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| ▲ This photo, provided by Twinplus Partners, shows a scene from the movie "Next Sohee." (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, May 26 (Yonhap) -- “Next Sohee,” which is directed by filmmaker July Jung and has been selected as a closing film for the 75th Cannes Film Festival’s parallel sidebar Critics’ Week, is a film that depicts the case of a high school girl So-hee, who went out to the field practice at a call center. The movie is based on the true story of a case that took place at a call center in Jeonju in 2016.
Director Jung, who portrayed the solidarity of the two women exposed to violence in her previous work "A Girl at My Door,” focused on the story of the weak, who are on-the-job trainees, this time.
The movie begins with So-hee dancing with earphones on in the practice room. The way she seems to be good at dancing but keeps falling down in one movement shows how the beginning of her social life is not that smooth. She wants to work well, but she makes a mistake at every crucial moment. It is not easy to change the mind of customers who want to cut off the Internet connection, and it is difficult to deal with customers who curse and make sexual harassment.
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| ▲ This photo, provided by Twinplus Partners, shows a scene from the movie "Next Sohee." (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
Then, after discovering that the team leader, who was under pressure for making sales, made an extreme choice of suicide, So-hee starts working like crazy. She also has her own secret method and is recognized for her ability by ranking first place in sales. However, the female lead eventually had emotional outbursts when she failed to receive the promised incentives just because she was a trainee. So-hee, who hit the team leader who remains shameless and was sentenced to probation, ended her life by walking into the reservoir on her own.
A female detective Yoo-jin(Bae Doo-na) is the one who is in charge of So-hee's case. The case was almost closed as a simple suicide, but it could be named "social murder" thanks to Yoo-jin’s investigation. Yoo-jin becomes enraged when she realizes that the absurdity of the system, including the call center, school, Office of Education, and Ministry of Employment and Labor, has led So-hee to death.
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| ▲ This photo, provided by Twinplus Partners, shows a scene from the movie "Next Sohee." (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
The movie moves forward without hesitation toward the message that director Jung tries to deliver. In particular, Yoo-jin’s lines are so straightforward that they seem to convey the director’s words instead. Although it may seem uninteresting, director Jung made a daring choice to bluntly deliver the message to the audience through the outstanding actress Bae Doo-na.
The psychological change of the characters was depicted in details. It allows the audience to understand why Yoo-jin, an ordinary police officer, was so furious. Thanks to the script that was written after in-depth coverage, it feels like experiencing the on-the-job training.
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Kim Sun Min.)
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