves serving others in acts of charity. But what goes around comes around. Cho-Won finds himself caught up in emotions that he has never experienced before at the end of his relationship with Lady Chung. Violating the spirit of others is not a pleasant game in any culture or clime. There are no winners, and everyone loses.
