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Theres no cinematic terrain as potent as an actors face.
Freddie is a live wire given form, flesh, sinew.
Both Tena and Dongwan speak French, which is imperative since Freddie doesnt speak a lick of Korean.
She still pours her own glass.
Freddie used to be a musician, for starters.
Freddie grows icy when told she has a typical Korean face, one from ancient, ancestral Korea.
She is rootless, reluctant to acknowledge her yearning, let alone give in to it.
Where do her wounds begin?
Where does the pain of her torn identity end?
Chou charts this dynamic carefully, avoiding simplistic or blunt judgments.
(Though he flounders once with a strange, uncontextualized departure into Freddies temporary work selling missiles.
She believes its her destiny to help South Korea against North Korea for peace, in theory.)
Freddies grandmother (a captivating Hur Ouk-Sook) cries incessantly, refusing to mask her scars.
Chou holds on the shot of the shoes, imbuing the image with melancholy.
The next day he forgets everything.
I am glad that you have come back.
Indeed, Freddies father spews his sorrow onto her, as she puts it.
Her animosity and his need are apparent to them both.
Why wont you speak to me?
Her answer comes in a scream.
Freddie is now living in Seoul.
Shes momentarily open with him: Im 27 today.
Did my mother think about me?
Shes a woman forever transforming, forever searching for the person she actually wants to be.
Parks face charts these shifts over time.
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