My heart ached for this little girl. It seems like everything is against her and she fights a daily battle. Classmates laugh at her, her brother bullies her, her parents are so caught up in their own misery that her needs are ignored. On top of all that her recorder is too old so won't play properly...until the tide turns when she is acknowledged and shown love. Maybe extra practice will give the instrument a new lease of life? Eunhee is prepared to fight to prove she is every bit as good as her classmates, if not better. Call me sentimental but I found this to be moving and ultimately hopeful, with an extraordinary performance from Jeongone Hwang. There's also a lot implied about attitudes to social class, the influence of America on young people and the spirit of South Korea as a country in a short film. It's marvellous.
2 Reviews
Care and love
stt-2568826 August 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I watched the main character, 9-year-old Eun-hee, who lives in 1988 in terms of the era, for only 28 minutes, and shed a lot of tears.
Watching Eunhee preparing for the recorder test at school, she looks excited and nervous about the 'test'. However, no one in the family paid any attention to the test. At one point, it wasn't that he wasn't interested in the test, but that he didn't seem interested in Eun-hee, and it hurt a lot.
Under a father and mother who are busy living and earning money, all three children have to do is, of course, study. The extremely realistic and coercive saying that if you don't want to be an idiot or a fool, you have to study, you can see the look of that era. Even so, I shed tears as I remembered what someone had said to me about 'studying' that I had also experienced in the past.
Dad sees Eun-hee crying sadly because of an argument with her older brother who constantly harasses Eun-hee over the sound of the recorder. To him, who had worked hard, Eun-hee must have seemed like a noisy tantrum, and even when Eun-hee told her brother about how she was beaten, he didn't react in any way, telling him to stop crying and saying that Eun-hee's crying looked like a monkey (interpreted as that much noise). Was angry and broke my heart. I wept again.
Among the three children, Eun-hee is the older brother who showed the appearance of studying, and because of the reasons of the times, Eun-hee did not hear the answer she wanted from her father. Even though Eun-hee got 100 points on the school exam, her father responded rather than saying that she did well because it was the score she received on the art test. Still, since I got 100 points, my dad gave me the 1,000 won I had as a prize. What Eun-hee had previously told her father about a fight with her brother and how she showed her father a test paper after getting a 100 score was just 'interest' in her and, moreover, 'love'. However, mom and dad couldn't afford to live like that. On the one hand, I can understand that this situation is unfortunate and sad.
Still, in the end, it was possible to confirm that they were interested in and in love with Eun-hee from the mother hugging her and the father tying her shoelace. There was a sense of relief that this feeling felt here, and it felt good, but I also shed tears as I felt this difficult reality of expressing 'interest' and 'love' to my child this way.
Director Bora Kim has been in contact with a work for a long time since 'House of Hummingbird'. It was as if this movie was talking about before 'House of Hummingbird'. In 'House of Hummingbird', the year was 1994, and the main character's name was Eun-hee, and she was a middle school student. Six years have passed since the time in this movie, so the time is almost right. And just like in this movie, the parents are working at the mill.
As I watched this 'Recorder Test', I became a complete fan of Director Bora Kim. It's sad to see the points that director Lee touches and what the main character goes through, but I love it. I want to see the next work soon.
It was the best.
Watching Eunhee preparing for the recorder test at school, she looks excited and nervous about the 'test'. However, no one in the family paid any attention to the test. At one point, it wasn't that he wasn't interested in the test, but that he didn't seem interested in Eun-hee, and it hurt a lot.
Under a father and mother who are busy living and earning money, all three children have to do is, of course, study. The extremely realistic and coercive saying that if you don't want to be an idiot or a fool, you have to study, you can see the look of that era. Even so, I shed tears as I remembered what someone had said to me about 'studying' that I had also experienced in the past.
Dad sees Eun-hee crying sadly because of an argument with her older brother who constantly harasses Eun-hee over the sound of the recorder. To him, who had worked hard, Eun-hee must have seemed like a noisy tantrum, and even when Eun-hee told her brother about how she was beaten, he didn't react in any way, telling him to stop crying and saying that Eun-hee's crying looked like a monkey (interpreted as that much noise). Was angry and broke my heart. I wept again.
Among the three children, Eun-hee is the older brother who showed the appearance of studying, and because of the reasons of the times, Eun-hee did not hear the answer she wanted from her father. Even though Eun-hee got 100 points on the school exam, her father responded rather than saying that she did well because it was the score she received on the art test. Still, since I got 100 points, my dad gave me the 1,000 won I had as a prize. What Eun-hee had previously told her father about a fight with her brother and how she showed her father a test paper after getting a 100 score was just 'interest' in her and, moreover, 'love'. However, mom and dad couldn't afford to live like that. On the one hand, I can understand that this situation is unfortunate and sad.
Still, in the end, it was possible to confirm that they were interested in and in love with Eun-hee from the mother hugging her and the father tying her shoelace. There was a sense of relief that this feeling felt here, and it felt good, but I also shed tears as I felt this difficult reality of expressing 'interest' and 'love' to my child this way.
Director Bora Kim has been in contact with a work for a long time since 'House of Hummingbird'. It was as if this movie was talking about before 'House of Hummingbird'. In 'House of Hummingbird', the year was 1994, and the main character's name was Eun-hee, and she was a middle school student. Six years have passed since the time in this movie, so the time is almost right. And just like in this movie, the parents are working at the mill.
As I watched this 'Recorder Test', I became a complete fan of Director Bora Kim. It's sad to see the points that director Lee touches and what the main character goes through, but I love it. I want to see the next work soon.
It was the best.
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