Perhaps “Gyeong-ju” is just a state of mind, like happiness, lachrymosity, and Seattle. For what we have in this film is not so much a physical state as a state of mind. Well, that and a house where shit is gonna go down. But I’m pretty sure they didn’t name the house “Gyeong-ju.”
Ok-sil (Lee Jung-eun) hasn’t stopped grieving for her daughter. To her credit, she has three more where that one came from, but Ok-sil wants everybody to know the deceased daughter is still worthy of her attention … much more so than the live ones. The film begins with Ok-sil and her three living daughters all piled in a van headed for, presumably, Gyeong-ju. Their ridiculous matching family shirts and comical collective freakout over a cockroach in the car tell a story of a family not quite ready for adversity.
The kidnapped body in the trunk tells a different story.
The deal is the youngest daughter of this gaggle was killed by a man who got a comically light sentence for the crime. Out on parole, the man has now been kidnapped by Ok-sil and company. Do they mean to kill him? Almost certainly. But first they’re going to play some games with him if any of them has the stomach for it. I don’t think they do.
The juxtaposition of a family working in criminal tandem to kidnap a man while being freaked out by a bug tells pretty much all you need
to know going in. There’s going to be some dark humor here. There will be moments both professional and not-professional. This chaotic quartet includes a professional wrestler; that’ll come in handy, I’m sure. And will we ever meet the killer? Oh, we will. We most definitely will. Geez, women, it’s like you don’t even want to kill a guy. C’mon.
Writer/director Kim Mi-jo had a clear idea of what she wanted to do here but got a little greedy. She intended to make a revenge tale, but also intended to tell a story about family and love and remembrance and revenge and blood and evil. Parts of The Journey to Gyeong-Ju work and parts of it feel wildly out-of-place. I love the ambition shown here, and the tongue-in-cheek chaos. So, not a strong recommendation, but a recommendation nonetheless.
There once was a family of four
Who wanted revenge and some more
So they got in a van
And kidnapped a man
Then traveled to the land of Abhor
Not Rated, 114 Minutes
Director: Kim Mi-jo
Writer: Kim Mi-jo
Genre: Revenge of the ill-equipped
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Revenge skeptics
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Realists
