킬링 로맨스 「Jukyeojunuen Romaenseu」
Release Date: April 14th, 2023
Duration: 106 mins.
Director: Lee Won-Suk
Writer: Park Jung-Ye (Screenplay),
Starring: Lee Ha-Nee (Hwang Yeo-Rae), Lee Sun-Kyun (Johnathan Na), Gong Myung (Kim Beom- Woo), Bae Yoo-Ram (Young-Chan),
Killing Romance is the Opening Film of the 2023 edition of the New York Asian Film Festival and a more appropriate title for that spot is hard to think of this year.
The third film from Lee Won-Suk (How to Use Guys with Secret Tips), viewers will be wowed by this crazy romantic black comedy which has the visual and aural excess to dazzle the senses while the comedy is absurdist gold and consistently delivers laugh-out-loud moments. Behind the chaos and cool of the comedic presentation of this highly twisted anti-romance lies a story about overcoming toxic masculinity and capitalist power though a liberating sense of self-belief and K-Pop.
We follow the plight of Hwang Yeo-Rae (Lee Ha-Nee), a popular idol who conquers singing but falters at acting. When a film project bombs, she picks an island in the South Pacific to retreat to in order to escape the critical mauling and harsh public spotlight. It is here that she fatefully meets fellow Korean Johnathan Na (Lee Sun-Kyun), an environmentalist, animal rights activist, and billionaire real estate developer who rescues her from the natives. Handsome, cool, and a super martial artist – hand chop! – he seems too good to be true and so it proves as Yeo-Rae discovers after she marries him.
Seven years later, the two return to Korea and move into Johnathan’s mansion. It is an amazing achievement in ostentatious set design and CG that shows the level of ego stroking he desires as the building has his visage built in brick on the exterior and its clinically white interior walls are adorned with humongous muscle-man portraits of himself in various poses in various stages of undress to show off a ripped torso and bulging biceps to emphasise his sexual virility.
If his ego is big, his perfectionism is bigger and he bullies all around him to get what he wants. This ranges from visiting politicians to servants like the “Susans,” two women who silently do their boss’s bidding, and Bob, a macho American Yes-man who enforces his boss’s will like a bodyguard. And on that note, the building also kind of resembles a prison as it has spotlights and tall walls. In essence, all of this is a gilded cage for a miserable Yeo-Rae who finds every aspect of her life controlled and psychological/physical terror – including a jaw-dropping use of fruit – deployed to keep her in line and prevent her from restarting her career.
Watching all of this from across the road is their neighbour Kim Beom-Woo (Gong Myung), a ronin mop-haired student who is depressed because he has fruitlessly been trying to enter Seoul University for four years. His favourite idol is Yeo-Rae and he is an adherent to Yeo-Raeism, her cult following. Knowing the truth behind the rich façade, and with the chance to impress his idol, he finds himself helping her hatch plans to kill her horrendous hubby and free herself from his grip. A veritable princess waiting for her prince, perhaps. However Yeo-Rae is very much her own person, driven, smart, and desperate to escape, she directs the more innocent Beom-Woo to back her schemes.
What ensues is an offbeat and increasingly bizarre story where audiences will find enough cartoonishly comedic and cruel levels to his toxic masculinity to demand his death in an equally cartoonish manner. His alpha-male persona, use of psychological manipulation, animal murder, garish displays of obscene wealth and ruthless and sadistic treatment of others. All bad. He proves to be a great villain thanks to an OTT performance from Lee Sun-Kyun. He is the one who played the patriarch of the rich family in Parasite (2019). Can you remember his character’s arrogant and sickly smooth behaviour? Now imagine that character but even more controlling, selfish, obnoxious and sadistically violent.
Awful, right?
In response to his awfulness, viewers witness a parade of increasingly dazzling murderous moments cooked up by an always ill-prepared but earnest Kim Beom-Woo and feisty Yeo-Rae, both of whom enjoy character arcs that see them grow from weak to confident. These murderous set pieces are delivered with fluid camerawork and whip-like editing to insert shocks of musicality, spikes of fantasy to slickly scene transition us through all of these eyebrow-raising assassination plots with full pelt momentum as it sets up, subverts, and overturns every romantic trope out there.
We witness the absurdity and hilarity of assassination by paper airplane or being broiled alive by sauna but that is just the tip of the iceberg as CG animals and crowds of Yeo-Rae fans and hired goons get in on the often gloriously cartoonish action that should have viewers laughing.
The gruesomeness may mount but the presentation and tone is always cheerful and upbeat as settings are colourful, murder methods mad, and character reactions running on perfectly timed chemistry and a little mugging for the camera. All of this is delivered with extravagant sets, like the aforementioned mansion or jungle paradise on the island, and exquisite art design that is often candy-coloured and cheerful and drawing upon K-Pop/media aesthetics, all caught with stunning cinematography that means the visuals impress. The mayhem and theatricality bring to mind the visual inventiveness of Milocrorze: A Love Story (2011).
It is a delightful sugar rush!
As a result, the film is full of an upbeat spirit so no matter how macabre the situation is, how mad the characters may seem, there is always laughter to be mined from the scenes as love and death mix together.
According to a friend, it is possible to read the Korean title in a number of ways and one of them is “romance kills” and that reading is also appropriate in a film where love is this twisted. The emotion is clearly used as a weapon to bludgeon people into conforming and is often deployed via a K-Pop love song Johnathan performs when he wants to get his way. It is possible to see his behaviour – lavishing gifts and emotions – as an examination of a selfish love taken to extremes to bend people to his will. In any case, Yeo-Rae sings her own song in defiance, an addictive ode to being a bad girl that reminds others she is her own person who had her own career and not someone’s property. That this also reinvigorates others to claim ownership of themselves in the face of a capitalist bully is both silly and thrilling.
It culminates in a K-Pop-off with an impressive number of participants whose unity in action is brought forward with fun choreography as they learn to overcome the abusive billionaire through solidarity and singing and the other characters find closure through the vindication of their identities. If there are any complaints to make the movie it is that it is a little too self indulgent as gags keep pouring in. Some viewers may lose patience but the greater majority will probably enjoy getting swept away be the action, exquisite visuals, sumptuous sounds, and ribald humour about killing with romance that is both deadly serious and dead funny.
Killing Romance is the opening film for NYAFF. It plays on Friday, July 14, at 19:00 at the Walter Reade Theater, Film at Lincoln Center. There will be an introduction and Q&A with director Lee Won-suk and actor Lee Sun-kyun.
It plays again on July 30 with an introduction and Q&A with cast members Lee Ha-nee, Gong Myoung and Lee Sun-kyun, and Director Lee Won-suk.