Revenge is a dish served quite often in Korean cinema, and served most deliciously at times at that, so it is a hard game for directors to try and come up with something that hasn't been seen before by the audiences. In his debut feature “The Lost Choices”, Ahn Yong-hoon attempts to do just that, giving a different treatment to his revenge saga.
“The Lost Choices” is available from Echelon Studios
Once a promising sharpshooter, Chae Ji-yeon became a shell of her former self after a road accident in which she loses both her parents and her voice, with speech proving problematic for her after developing a strong stutter. Now a button-pusher at a textile factory with her best friend Won-kyung, who is trying to get a permanent spot in the company by sleeping with her boss, Ji-yeon has dreams of making a career in design, a dream that is shattered one night when she is dragged into an empty building and raped by three men.
She tries to report the incident to a corrupt and irresponsible detective, who doesn't take her seriously and shames her instead. The distraught Ji-yeon heads back home, where one of the rapists is waiting for her. He forces himself on her again and when she ends up with a body and a gun, she realises that it is up to her to deal with not just the rapists but also other people who've done wrong to her and Won-kyung. While she exacts her revenge, female detective Kang Ja-gyum, who has a personal interest in the case, tries desperately to help Ji-yeon catch the perpetrators the legal way.
You have to hand it to Ahn Yong-hoon for trying to do something different in a genre that is saturated, and for his debut feature no less. While the overlapping story arc is that of the Ji-yeon's revenge, Ahn actually uses this for some sharp social commentary, which is where his primary focus is. Chiefly, he is very effective in portraying how the victims of rape are treated and the stigma with which they are looked upon. Victim shaming is very much a real thing and Ji-yeon experiences this first hand, with almost all the male cops writing her off in disbelief and people calling her all sorts of names. Workplace politics, and the issues and compromises that women have to go through in them, are also explored in rather detailed fashion not just in Ji-yeon's and more specifically in Won-kyung's storyline, but also in Kang Ja-gyum's.
Every single male in Ahn's feature is a despicable douche, including the police, the friend's boss and Won-kyung's boyfriend, and Ahn does overplay this depiction, but this is clearly the females' story and he makes sure the audience know that. He also touches upon the prejudice that the disabled face, with Ji-yeon's stutter, but this feels like an unnecessary addition that doesn't really add much to the narrative. The feature is in fact guilty of doing that on more occasion than one, like Won-kyung's involvement in Ji-yeon's accident and the undercover cop angle, both reveals that serves no purpose and the latter actually making a key act that particular character does early on in the film seem preposterous.
Even these situations however are bolstered by an engrossing performance from Shin Hyun-been. The narrative follows her for the majority of the runtime and Shin manages to portray the fear, anger and later resolution successfully, making her performance the biggest highlight of the feature. The scene right after her first kill and later on a key sequence in the climax are indications of the talent she possesses in this early career work, even if the entire climax ultimately and unnecessarily relies on melodrama and comes across rather unbelievable. Yoon So-yi as Kang Ja-gyum and Lim Seo-joo as Won-kyung are also equally impressive in roles that are effectively a commentary of women in workplace. These are beautiful women and the world around them is very ugly and casting is appropriate for the same, particularly noticeable in the casting of a rather butch-looking woman, the only other female in the story, for a character who helps Won-kyung's boss exploit his female employees.
The cinematography by Lee Bong-joo captures a very dark world around the characters, one with minimal lighting and darkness around every corner. This darkness permeates throughout Ahn Yong-hoon's debut feature, which shows promise but could have benefitted from a more focused storytelling. Despite that, as it stands, “The Lost Choices” is an interesting and admittedly fresh take on an inexhaustible genre that boasts of a strong central performance from Shin Hyun-been.
