REVIEWS Doctor A slick Korean thriller that has its charms for fans — if you don’t look to closely By Elizabeth Kerr A COSMETIC SURGEON suffers a devastating psychotic break when he discovers his wife’s infidelity in writer-director Kim Sunghong’s debut feature Doctor, a well-paced piece of the genre filmmaking that the Korean industry seems to be able to churn out so well. Borrowing heavily from a plethora of sources yet somehow making them fit together, this is also precisely the type of Korean film that plays well overseas. On the downside, it’s yet another film that trades in violence against women. <strong>The</strong> thriller touches on the high price of vanity and ugly, latent gender dynamics (that predictably come down in favor of the gentlemen) and wraps it up in cheap pop psychology as an explanation for all. Nonetheless, Doctor is polished entertainment that will likely find an audience in Asia, with genre festivals overseas and in limited release through specialty distributors. A healthy DVD and download life looks like a sure thing. By all accounts, fiftysomething plastic surgeon Choi In-bum (television veteran Kim Chang-wan) lives a charmed, successful life. His cosmetic surgery clinic is booming, he owns an ultra-modern luxury home in an exclusive neighborhood and he’s married to a beautiful, much younger woman, Soon-jung (Bae Soeun). But signs of something sinister abound. Aping Sion Sono’s Guilty of Romance, In-bum treats Soon-jung like a reformed (from what is never clearly explained) low-rent serf and he’s prone to flying into rages when she chooses a “tasteless” tie for him to wear. He’s also a professional despot and possibly a junkie. Things get even worse when In-bum unexpectedly goes back home and finds her in the middle of a lusty encounter with her lover, a personal trainer that exclusively wears pants that are four inches too short, Young-gwan 14 (Seo Gun-woo). Cue the psychotic break and couple of wildly murderous days at the clinic. Aside from the Sono shout-out there’s a touch of Cronenbergian body horror and a narrative device that brings Pedro Almodóvar’s <strong>The</strong> Skin I Live In to mind. Doctor cleaves closely to the mad rampage map, and does so in spectacularly gory — and creative — fashion. It goes without saying the film boasts dozens of WTF moments and tiny red herrings designed to ratchet up the tension, which in reality will have veteran genre viewers knowingly rolling their eyes. After wisely calling the police when he discovers that horrors have transpired in his lover’s house, does Young-gwan do the same thing at the hospital? No. Knowing In-bum’s wife is a likely target as well as a sitting duck after the mad doctor’s freakout, do the police put even a rookie beat cop outside her door? No. For every unexpected smart move, and there are a few, Kim follows it up with a dumb one, making for a frustrating viewing experience. Most frustrating perhaps is Kim Chang-wan plays a crazed plastic surgeon set off by an act of infidelity the notable fact that Doctor’s resident misogynist is a plastic surgeon, and that the scene of the bloodbath is his temple to artificial beauty. <strong>The</strong> wisdom or politics of cosmetic surgery aside, the message that comes through loud and clear is that vanity will kill you (Soon-jung’s mother also incurs In-bum’s wrath), yet Soon-jung is very clearly told at one point to suck up her unhappy marriage for just a little while to insure a decent alimony settlement (why bother with a job?). So, Soonjung should be beautiful (and the film’s big twist involves her own procedures), but she should also be prepared to suffer for it? It seems women in Korea just can’t catch a break. Gala Presentation Production company Nomad Film Producer Cha Seung-jai, Hwang Kyung-sung, Cho Han-joo Director Kim Sung-hong Cast Kim Chang-wan, Bae So-eun, Seo Gun-woo, Ban Min-jeong Screenwriter Kim Sung-hong Executive producer Hwang Kyung-sung
TIFF D4 100812.indd 1 10/2/12 1:56 PM
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