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(Movie Review) Delicious meals spawn unexpected romance in 'The Naked Kitchen'
By Shin Hae-in
SEOUL, Jan. 20 (Yonhap) -- The first thing you'll want to do after watching this sugary romantic film is have a delicious homemade dinner. Then, you may trot out to explore the hidden streets of Seoul with hopes of falling in love with the first person you bump into.
Love can turn any ordinary dish into the most exotic cuisine you have ever tasted, and make Seoul seem as exciting as Paris or New York -- but can you really handle it, the South Korean movie "The Naked Kitchen" asks.
The movie, the first feature-length film by emerging director Hong Ji-young, examines a question that everyone has asked at least once: Is love a moment of irresistible passion, or is it a tranquil part of everyday life?
While touching on the meaning of love and the sensitive subject of infidelity, director Hong immerses the movie in scrumptious meals, summer sunshine and charming props that seem uniquely Korean, proving Korean chick flicks have a chance at becoming their very own genre.
Mo-rae (Synn Min-a) is a twenty-something parasol designer who seems to be everything a man could dream of in a wife. Mild-tempered and sweet, Mo-rae married the first -- and only -- man she has ever loved. In fact, they were playmates as toddlers.
The husband, Sang-in (Kim Tae-woo), is a hotshot fund manager who dreams of becoming a chef. Encouraged by his loving wife's full support, Sang-in quits his job and prepares to open a fusion Korean restaurant.
Everything seems to go well for the happily married couple until another man, Du-re (Ju Ji-hun), enters their lives.
As their rhyming names indicate, Mo-rae and Du-re are drawn to each other from the moment they accidentally bump into each other.
Reflecting her perhaps childish, but honest personality, Mo-rae confesses her onetime, but passionate, affair to her husband who says, "Let's not reopen the wound, and forget this ever happened."
The wound barely has time to heal, however, as Du-re turns out to be a talented cook who flies to Seoul from Paris to give a piece of culinary advice to Sang-in, his longtime friend.
The plot of the movie is quite simple. Rather than unfolding through incidents or heated moments of confrontation, the movie quietly portrays how the three characters handle their feelings of love, passion and jealousy in their everyday lives.
The strength of this movie is not in the plot or depth of the story, but in the way the director lays out each scene to assemble one big picture: that of home-cooked meals, cozy homes, blue skies and families and friends.
Instead of verbalizing his jealousy and anxiety after discovering the affair between his wife and friend, Sang-in eats a hamburger at a baseball game. For a chef noted for creating an "unchanging and seemingly everlasting taste," eating fast food shows how deeply hurt and devastated he is.
Director Hong, considered one of the most talented young female filmmakers in Korea, has already shown her ability to slowly absorb the audience rather than force them into her story with her short movies "Rosa Story" and "Herstory." Both movies were well received by critics at the Cologne International Women's Film Festival and the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in 1999 and 1995, respectively,
"I made the movie thinking romance might be the last dream and hope for all adults," the 38-year-old director told the audience at the movie's preview.
Ironically, it took barely two months to complete the movie, whose message seems to be "slow and steady cooking makes the best meals."
"The Naked Kitchen" will hit screens nationwide on Feb. 5.
hayney@yna.co.kr
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