Good Lawyers Wife Im Sangsoo

South Korean housewife Hojung (a memorable Moon Sori) rebels against her husband Youngjak (Hwang Jungmin), a successful lawyer who's cheating on her. Hojung begins an affair with a moody yet spoiled teenage neighbour. Otherwise, the former dancer spends her days taking dance lessons and raising her precocious seven-year-old son, Sooin, who suffers an identity crisis when he learns he was adopted. Meanwhile, Youngjak's father dies and his caustic mother marries her old flame from elementary school. Sex and black comedy abound in the Korean version of American Beauty. Until a generation ago, South Korea was a dictatorship sealed off from the West. Today, South Korea has become Westernised and prospered. Im Sangsoo's portrait of a dysfunctional upper-middle class family takes aim at South Korea's newfound wealth and unexpected confusion, and Im revels in this chaos, focusing on sexuality. A Good Lawyer's Wife pushes the boundaries of permissible Korean cinema with its frank portrayal of sexual relations and its liberal display of both male and female nudity — even Western audiences will raise an eyebrow. Here, female sexuality is an expression of power — Hojung retaliates against her wayward husband by seducing a younger man. In her sex scenes, she is in control; in contrast, Hojung eventually loses control of his mistress. The film's main problem is that it's hard to know whose story we're watching: Hojung's or Youngjak's. Hojung's character is more developed than her husband's, but she needs more dimensions to capture our sympathy. Though funny, the characters are dislikeable, rarely letting down their guard. At first, there's a lot in A Good Lawyer's Wife to catch the eye of the viewer, but in the end there's not enough to hold it. (Myung)