Post by Knov1 on Dec 24, 2004 15:06:10 GMT -5
I found an article on the movie "Untold Scandal" starring Bae Yong Jun in today's Chicago Sun-Times. The article was originally printed in the Boston Globe.
Lusty liaisons abound in amorous 'Scandal'
Chicago Sun-Times
Friday, December 24, 2004
Weekend Plus > Movies, page 23
I scanned the article in case you don't get a chance to buy/read the newspaper. The original is a big file and I would only recommend it for those with a fast connection. I provided a resized version for those of you on 56k/dial up. Here are the links.
img13.paintedover.com/uploads/13/untold_scandal_122404.jpg (original)
img13.paintedover.com/uploads/13/untold_scandal_122404_resized.jpg (resized/56k version)
Below is the original article from the Boston Globe.
'Untold Scandal' seduces with tale of lust in 18th-century Korea
By Ty Burr
Boston Globe
Published: 11/12/2004
Cruelty, especially the sexually alluring kind, knows no borders. How else to explain why Choderlos de Laclos's 1781 epistolary novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" has served over the years as the basis for movies made in France, England, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and America, in both faithful literary adaptations ("Dangerous Liaisons") and updated teen versions ("Cruel Intentions"), and now, with "Untold Scandal," in a spicy retelling set amid the pomp and propriety of Korea's Chosun Dynasty. Maybe the details are beginning to get a little old, but the story's essential nastiness still has the power to suck a viewer in.
An unseen narrator warns of the immorality of the tale we're about to hear (the better to slake our interest) and instead of the bored fops of ancien regime France, "Scandal" settles in among the bored fops of 18th-century Seoul. Chief among them is the decadent widower Lord Cho-Won (Bae Yong-Jun), who has seduced countless women and painted most of them in the nude but who has never conquered Lady Cho (Lee Mi-Sook), his cousin and soul mate in soulless scheming. "I have room for only one person in my heart," Lord Cho-Won says early on, and while some might assume he's talking about his dead wife, Lady Cho and we know he's talking about himself.
The lady and the lord make a bet: Can he seduce the Lady Jung (Jeon Do-Yeon), a virginal noblewoman so devout she's known as "the Gate of Chastity"? If he can, Lady Cho promises to give herself to him. Lady Cho is also one of the wives of an aging noble, and she would be grateful if her cousin impregnated her husband's new concubine So-Oak (Lee Soh-Yeon), simply in the spirit of revenge.
Lord Cho-Won is up to both tasks, and one of the more unambiguous pleasures of this tale -- no matter what language it's in -- is in the characters' awakening to pleasure: the young So-Oak to lust, Lady Jung to physical passion, and Lord Cho-Won, much to his shock, to love. Lady Cho gets her jollies as well -- there's a memorable dalliance in a carriage with a handsome and very flustered young man (Cho Hyeon-Jae) -- but she risks nothing and thus gains and loses nothing. Her cousin and Lady Jung risk all.
Director E J-Yong was apparently inspired to make the film after imagining a Korean period piece set to European baroque music, and the stately tunes on the soundtrack are both an interesting link to the original book and a source of cultural disorientation. "Untold Scandal" unfolds with graceful, flowing assurance -- metaphorically and literally, the characters undress each other slowly -- and its placid surface is as soothing as the sharks who swim beneath it are dangerous.
Link to original article: www.boston.com/movies/display?display=movie&id=6829
Lusty liaisons abound in amorous 'Scandal'
Chicago Sun-Times
Friday, December 24, 2004
Weekend Plus > Movies, page 23
I scanned the article in case you don't get a chance to buy/read the newspaper. The original is a big file and I would only recommend it for those with a fast connection. I provided a resized version for those of you on 56k/dial up. Here are the links.
img13.paintedover.com/uploads/13/untold_scandal_122404.jpg (original)
img13.paintedover.com/uploads/13/untold_scandal_122404_resized.jpg (resized/56k version)
Below is the original article from the Boston Globe.
'Untold Scandal' seduces with tale of lust in 18th-century Korea
By Ty Burr
Boston Globe
Published: 11/12/2004
Cruelty, especially the sexually alluring kind, knows no borders. How else to explain why Choderlos de Laclos's 1781 epistolary novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" has served over the years as the basis for movies made in France, England, Czechoslovakia, Japan, and America, in both faithful literary adaptations ("Dangerous Liaisons") and updated teen versions ("Cruel Intentions"), and now, with "Untold Scandal," in a spicy retelling set amid the pomp and propriety of Korea's Chosun Dynasty. Maybe the details are beginning to get a little old, but the story's essential nastiness still has the power to suck a viewer in.
An unseen narrator warns of the immorality of the tale we're about to hear (the better to slake our interest) and instead of the bored fops of ancien regime France, "Scandal" settles in among the bored fops of 18th-century Seoul. Chief among them is the decadent widower Lord Cho-Won (Bae Yong-Jun), who has seduced countless women and painted most of them in the nude but who has never conquered Lady Cho (Lee Mi-Sook), his cousin and soul mate in soulless scheming. "I have room for only one person in my heart," Lord Cho-Won says early on, and while some might assume he's talking about his dead wife, Lady Cho and we know he's talking about himself.
The lady and the lord make a bet: Can he seduce the Lady Jung (Jeon Do-Yeon), a virginal noblewoman so devout she's known as "the Gate of Chastity"? If he can, Lady Cho promises to give herself to him. Lady Cho is also one of the wives of an aging noble, and she would be grateful if her cousin impregnated her husband's new concubine So-Oak (Lee Soh-Yeon), simply in the spirit of revenge.
Lord Cho-Won is up to both tasks, and one of the more unambiguous pleasures of this tale -- no matter what language it's in -- is in the characters' awakening to pleasure: the young So-Oak to lust, Lady Jung to physical passion, and Lord Cho-Won, much to his shock, to love. Lady Cho gets her jollies as well -- there's a memorable dalliance in a carriage with a handsome and very flustered young man (Cho Hyeon-Jae) -- but she risks nothing and thus gains and loses nothing. Her cousin and Lady Jung risk all.
Director E J-Yong was apparently inspired to make the film after imagining a Korean period piece set to European baroque music, and the stately tunes on the soundtrack are both an interesting link to the original book and a source of cultural disorientation. "Untold Scandal" unfolds with graceful, flowing assurance -- metaphorically and literally, the characters undress each other slowly -- and its placid surface is as soothing as the sharks who swim beneath it are dangerous.
Link to original article: www.boston.com/movies/display?display=movie&id=6829
