We Are Movie Geeks

Review by Sam Moffitt

Here I have a problem. I have seen many, many movies in my time. Lots of them are from Asia, especially recently. Some of the best movies I have seen recently have been from Korea: The Host, Tae Guk-gi, My Way, Old Boy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, The Warrior, Attack the Gas Station.

I watched 301/302 pretty much on a whim. If you are a Netflix member you know that if you put a dvd in your queue lots of recommendations pop up? That’s how I heard about this movie, I put it in my queue while searching Asian titles, and forgot about it, all I knew was the generic label of “thriller”.

Like I said I have seen lots of movies, I have never seen anything quite like 301/302. A brief description doesn’t do it justice, but this is what happens. Bang Eyun-jin lives in apartment 301 with her husband, who apparently makes good money, she does not have to work. Hwang Shin-hye lives across the hall in 302. The apartment building is called New Hope, make of that what you will.

The movie begins with a man, apparently a police detective, he never actually identifies himself as such (of course there could be information missing in the subtitles), knocks on the door to 301 and asks questions about the woman across the hall, she has disappeared.

The entire movie then unfolds in flashbacks, sometimes flashbacks within flashbacks. The set up is so simple as to be pure genius. Bang Eyun-jin in 301 loves to cook, eat and have sex with her husband. Hwang Shin-hye in 302 cannot tolerate food or sex without being violently ill. You see where this is going right?

Bang’s husband divorces her because he is tired of her cooking and her sex. Huh? He comes home from work to dinner on the table and a wife who loves to have sex, and this leads to divorce? Okay…….

After the divorce 301 (I’ll just use the apartment numbers going forward, the women are defined by their apartments anyway, more so than their own personalities or names) has to feed somebody and starts giving entire meals to 302. 302 does make an attempt to eat but always gets sick. 301 finds the food in the garbage, confronts her neighbor and starts force feeding her.

In an extended flashback we find out that 302 was molested by her own father, who also happens to be a butcher running a meat market. The combination of incest happening around raw meat gives her the disorder she has apparently come to terms with. One problem hard to over look, 302 does not look like an anorexic, she is not even close to the kind of alarming skin and bones look of a true bulimic or anorexic. The movie works anyway, we never see 302 keep anything down except bottled water.

Not that big a deal but we get no explanation for 301 and her obsession with sex and food. Their apartments mirror their lives. The 301 apartment is spotless and arranged like a restaurant. We see flashbacks of 301 renting the apartment with her husband and ordering all sorts of changes. Maybe these are actually condominiums?

The 302 apartment doesn’t even seem to have a kitchen, 302 is a writer so her walls are lined with book shelves full of books neatly arranged and we see her usually at her computer, we are not told what she writes. Both apartments are spotless.

301 is all mouth and stomach and sex organ, 302 lives entirely in her own mind. They do not really become friends, we have no clue what 302 really thinks about what is happening, she is a cipher. We think we know all about 301 because we see her eating so much but really, we don’t learn much about her either.

Any person in the real world would probably tell 301 to stay out of their lives and stop trying to make them eat if they don’t want to. 302 raises no such protest, she sits and willingly lets 301 force food into her mouth until she gets sick again.

And the food is another character all by itself. Some of what we see 301 prepare looks really good, others, well put it this way, at one point she appears to try and get 302 to eat cactus leaves, with the spines cut off with wire cutters and smeared with strawberry jam.

Her cooking for herself and her husband goes from looking delicious to horrifying and back again. At one point she throws a handful of something that is obviously alive into a hot saucepan. Try and imagine night crawler worms, but thick, much bigger in circumference than ordinary worms. These, whatever they are, wriggle around in the sauce pan and are obviously not happy about it, but what they are I have no clue. I am not making this up, what it is and whether she and her husband eat it I do not know, thankfully we are spared seeing these things on a plate.

And the Korean habit of eating dog meat is also touched on, but not in an exploitative way, although it is rather gruesome.

In another scene she makes dum sum dumplings that look terrific, but still there is an uneasy feeling, a sense of foreboding, that runs all through this film, especially in the food preparation and eating scenes, which make up almost the whole movie.

301/302 is nowhere near as grueling as some of the Japanese films that have come out in the last few years. There is nothing really sadistic like you would find in say the All Night Long Films. But still this is strange and disturbing stuff.

I don’t like to give spoilers but if you’ve read this far you know how this ends.

And I cannot think of any movie to compare it to, and that is the highest compliment I can pay to any movie. There is none of the dream/nightmare logic of a David Lynch project. 301/302 seems poised to jump into the body horror territory of early David Cronenberg, but no, that never really comes about either.

The eating scenes with 301 by herself, eating one meal after another, somewhat reminded me of Singapore Sling but we never really see anything that repulsive. Singapore Sling has the most disgusting dinner scenes of any movie I can think of, including Spider Baby.

Both ladies are actually quite attractive, until we realize that both of them are bat shit crazy. And almost the entire movie takes place in the two apartments and the hallway between. We only see 301 go out to get more food, we never see her talk to anyone except 302, her husband and the cop.
We never see 302 outside her apartment. Neither of them have any friends or family. But they don’t seem to be lonely, 301 is deliriously happy to have someone to feed now that her husband is gone.

From first to last this movie had me riveted, I could not look away from it but felt uneasy and creeped out, completely, start to finish.
For once a movie has me completely flim flamed. I have no clue what to make of this, what is 301/302 really about? It’s open to interpretation, but what? The strong eat the weak? There is a middle way between gluttony and anorexia? Korean women just be crazy? Any of that is just too easy. 301/302 seems to be saying something very important, damned if I know what that is.

Am I glad I watched it? Absolutely, I watched it twice, over a month ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. Can I recommend it? I don’t know! Honestly and sincerely if any readers of We Are Movie Geeks, or the other writers on this web site watch this film I’d be glad to read what you think. I have to say this movie got under my skin and has stayed longer than anything I have seen in years. If you watch it and have nightmares about ramen noodles don’t blame me!

Koch Lorber’s dvd has no extras except a couple of preview trailers. This is one film that really needed a director’s commentary, even if it has to be translated from Korean.

I’m going out for a burger and fries, anyone care to join me?