Stream K-Dramas at OnDemandKorea

[HanCinema's Film Review] "The Net"

In rural North Korea Cheol-woo (played by Ryoo Seung-bum) is a fairly unremarkable fisherman who lives with his wife and daughter. Cheol-woo has to cross a checkpoint every day to go to work because he lives perilously close to the Demilitarized Zone. Far from having especially tight security, the North Korean border fence is actually fairly ramshackle, and because Cheol-woo knows the guards personally, they are hesitant to follow strict policy when an accident forces Cheol-woo's boat adrift. And there starts Cheol-woo's unfortunate journey to South Korea's modernland.

Advertisement

The most immediately prescient production element in "The Net" is dark comedy. Upon arrival in South Korea, it's pretty plainly obvious that Cheol-woo is only there by accident, but owing to procedure, the South Korean characters have to pretend like he is not. Owing to official South Korean propaganda, government employees are not allowed to entertain the idea that a person could leave North Korea for any reason other than a hatred of Communism and love of Democracy. Or alternately, a love of Communism and hatred of Democracy.

In reality regular normal guys like Cheol-woo really don't care about politics at all, and that's where the bulk of the humor comes from. The South Korean characters have to keep coming up with nonsensical tests to measure Cheol-woo's true intentions for reasons that never make any sense. Even the South Korean agents themselves don't really believe the whole Communism/Democracy thing, as much more mundane questions like "how will we explain this to the higher-ups" and "can I wrangle a promotion out of this somehow" take focus.

This all seems hilarious enough until we inevitably get to depressing scenes which remind us that oh, right, this is Cheol-woo's actual life they're screwing around with. He's completely nonplussed by every tactic used because Cheol-woo knows what propaganda is. The man's from North Korea for pity's sake, of course he knows what propaganda is. Cheol-woo correctly guesses just about everything the agents do, not out of genius, but because he's used to it.

And that's where the ingenious entrapment of "The Net" comes into play. A traditionally minded propaganda movie would make Cheol-woo unfit for life in North Korea because his eyes have been opened to how perfect the outside capitalist world is. Actually, what ruins Cheol-woo is that having been forced to acknowledge the Kafkaesque bureaucracy that is the reality of South Korea, Cheol-woo can no longer unsee the similarly pseudo-patriotic loyalist procedures in North Korea that no one actually believes except to the extent it benefits their self-interest.

Weirdly enough South Korea comes off as the lesser to North Korea in comparison, not through any salt of the earth nonsense, but because the equivalent North Korean procedures come with more clearly defined expectations. Yet even that's not enough to give Cheol-woo a truly happy ending. Fret not though- the closing shot of "The Net" is surprisingly optimistic, suggesting that the gulf between systems is not that great, and may be reconcilable to a mind not subject to continuous brainwashing.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Net" is directed by Kim Ki-duk and features Ryoo Seung-bum, Lee Won-keun, Kim Young-min and Choi Gwi-hwa.

❎ Try Ad-free