My Thoughts on Bandhobi:
1) The film was interesting (and possibly one of the only of its kind) for its display of the difficulties inherent in being a foreigner in Korea. The stink eyes and dirty looks in the subway, buses,etc., the often-times unhelpful police force, and troublesome bosses were portrayed very well by the flick. Being a foreigner, and a poorly paid and poorly regarded one from Bangladesh at that, sucks at times in Korea, and the flick showed that well. The flick was also good enough not to resort to stereotypes involving Kareem the main character, instead actually fleshing out a real character.
2) The movie tackled a very interesting and very off limits issue in teenage sexuality, female sexuality, to be specific. Granted, lots of the dialog was lost on me, as there were no subtitles and my Korean is….bad, but in my opinion, the flick took a very adult and mature look at something that clearly exists but is simply not being talked about (whether or not this silence is detrimental to healthy sexual development is another issue in itself). The female protagonist was a very real, flesh and blood girl, not some hyper sex crazed creature that couldn’t possibly exist outside of the silver screen, trying to stumble through issues like sex that all teenagers have to go through. I don’t know much about Korea’s film history, but I feel like this film might be an important step on this front.
3) My final point and only problem with this flick, is the portrayal of the English teacher. He, as you might expect, is seen as the creepy, sketchy, sexed up freak that much too often pops up in these kind of stories. First off, the guy was not in my opinion, a legit American English teacher, as I believe it was claimed in the movie. His accent was something that to me, sounded like a French accent, so unless he was from Quebec, would not possibly qualify as a teacher. Small issue for me, as most Koreans wouldn’t catch that anyways. The major problem was that he only appeared in 4 scenes, had no major impact on the story, but still came off as a major douche. Why even put him in the story then??? Two of his scenes were simply him teaching, so you can’t even get anything about his character in those two scenes. They choose quite possibly one of the sketchiest foreigners they could find, some ghastly looking bastard who looked, with the really ghost skin and sunken eyes, like he was addicted to heroin or something. Hell, I was creeped out by the guy. Good start filmmaker. The two scenes he actually talked in went as follows: 1) He meets the main characters and her Korean classmates at a restaurant (what teacher actually hangs out with their kids after school????), then has a really creepy conversation about Korean girls, in English, with the Bangladeshy guy about how Korean girls are “nice, lovely and sweet” 2) The main girl confronts the teacher about what he meant by “Korean girls are sweet”, then grabs his junk and squeezes and leaves with the “dirty foreigner” lying in pain on the ground. That’s it. I understand that there are sketchy foreigners out there and they make our lives that much more difficult, but if you are gonna show this type of character, at least make him a character, not a caricature. Everybody else in the story was fleshed out nicely, but this guy was the most flat, one dimensional person in the whole flick. Hell, he came out looking worse than the Korean businessman who stiffed Kareem, the guy from Bangladesh, for a year’s wages, I do believe, and the foreigner guy didn’t actually DO anything, he just hinted at it.
Overall, I really liked the flick, but just wish the film’s creators hadn’t decided to throw more shit on the “Sex Crazed foreigners” fire. We really don’t need it. There is enough fiction in the daily newspapers already. I will have to see it again once its out on DVD with subtitles to get a better understanding of the small nuances.
-Wallin
