S. Korean director impresses with debut

Jae-eun Jeong’s “Take Care of My Cat” brings a beguiling freshness to a coming-of-age story with such a buoyant, expressive flow of images that it emerges as another key contribution to the flowering of the South Korean cinema. Jeong’s feature debut has been shown at major film festivals the world over, collecting a number of awards along the way as one of the most accomplished foreign films of the year.

The key setting is Inchon, site of a U.N. forces landing that turned the tide of the Korean War and today a heavily industrialized port city. Significantly, the film’s first shot is of a young woman, Tae-hee, boarding a commuter train for Seoul, 25 miles away. A recent high school graduate, Tae-hee (Doo-na Bae) has landed a junior position in a brokerage firm and has quickly become caught up in what represents for her an exciting new world full of possibilities.

She has left behind in Inchon four classmates with whom she means to stay in close touch. The independent-thinking Hae-joo (Yo-won Lee) lives at home and is expected to work without pay in the family heating business; she also takes dictation from a gifted poet afflicted by cerebral palsy. Ji-young (Ji-young Ok), taller and deeper-voiced than her friends, struggles to find a job while staying on with her hard-working grandparents, who live and work in a tiny shantytown hovel. Rounding out the group are cheerful twin sisters (Eun-shil and Eun-joo Lee), who sell jewelry on the streets of the city’s Chinatown.

A less imaginative director would make Tae-hee and her adventures in the big city the film’s focal point, but Jeong gradually moves Hae-joo, by far the most alert and reflective member of the group, to the fore as she feels increasingly oppressed by her overbearing, patriarchal father. In her unhappiness with her lot in life she cannot help but embark upon a journey of self-discovery that will have substantial effect upon others as well as herself. Interestingly, while all these women certainly are interested in men, they are so caught up in the challenge of life that they have no time to pursue romance.

Bae took three best actress awards, at two Korean festivals and in the Korean film critics annual prizes, for her incisive portrayal of Tae-hee.

There is a wonderful natural quality to Jeong’s storytelling that is enhanced by cinematographer Young-hwan Choi’s graceful camerawork and by a dynamic, contemporary score from M&F.;

As a feminist filmmaker, Jeong has already mastered the knack of depicting women’s concerns without being the least bit preachy.

*

‘Take Care of My Cat’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Mature themes; a key sequence too intense for children.

Doo-na Bae...Tae-hee

Yo-won Lee...Hae-joo

Ji-young Ok...Ji-young

Eun-shil Lee...Bi-ryu

Eun-joo Lee...Ohn-jo

A Kino International release of a Masurlpiri production presented by Ipictures, Terasource Venture Capital in association with the Korea Film Commission. Writer-director Jae-eun Jeong. Producer Gi-min Oh. Cinematographer Young-hwan Choi. Editor Hyun-mee Lee. Music M&F.; Costumes/make-up Ye-young Koh and Young-sook. In Korean, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes.

Exclusively at the Grande 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St., Downtown Los Angeles, (213) 617-3984.