Hansoo (On Ju-wan) is the most promising young swimmer at his high
school, but eventually he loses all interest in swimming ... and then his
mother makes a suicide attempt as her life felt empty. Mum survives of
course, but she remains in a coma, and Hansoo has to take care of her in
the hospital as well as take care of the mess she has left him concerning
debit collectors from the credit card company and the like.
Eventually Hansoo finds a friend in Mijin (Ok Ji-young), whose comatose
mother shares a room with his mother, but eventually, when her mother
dies, she disappears from his life (at least for a while). Only eventually
will Hansoo find out that Mijin actually killed her mother out of pity. He
is then almost tempted to do the same but simply can't.
Before long, Hansoo takes an interest in Inhee (Kim Ho-jung), the
neighbour who always plays the piano, and he begs her to sleep with him,
even though she is much older than him and already married. She refuses
but gives him a handjob every now and again. Inhee's stepdaughter Minji
(Park Min-ji) eventually comes by for a visit, and soon, Hansoo makes
friends with the young girl, who seems to be just full of optimism despite
the fact that she spends her time in a sanatorium because she was raped.
When Hansoo's financial problems become more and more pressing, he
starts robbing convenience stores ... until the cashier of one of the
stores turns out to be Mijin. They recognize each other, of course, but
later Mijin does not give him away.
When Hansoo realizes he has come to the end of the rope, he tries to
kill himself by swimming out into the open see, and let the sea do the
rest once he's exhausted ... but he is saved.
Eventually, Hansoo visits his father and tries to ask him for help, but
his father, who has never even seen the boy and is now the happy father of
another family, refuses to even acknowledge him ...
In the end, everything is turned topsy turvey when it is suggested that
it was actually Hansoo who has been attempting suicide and his mother has
taken care of him all of this time ... but then that's maybe just my
interpretation.
If my synopsis of this film makes narrative sense - that's entirely
thanks to me. The film itself looks more like a series of scenes about an
adolescent growing up clumsily pieced together without even trying to find
a coherent narrative to tie everything up. Granted, some sequences of the
film are interesting, well done, worth watching, but as a whole the film
doesn't seem to be going anywhere in particular and is nothing more than
boring as a result of this.
|