Obsessed (2014)

I just finished this movie, and thought I need to write a review, as I feel the reviews here don't make this movie justice. This is not a bad movie. The title obsessed, illustrate well the main theme. It is about a forbidden love between two married people, a desire and obsession that consumes everything. It was sad and melancholic - the choice of classical music also enhanced this feeling. It is definitely a movie for mature audience, as it has very graphic sexual content, shows adultery, and touches upon complicated subjects like post conflict trauma. I also really liked the images of the movie, as they were very beautifully filmed.
It is true that the two main leads had their flaws - the commander had lost his purpose in life after traumatic experiences in Vietnam, and the main girl did a marriage of reason also after traumatic experiences from her past. Both are adults who didn't experience true love, and they are overwhelmed by their own feelings.
Overall I liked this movie, and I found that the actors played well.

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An (erotic) melodrama whose melodramatics were brilliantly captured

"Obsessed" is an erotic movie about a passionate affair in South Korea around 1969. It is a melodrama whose melodramatics were brilliantly captured - with a Song Seung-heon, who absorbs the drama in his particular passionate manner. What is new in that context, is how he is allowed to act almost shamelessly here.

However, "Obsessed" is also an exciting KMovie as it touches on a not so well known chapter in recent South Korean history: the time of Vietnam War.


------------------------- SIDE NOTE: --- South Korea and the Vietnam War ---
It is always the USA that come to mind. But South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines also fought in Vietnam. South Korea was the country most involved after the USA. Between 1964 and 1973, around 48.000 Korean soldiers were each year drafted into this war. They had all volunteered, not least because their monthly wages brought in almost twice as much as a normal annual salary would have at the time. However, the South Korean army has gained a dubious reputation with a few massacres (including among civilians) in this war - a chapter from the time of the military dictatorship that has not been fully processed by now. The KMovie gives at least some space/thinking to this aspect - in connection with the consequences of the post-traumatic disorders, including the protagonist.
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"Obsessed" conveys some impressions about those 1960s/70s. The already strictly authoritarian context of South Korean every day life becomes even more so during dictatorship at that time, let alone in military itself. Thus every spark of vitality is nipped in the bud by the stiff corset of an immaculate facade. With the affair, an erotic tension is built up that one is not used to from the KDrama orbit. For the protagonists, however, this tension opens up a forbidden, yet addictive space to breathe, love and feel alive - and this precious moment of feeling alive has more value for the distressed male protagonist than anything else - as he has already seen and brought way too much death into this world...

Provoking. Gloomy. Beautifully done.

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