Korean Movie Night: RE-ENCOUNTER Review

Re-Encounter is screening for free tonight, May 10 at 7:00 PM, as part of Korean Movie Night at Tribeca Cinemas. You can find more details and information on the Subway Cinema site.

For much of Re-Encounter, it's difficult to get inside actress You Da-In's character Hyehwa. Not because writer/director Min Yong-Keun's script serves her poorly--quite the contrary. Hyehwa has simply shut herself off from the world in very particular, very strategic ways. If we don't know what she's feeling from scene to scene, it's because she's done such a good job of putting up a wall between herself and the world.

It's why she's rocked when her high school boyfriend Hansoo comes back into her life, trailing a bunch of feelings behind him that Hye Hwa thought she'd buried. The first time we see them together, we learn almost everything we need to about their relationship based on how quickly and effectively Hyehwa scrambles to get away from Hansoo. Also interesting: they meet in wreckage and rubble, as Hywhwa--a veterinary assistant--tries to catch a white dog suffering from a hernia. She lives alone, and I suspect, on a long enough timeline, she'll become an animal hoarder. She doesn't really have anyone else in her life.

Maybe it's a little on-the-nose, but it's nonetheless "right" that these two characters should see each other for the first time in the midst of ruin. I'm going to spoil a little bit about the movie that is gradually revealed in the film: it's showing free, so if you want the capsule review without spoilers, I think it's worth seeing and you should do so.

Now, Hansoo returns into Hyehwa's life with information about their daughter--the one she dropped out of high school to have and that they both believed died immediately after being born. Hansoo claims to have proof that the little girl, who would be about five or six now, was adopted in secret. I felt that the movie captures perfectly the only real reaction her character can have to this situation: suspicious and angry.

Hansoo claims to know where they're little girl is, and spends his time skulking around the home of a college professor with a little girl around the age their daughter would be. His certainty is infections and leads to a couple of drastic decisions. All he really is at this point is his certainty and what is so well-realized about Yoo Yeon-Seok's performance is that that he keeps the character from becoming grating in his certainty. You mostly feel sorry for him because you can tell that he's sincere when he says he wants to do something for Hyehwa whom he treated very poorly.

If I'm a little less sure about Hansoo's character, it's only because his personality is so thin compared to hers. But I actually don't feel like it's to the detriment of the script. During flashbacks to their time in high school, it seems like her personality dominated his, as did his mother's and anyone else around him. Hansoo is one of those people who drifts through life, defined by the expectations and approval of others. Even when he runs away and tries to make a break from his life, it's to join the Army, so someone else can tell him what to do and who to be.

Re-Encounter isn't a movie to be enjoyed, exactly--it's too grim for that. But it has performances and insight into human nature that are to be savored. If I have one complaint, it's that I'm not sure I buy Hyehwa's final action in the movie. But then, maybe it's the kind of thing I should make allowances for, since at that point she's not the Hyehwa we met two hours before.