스캔들 - 조선 남녀 상열지사 Seukandeul - Chosun nam nyo sang yeol jisa (Untold Scandal) 2003 South Korea (124 minutes) directed and co-written by E J-Yong (Lee Jae-yong)
This reimagining into early modern Korea of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ novel Les Liaisons dangereuses is lovely to look at and works surprisingly well, a lot like Stephen Frears’ 1988 movie Dangerous Liaisons.
The narratives of Dangerous Liaisons and Untold Scandal appear essentially to derive from the same selection of letters from Choderlos de Laclos’ epistolary novel; both are set in the late eighteenth century in their respective countries.
Letters are a key part of Untold Scandal, but the Korean narrative has a secondary source: the illustrated memoires of the love affairs of Cho Won (Bae Yong-joon). Cho Won stands in for Choderlos de Laclos’ Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont (John Malkovich in Frears’ movie). During the opening credits, a voiceover introduces this story while a hand turns the pages of a Korean illustrated manuscript.
Cho Won, like Valmont, is an aristocrat and a notorious seducer of well-born women. Unlike Valmont, he is an accomplished aquarellist who makes erotic paintings of the women he seduces. Throughout the film, and with the same relish and flair he brings to lovemaking, we see Cho Won make highly skilled paintings of subjects the camera views over his shoulder. In the opening scene, he is painting a Maya in her private quarters while a religious ceremony is taking place outside, coloring in a nipple as the ceremony reaches its climax and having sex with his subject as it concludes.
Cho Won is the cousin and unrequited lover of Lady Cho (Lee Mi-sook), the evil genius who drives the plot, who takes the part of Choderlos de Laclos’ Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Glenn Close in Frears’ movie).
Lady Cho’s problem is that neither she nor her husband Lord Yu’s three concubines have produced a male heir. The elders deem that Yu take another concubine ‘to continue the family line’: Lee So-oak (Lee Soh-yeon) a teenager of good but not noble family.
Lady Cho, a smiling and compliant dragon, hides her dark resentment of what Yu, in front of her with an almost naive relish, calls this ‘flower just about to blossom.’ She plots to avenge the bold-faced effrontery of this publicly sanctioned adultery by having Cho Won impregnate So-oak, then to wait for as long as it takes to tell Yu on his deathbed that his male heir is not his son. This detail differs from Choderlos de Laclos and Frears, though So-oak is based on the teenage Cécile Volanges (Uma Thurman in Frears’ movie) whom Merteuil similarly tasks Valmont to seduce to embarrass a former lover. Lee Soh-yeon is touchingly convincing as a coltish adolescent.
Like Valmont, Cho Won does not see a teenager as a challenge worthy of his subtle science. He has set his sights on Lady Jeong Hee-yeon (Jeon Do-yeon), a beautiful and virtuous young widow. Hee-yeon is a pious Catholic (Catholicism came to Korea via China in 1777), faithful to the memory of her husband. She is the stand-in for the novel’s Mme. Marie de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer in Frears’ movie), whose husband was abroad.
As in the novel and the Frears movie, there is a clueless young man, Kwon In-ho (Cho Hyeon-jae), curious about love and easily manipulated by Lady Cho and Cho Won, though whose misplaced revenge turns out lethal in the end for Cho Won.
This ‘misplaced revenge’ epitomizes a problem central to all three works. Devising schemes to manipulate people is for the most part a rational process, but the people manipulated often act in unpredictable ways.
Irrational behavior brings a precipitous end to the story, prompting the disgraced Lady Cho’s escape. But the pinnacle irony is that her plot succeeds due to the same social conventions that inspired her resentment. The ‘untold scandal’ appears in an inset frame at the end of the credits: So-oak in Lady Cho’s place, pregnant with Cho Won’s child.
Knowing this outline takes nothing from watching the story unfold by the art of this appealing cast, nor the wealth of detail and the visual treats this movie presents in elaborate costumes, sets, landscapes, and Cho Won’s watercolor compositions.
Theatrical trailer: http://www.moviemaze.de/media/trailer/view/flash/26513/
Korean trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiyJhumchlA
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