"La Belle" Korean Theatrical Poster
AKA: Mi In; Love Remembered By The Body
Director: Yeo Kyun-Dong
Writer: Lee Sang-woo, Yeo Kyun-Dong
Producer: Yoo In-taek
Cast: Lee Ji-hyun, Oh Ji-ho, Cho Kyeong-hwan, Cho Kyeong-uk
Running Time: 91 min.
By Alexander
Get two models. Any two will do. Put them in a stylishly furnished loft with a gorgeous view. Lock the door. Encourage your “actors” to improvise their dialogue and fuck each other often. Refer occasionally to the napkins you wrote your script on. Film. The result? “La Belle.”
“La Belle” is like a…poor man’s “9 1/2 Weeks.” But whereas “9 1/2 Weeks” was filmed in a variety of somewhat-pleasing-to-look-at locations, had an OK soundtrack and starred Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger when Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger still mattered, “La Belle” tries to go all avant garde on us and makes use of one boring setting for 80 of movie’s minutes (a sparsely furnished apartment heavy on the white), uses one (static) camera, is devoid of nealy all sound save for an occasional grunt and moan, and stars a poor man’s Takeshi Kaneshiro and a poor man’s Shu Qi. In fact, excise the frequent sex (filmed midnight-movie-on-Cinemax-style, with lots of boob and butt but little else) and loooooooooong stretches of silence and this movie would be seven minutes long. Really. I’ve written longer Post-Its.
And lest you think I’m being overly critical and unfair, one of the few actual conversations in “La Belle” goes something like this:
“My pussy hurts.”
“Why?”
“We did it too much.”
At one point during “La Belle,” Poor Man’s Shu Qi moans, “I’m glad somebody loves my body.” I almost jumped out of my chair and screamed, “I love your body! I love it!” Because dude, whoever this babe is, she’s as hot as any woman I’ve ever seen. But that is “La Belle’s” lone bright spot, and we all know that a pair of hot “actors” isn’t enough to carry an entire film or else the “movies” on the Playboy Channel would be competing for Oscars.
I think my biggest problem with “La Belle” isn’t its lack of music, near lack of dialogue and the monotony of the setting. “Twelve Angry Men” is one of my all-tme favorite films and that takes place in one ROOM. No, my dislike of this film stems more from the absolute lack of character development and the handful of gimmicks the film’s creators use to try to keep the audience interested in the “plot.” (A ringing phone! Ooh! Ah!) The two characters are dull. We know nothing about them. There is NOTHING about either that allows us to care about them. They’re hot, sure, but they’re annoying and super-boring. Ultimately, the film’s climax (hehe) falls completely flat because really, WHO CARES?
Alexander’s Rating: 5/10
By Equinox21
The first two-thirds of this Korean film reminded me a LOT of a Wong Kar-Wai film. It just had that sad feel of a guy and the love that could not be had. This film focuses on the losing side of a love-triangle, where the girl is still in love with the OTHER guy. It’s complete with all the feelings of anger, depression, pain, abuse, jealousy, happiness, etc. all expressed generally quite subtly. There are many interesting uses of voice-over, narration and sex scenes in this movie, none overdone and all quite effective in construing the feelings of the characters.
This is a sad film. It’s very bleak. In just about every scene there are only two human characters, and a third mobile phone that you’ll grow to despise. Things seem to go so well for a little while, then that dreaded phone rings and the pain starts again.
The acting was pretty good. Both expressed the emotions necessary well, and believe me, there were a lot of them. The music, though, was superb. The piano music punctuated the feeling of each scene perfectly. I don’t think there could have been anything better about the soundtrack. It really added a lot to the feelings expressed.
Overall, this is a pretty good movie, but not great. I think it’s just far too depressing to be great. Few movies can pull off such sadness and still be a really good movie, one being In The Mood For Love. This one just brings down your day, but it’s still worth a watch.
Equinox21’s Rating: 8/10
