Flight attendant Won-Gyu returns home to South Korea for the first time in two years. He calls his ex-boyfriend out of the blue, but their reunion is far from successful because of some unresolved issues. Back in his Hotel room he goes online and hooks up with Tae-Jun a motorbike courier and the two men agree to meet up in a bar. The courier is expecting a brief encounter to pass a lonely night, but what he gets instead is a battle of wills with Won-Gyu who it soon appears is waging a war with some old demons of his own.
The two young men play a kind of cat and mouse game with each other around the city as somehow they are fascinated with an unexpected desire for each other. Each of them wanting to be able to control this uneasy attraction they are somehow both reluctant to admit too. There is little dialogue and the real story unwinds slowly but as we get towards the end of the night its clear that whilst moody Won-Gyu may have no obvious reason to be with Tae-Jun beyond a strange sexual desire, but he has returned to Korea with a very definite purpose. He is a damaged man and he’s looking for the men who beat him up badly in a hate crime which drove him from Korea in the first place.
The whole piece works so well because these two are both complicated and nuanced characters. We live the whole night almost in real time and are there step by step as we discover what drives them both and how, despite all their differences, and the fact they were total strangers when the night started, they develop an unique but unspoken bond.
Don’t expect a neat happy ending where everything fits in place and resolved : you will come away with overwhelming feeling of sadness, and a touch of bewilderment too. But in this case, that’s very good.
It’s a treat for a cinephile, especially a gay one, but I would also wager that if you like to be intrigued with a neat little narrative, you may like this one too.
