카트
Cart
Directed by Boo Ji Young
Starring Yeom Jung Ah, Moon Jung Hee, Kim Young Ae, Do Kyung Soo, Chun Woo hee
2014
Cart, an upcoming film slated for a November release in Korea, actually had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, as part of TIFF's City to City series which focused on movies from Korea. The first time I came across the trailer for Cart was actually thanks to the TIFF as well, who posted the trailer on their Youtube page.
Cart tells the story of temporary workers who work at a big chain grocery store (called "The Mart" in the movie) and their fight against the injustice after majority of the female non-regular workers are laid off with no clear explanation. At the center of the film is Yeom Jung Ah's Sunhee, who was promised a permanent position and now finds herself fired without a reason. Led by Haemee (portrayed by Moon Jung Hee) who seem to know her labour rights, the laid-off workers go on a strike.
The film seems to take a lot of inspiration from a real life event that happened in Korea only few years ago. In 2007, hundreds of non-regular female employees were fired at Home Ever, a chain grocery store owned by E-Land. They went on strike, and managed to settle on an agreement with the employer for the better when the marts were sold off to a different company, Samsung-Tesco.
With that said, Cart seems like a movie with a message, and it seems fitting that the movie is being released now, with the social turmoil that's been going on in Korea.
I've teared up every time I've watched the trailer, it gets me so emotional. Because the movie, directed by a female director, tells the story of women who actively fight for their rights. Here is a movie with an ensemble of (hopefully complex) female characters that actively, and vocally, fight for justice. That moment in the trailer when one of the company higher-up's says, "They're just women." And we get shots of these women who strike on, nonetheless. I get emotional just thinking about the social implications of such a movie being released to a mass audience. The film seems promising, coming from a more than capable female director, with a stellar cast of women actors.
All that aside, it is impossible to ignore the hype from the fans of Do Kyungsoo (also known as D.O from his EXO activities). I've been noticing the ridiculously high ratings for the movie that came from Kyungsoo/EXO's fans who gave it perfect scores without even seeing it. Check the Cart's page on any Korean movie site - and the comment section is filled with encouragements for the young star, and how people can't wait to see this movie for him.
Then there are people who comment about these fans and Kyungsoo's casting. Their complaint is that casting an idol and having the fans get interested in the movie just for that idol is distracting, maybe even disrespectful. There isn't much talk in these places about anything else about the movie; nothing about the director, other actors, the premise. Actually, the themes of the movie seem even secondary to those who are too concerned with debating Kyungsoo's casting in the movie. It's almost tiring, seeing these debates, because I think it's kind of irrelevant and unnecessary at this point. In the end, what matters is people watching this movie. Whether it's for Kyungsoo or not, people will watch it, and hopefully people will take something away from it.
This is a movie that was made possible because of crowdsourced funds, from production to marketing. It was a difficult process to create the movie on limited budget, I'm sure. So why can't people trust the director's decisions? She ultimately decided to cast Kyungsoo in her movie, maybe because she wanted to target that younger demographic with his star power. Or maybe Kyungsoo did really impress her with his acting. Whatever the case may be, I wish people would stop complain about the idol casting, when they haven't even seen it and seen Kyungsoo act in it. (Obviously it will be a completely different situation if Kyungsoo ended up being terrible in this film. But I'll leave that up for the actual review of the movie.)
On the other hand, I also wish that Kyungsoo/EXO fans acknowledge this movie as something bigger than just "D.O's first movie". I sincerely hope that even if they watch this movie just for him, they get something more out of it than just the gratification of seeing their favourite idol star on the big screen.
