No matter how you spin it, but from the letters O-J-P-A the word Happiness can not be made. On the red clay road a woman rides a bicycle. She heads to the only residential building in a once-existing village that has been demolished to please the sprawling city. A house hanging in the void between the past and the future: behind some windows - a construction site, behind others - a sleeping area, and in the yard - a garden and village grace. Like the house, its tenants: a father suffering from senile insanity and his unmarried daughter, are completely bogged down in the past. The father, because of the illness, does not understand what is happening at all, and finds solace in the reproaches of his daughter and small quarrels with the incomprehensible boy. The daughter cannot let go of the nightmare childhood memories of the despot father, because of which not only the family but also the fate of all its members was destroyed. She's stuck in this life she hates, in this house, with a man she despises and has legitimate grievances against. During the day, different people come to them: a postman, a utility worker, a fugitive prisoner, the police ... At night, when everything subsides and dementia recedes, father and daughter play cards.
The film is based on the novella “Game of the Night” ("Game of the Night) Oh Jung-hee, and the skill of the director created a full-fledged dramatic sketch from life.
From the very beginning of the viewing, you understand that something is wrong with the main character: her defectiveness is not obvious and not so obvious.
The author of the film, in my personal feeling, had an idea: not to explain about the main characters absolutely nothing. What the audience saw in their actions, and “digested”! The film is 100% authorial, with several very ambiguous scenes of intimate properties and ambiguously perceived ... but something in this film is decisive: something fascinating, something desperately hopeless, something simple and from that beautiful.
8 out of 10