Driving With My Wife's Lover
아내의 애인을 만나다
(2006) Directed by Kim Tai-sik

Reminiscent of Stranger Than Paradise, Kim Tai-sik's striking first feature tells the story of Tae-han, a timorous stampmaker whose vendetta against his adulterous wife leads him on a bizarre cross-country road trip with her taxi-driving lover, Joong-sik. Car trouble leaves the men stranded in a country village where the randy, good-natured Joong-sik encourages Tae-han to go skinny dipping, drink soju and pay court to the local working girls. However, Tae-han's growing camaraderie with his more macho rival only intensifies his desire to prove his manhood through violent comeuppance. Shot in a palate as wide and bright as a deluxe box of Crayolas, the gas stations and rest stops of the Korean interstate take on the seductive anonymity of old roadside attraction postcards, replete with breathtaking visual surprises. A truckload of watermelons careens down the road like so many possessed bowling balls (but then resembles something far more gory when the fruit cracks open); a discarded cell phone camera turns into a melancholy underwater peep show. Like many other recent Korean films, Driving With My Wife's Lover suggests that a seismis shift is underway in traditional Korean codes of masculinity, an anxious period where minute shifts in angle can result in utter emotional upheavals.

Producer: Lee Yun-jin. Screenwriter: Kim Tai-sik, Kim Jun-han. Cinematographer: Lee Eun-kil, Jang Sun-bong.
Cast: Park Kwang-jung, Jeong Bo-seog.
Presented in Korean dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 92 min.

Cost : $10/ticket