Gull

Gull

O-bok’s eldest daughter is about to get married to an educated, well-off young man, but she’s far from happy. It’s not just hot weather, hot flushes, her daughters’ materialism, her mother’s dementia, her husband’s drinking, or the impending gentrification of the food market where she sells fish – although all of that will push her to take a stand. After trying to cover it up, O-bok reveals to her daughter that she was raped by a fellow stallholder, the man organising the traders against their landlords. Increasingly furious, O-bok eschews the useless police to pursue her own justice, even if it means a physical fight. Placing a working-class, menopausal woman and her relationship to her body front and centre of almost every shot, the film makes a powerful case for how political activism is rooted in the lived experience of those who are rendered invisible. Well-known character actor Jeong Ae-hwa bursts off the screen as O-bok, expressing the rage and determination of all women who are not going to take any more.

Cast: Jeong Ae-hwa, Kim Byungchoon, Lee Jang-you, Ko Seo-heui, Kim Ga-bin

Director: Kim Mi-jo

Writer: Kim Mi-jo

Producer: Jeong Young-hwan