Kim Min-hee's acting skills are impeccable, and the scene of "Reciting Juliet" is the best in the whole film. Accurate freeze-frame of interior sets and shots, as well as countless symmetrical compositions, all present a uniquely unadorned aesthetic. The first part has a lot of foreshadowing, the reason for the appearance of the rope, the metaphor of the lollipop, the dislike of reading, etc. The mirrors that appear many times in the director's film also clearly imply the true and false hearts of the characters. In the second part, Hideko's past is explained through cross-editing. The truth keeps appearing, and the answer to the mystery gradually becomes clear, and then the two reversals are used to increase the perception. The third part thoroughly expresses the director's goal - to express feminism. Pointing to this theme is evident through the story of what happened after the Duke's plan failed and Hideko and Sookie's joy on the ship after their escape.
As Park Chan-wook himself emphasized: homosexuality is only a part of the film, and expressing feminism is his goal. Most of the film shows the weak position of women - Sook Hee, who thinks she has deceived many people, but actually she is the biggest victim, Hideko, who has been constantly "educated" since childhood, forced to study obscene books, and forced to hang herself. His aunt and others all appear in the image of disadvantaged groups. The second part depicts the situation of Xiuzi very deeply. She was severely punished since she was a child, and when she grew up, she had to read obscene books in front of the scumbags in the mask of gentlemen, and did not treat women as equals. The outbreak of ism laid the groundwork for a drug lead.
The pictures in the film are beautiful, so beautiful that people forget that this is a sad story. Before Shuji came, Xiuzi had been living a puppet-like life, thinking that the whole world was the same. It was not until Shuji appeared with her innocence that she saw the light. Sook Hee also found kindness from Xiuzi from a thief who monopolized children, and they made each other successful. The Duke can be said to be a very important part of the whole film. He ignited the feminist drug lead (the destruction of the basement was the result of feminism's face-to-face explosion), and the plot also revolved around his plan "smoothly". He didn't wake up until the moment Sook Hee was sent to the lunatic asylum, thinking that Sook Hee and Xiuzi were still under his control, and eventually they could not help but become a pawn for the two women.
"Miss" gives people a quiet and soft feeling, but it contains a series of cruel symbols such as sex, violence, drugs, snakes, etc. As the lines in the film say: beauty is only the law of cruelty.
Such an extreme presentation is both beautiful and cruel.
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