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Kim Jong-kwan’s 2020 Korean adaptation of Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, titled simply Josee, was a minor hit in Japan, owing most likely to its source material, Seiko Tanabe’s 1984 short story, which has been adapted in Japan for the screen in both live action and anime versions that were major hits here. A local distributor is now releasing Kim’s earlier film, Shades of the Heart, which is a much different animal, and not just because it’s based on an original script by Kim himself. Shades is one of those exercises in creative self-indulgence that can often try the viewer’s patience, and has little of the overt heart-tugging appeal of Josee. It’s a movie whose storyline charts the interactions of a novelist protagonist with a series of people, and it becomes something of a game to determine if these interactions are real, dreams, or sketches for a literary work in progress. 

The first interaction is the most intriguing. A young woman (Lee Ji-eun, better known as the pop singer IU) dozes in a coffee shop and awakes to see a stranger sitting across the table from her. The stranger is our protagonist, Chang-seok (Yeon Woo-jin), who claims he had a pre-arranged rendezvous with the woman. Their conversation is cryptic and lacking in the kind of small talk that usually arises when two people meet for the first time. Chang-seok explains himself in vague terms, that he recently returned to Seoul from living abroad, that his marriage failed and he’s a writer. The upshot is that the encounter is filtered through the woman’s confusion, and, in fact, she’s Chang-seok’s mother, dizzy from onset dementia, imagining her first meeting with Chang-seok’s father.

The remaining encounters provide diminishing returns in terms of invention, but Kim has adroitly prepared the viewer to expect the unexpected and question the validity of these encounters as events happening in the material world. Chang-seok meets with an old colleague (Yoon Hye-ri) who now works for the company that is publishing his latest book, and the conversation is mostly about her, her failed relationship with a foreign student, and her abortion. In another encounter, Chang-seok happens upon another former acquaintance, a middle aged photographer (Kim Sang-ho), in another coffee shop. He tells Chang-seok that his wife is dying of cancer and that he plans to kill himself after she’s gone. While the photographer takes a phone call, Chang-seok swipes his vial of cyanide. The last encounter takes place in a deserted bar where the bartender (Lee Ju-young) confesses she suffered amnesia after a traffic accident and ever since has picked customers’ brains for their memories, because she has none of her own. 

Due to the episodic, conversation-driven structure, Shades of the Heart often seems in danger of tipping over into Hong Sang-soo territory, but the prosaic banality of Hong’s dialogue was the point, whereas in Kim’s case the words have a scripted quality that make it seem as if we are reading a book rather than seeing a movie. However, the film gains in narrative substance as it gives up more information about Chang-seok’s past and his obvious sense of despair, which he can only express in writing. Kim places too much stock in carefully placed visual and auditory symbols that tend to distract from rather than enrich his themes and story, but Shades of the Heart is nonetheless a noble, often fascinating miscalculation.

In Korean. Now playing in Tokyo at Cinemart Shinjuku (03-5369-2831), Shibuya White Cine Quinto (03-6712-7225).

Shades of the Heart home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2019 Vol Media Co., Ltd.

Not even 20 years ago, most prominent films from China, whether officially approved or not, could expect a release in Japan, but not any more. It has less to do with content or even popularity than with lack of local distributors (not to mention venues) that are interested in—or that even understand—Chinese cinema. I imagine this family melodrama, which looks as if it were shot on a shoestring budget, wouldn’t have merited a Japan release if it hadn’t actually been a box office hit in China, which, due to its sensitive theme and fairly restrained dramatic presentation, was probably not predicted even in China. 

The story isn’t particularly original. Ran (Zhang Zifeng) is a nursing intern at a hospital in the city of Chengdu who hopes to advance to a graduate program in Beijing. Her career path is interrupted by the deaths of her mother and father in an automobile accident. Though she has been estranged from her parents for a number of years, she is called back to her home by relatives who expect her to take care of her 6-year-old brother, Ziheng (Kim Darren Yowon), whom she doesn’t know at all since she entered nursing school around the time he was born. Eventually, we learn through flashbacks that Ran’s father compelled her to pretend to be disabled so that they could apply to the authorities for permission to have another child. This was when China enforced its one-child policy, and Ran’s father desperately wanted a son. Ran resented the subterfuge, which is one of the reasons she left home, so she feels no particular responsibility to her parents’ memory or her brother himself, which causes much friction with her various relatives, who not only want her to take Ziheng but also demand she give them a piece of her parents’ property, which is now legally in her name. 

Zhang plays Ran as pugnacious and aggrieved, and the performance lifts the movie out of whatever sentimental mire it’s in danger of being stuck in. In fact, Zhang, a former child actor, has become a certified star due to the relative success of Sister. She also helps sell director Yin Ruoxin’s social criticism regarding Chinese society’s lingering gender discrimination. Ran is up against a lot to achieve her dream of becoming a medical professional. In addition to her relatives’ restrictive expectations, her boyfriend, another intern, doesn’t seem to be fully behind her determination to move to Beijing. Even her hospital colleagues disappoint her as professionals when they cave to a man who insists his wife bring her pregnancy to term even though it will likely end in miscarriage and possible death for the mother. 

That’s why the predictable outcome of the film may dishearten many viewers. Ziheng is a terror in the beginning who, having not been told his parents actually died, resists Ran’s halfhearted attempts to take care of him while she looks for adoptive parents and endeavors to sell the family home. Over time, her resistance is eroded by Ziheng’s fundamental neediness, and while the development of their relationship is affecting and natural, its direction is towards a conclusion that feels determined by forces outside the scope of the nuanced and thoughtful script. It’s difficult to avoid the feeling that, regardless of how pointedly she has addressed her social themes, in the end Yin felt she had to acquiesce at least partially to traditional sensibilities. 

In Mandarin. Opens Nov. 25 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608).

Sister home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2021 Shanghai Lian Ray Pictures Co., Ltd.