Where Is Miss Yeong? (1976)

A hostess film that starts promising and ends in disappointment

I found it interesting that I've seen "A girl who looks like the sun" (1975) by Lee Man-hee before seeing this one, and there's the same actress, dressed up in similar clothes, wearing the exact same necklace with heart and peace sign and it all happened in the same neighbourhood with low-rise flats. Yet the story is somehow different.

"Where is Miss Yang?" by Park Nam-su started as a teenage drama with two main characters: Miss Yang whose real name is Nan-hyang, and Jin-ho. Their roads crossed when both of them are caught by the police and became jail buddies . She was a girl who run away from home, he - a boy who took a break from studies in order to think about his future? His life? It was not rellly mentioned. Nevertheless, it was an interesting view on the teenages lives. People who are about to start an adult life, but are not yet ready to do so. They rebel towards the society that treats them like adults and towards parents who treats them like children. Both which they're not. It was such a fresh presentation of young adults who struggle with managing their daily life, but at the same time try to have fun and use their life as good as they can.

Unfortunately somewhere in the middle it all changed into a typical hostess film: a genre (?) from the 70s, where young woman, not having another option, in order to survive, decides to become a hostess girl (prostitute). Here, on one hand it also symbolized a continuation of rebelion towards her parents, because she wasn't from a poor family and didn't have to do it because of money. On the other, it fit into the common narration of hostess films where young woman is presented as a liberated woman who "doesn't have to, but want to do it". It all would fit greatly to contemporary narration about sex working and feminism, which I prefer not to get into. Here Nan-hyang is presented as a liberated woman, but because of her decision she received her bad ending at the end - which is common for classical hostess films, where division into good and bad is very clear. Moreover, it all ended just like it started: with her running on the street full of speeded cars. Maybe Park Nam-su wanted to show that life of rebeled teenagers is pointelss and would not lead enywhere, maybe he just wanted to make a hostess film, but decided to spice it up more with drama about rich teenagers? I don't know.

For me it looked like two different films. One is where Nan-hyang was a rebelled teenager, wandering and laughing around the city with Jin-ho, and the second one is where she out of blue decided to become a hostess and destroy her relationship with the man. It's also interesting because Jin-ho also changed a lot in the second part of the film: cutting his hair, offending "hippies" for being lazy etc. It really looks like their characters changed 180 degrees. I'm really curious how the censorship changed the original script, because for me it feels like the final version is just an enjoyable, but a failed monstrum of two different things.

It is definitely worth watching, especially for those who are interested in films from the 70s and those times in general, yet would like to watch something that is not really typical for them.

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