PAJU

Walking in I had no clue what “Paju” was about or what country it came from, so I really was going in cold.  It turned out to be a South Korean drama about a guy and two sisters who live in the countryside town of Paju.  The guy ends up marrying the eldest sister (while all the time being in love with the youngest).  Rebelling against her brother-in-law, the youngest sister decides to leave Paju and on this very same day, her sister dies mysteriously.  Four years later she decides to return to Paju to find out the truth of her sister’s death.  She suspects her brother-in-law because she finds out that she died in a gas explosion and not from the car accident like he told her.   

While it is a well made film, shot nicely and acted great throughout, unfortunately the characters aren’t as engaging as they need to be.  The younger sister is so frustrating because she is so selfish and whenever she is faced with a problem, she runs from it.  She is played by Seo Woo who is great in the role (although ironically she played the wife in “The Housemaid” where I thought her work was quite poor).  The director, Park Chan-Ok, also makes us continually go back and forth through different time periods.  By the end, it does make sense, but at the beginning, this makes it all the more confusing and harder to enter emotionally into the drama.  Overall while it was a good film, it wasn’t engaging enough to re-visit in the future.

3 Stars - Viewed at the 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival