The Railroad 경의선 by Park Heung Shik 박흥식 (2006)
18 December 2007A really interesting art house film, not entirely successful, but certainly worth a watch. Combining 2 stories, one of adultery and one of tragedy and intertwining them into recovery for the 2 people involved. The stories are intercut, with us starting at the halfway mark and then going back to see what led us to there. The acting is top notch, and while not much happens in the film, it is interesting and certainly kept me watching throughout.
The first story involves Hanna (Son Tae-yeong 손태영) who is a guest lecturer at a university, and is having an affair with the full time professor (Baek Jong-hak 백종학). It turns out they met in college, when he was a graduate and she was a Freshmen, and then he went to Germany to study, and she did too, and they were together until he returned to Korea and got married, and she had to stay in Germany to finish her degree. The second story is of a subway driver named Man-soo (Kim Kang-woo 김강우) who works like mad, and has a strange and beautiful girl (Cha Seo-won 차서원) come and deliver him a magazine and coffee and a pastry and magazine once a month, though she strangely knows his schedule, and he knows nothing about her.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….
The two in the present are both on a train, she drunk, and he asleep, and they both go too far and end up at the end of the line with no place to stay in a snow storm, so they must walk to try and find a hotel. We eventually find out the whole story of each.
Hanna in fact got pregnant from the Professor, but had a miscarriage in Germany. And she planned a special trip with him for her birthday, but the wife found out and attacked her. And the Professor did not leave his wife when she found out, but instead lied and kept the marriage going, so Hanna realized it was over.
Man Soo was on leave because the beautiful girl had a limp he did not know about, and she suicided into his train, dyeing in front of him. And he was on leave trying to figure things out. The two comfort each other in the hotel.
We cut to a year later, and Hanna has now released a book, though it isn’t selling too well. And she and her friend ride on a train, and it is Man-soo driving it, and he makes an announcement, and she knows he went back to work.
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An interesting experiment and partially successful. And damn if Son Tae-Yeong isn’t gorgeous, and a pretty damn good actress.
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