Secret Sunshine: Defying Expectations

He's not the hero Shin-ae deserves, but the one Shin-ae needs.

 

Lee Chang-dong must really love playing with people’s expectations, because both Poetry and Secret Sunshine utterly trampled mine. Both start with normal characters with some issues that we expect to see resolved simply and easily by the end of the film, and then Lee utterly crushes them within the first half hour of their respective films.

I honestly didn’t think Secret Sunshine could be more shocking than Poetry, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. At least poor Mija was able to continue on with her life as normally as possible while coping with her monster of a grandson; Shin-ae never catches a single break. Everything good and wholesome that she comes into contact with is ripped from her with all the finesse of a jet plane in a death spiral, with the only exception being Kim, and she just walks all over him. Mija, no matter how desperately she acts out in her anguish, never becomes annoying nor too cartoonish; she is genuinely sympathetic throughout the movie as the audience experiences the same shocks she does thanks to Lee’s excellent direction.

But if there’s one character that really stands out to me, it is Kim. Like we discussed after the movie, Kim is pretty easily interpreted as a stand-in for God; always present, always caring, and always wanting love in return for his actions. The character never reaches the level of creepiness that I thought he would (again, Lee’s ability to derail our expectations), and instead remains a likeable and very important opposite to Shin-ae. He became my favorite character by the end of the film, an incredible feat considering that his character and personality remain completely unchanged throughout the film. He is a knight in shining armor, even if he doesn’t look the part. Despite his longing for Shin-ae, the one time she actually comes to him for sex he turns her down, refusing to take advantage of her.

And yet, Shin-ae still suffers despite his presence. The longer the film runs, the darker and more twisted her mind becomes as her tragedies just keep compiling on top of her. Suddenly, whatever hopeful expectations I had for her vanished, and then I was expecting the worst from every new scenario she experienced. I was actually expecting the scene in the barbershop at the end to turn violent, as the girl wanted revenge for Shin-ae abandoning her in the alleyway with those boys. I was expecting Shin-ae to try to commit suicide again while cutting her own hair.

Blast you, Lee Chang-dong, you and your brilliantly sadistic directing abilities. Only a master filmmaker could take a combination of chick-flick and generic Christian film ideas, turn them upside down, and still keep us watching despite the horrors you showed us. No matter what I do, I doubt I’ll be able to watch another film of yours without having my expectations mangled and maimed by the end.