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[HanCinema's Film Review] "Actresses"

Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Mi-sook, Go Hyun-jung, Choi Ji-woo, Kim Min-hee, and Kim Ok-vin all play...themselves, in "Actresses", who are also all somewhat confusingly given credit as screenwriters. This is because director Lee Jae-yong intentionally produced "Actresses" without a script. Which makes sense. The whole raison d'être of the film is to answer a hypothetical "what-if" situation. Specifically, what if all these famous actresses had to get together for a photo shoot. What would they talk about?

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The question of what mesmerizing actresses do on the occasions where they have to hang out with each other is one of those ideas that sounds more interesting in theory than execution. They're mostly just like normal people, except somewhat more conceited. And honestly, it's hard to blame them. When your whole job hinges upon looking good it's hard not to care about appearances. Initial friction notwithstanding, it's this simple strange life experience that ultimately bonds the six actresses in mutual conversation.

"Actresses" is interesting enough as basic exploration of those ideas. Yet oddly enough the film's also a kind of weird time capsule of the long ago age of 2009. At that time it was plausible that these specific six actresses would be together for the same high-prestige photo shoot because all of them, one way or another, were famous people at that time, although since that time their careers have taken such radically different directions it's hard to imagine such an event ever happening again.

The out-of-date gossip similarly proves to be a curious turning point, if only because of the oddly casual way it comes up in conversation. None of the six actresses featured in "Actresses" know each other all that well, yet they all know about each other because their names came up fairly frequently in entertainment news at that time. The way they're all generally able to just brush this aside and discuss their own rumors rather carelessly is rather off-putting, and works to highlight the odd way these women see each other as equals.

Consider, for example, that if any of us were to mention Go Hyun-jung's divorce to her face...well, something bad would happen, for sure. Yet the odd duality the actresses all know they have, both as real people and also as metaphysical representations of their media image...well, really, "Actresses" makes more sense in context than it can by way of explanation. That is again, part of the point. I'm just speculating about their thought process. They actually state it clearly out loud.

"Actresses" is unfortunately largely flawed simply by how dated it is. The improv interview pseudo-documentary style of storytelling, while fairly popular back in 2009, has long since fallen out of favor simply by virtue of being overly meta-analytical. Likewise, the events referenced by the various actresses are entertainment news highlights from a decade ago that the actress themselves probably consider irrelevant by now. Still, for fans of the individual performances, "Actresses" does have some pretty sound insights on their thought processes and self-image, and is probably worth a watch for that reason alone.

Review by William Schwartz

"Actresses" is directed by Lee Jae-yong and features Youn Yuh-jung, Lee Mi-sook, Go Hyun-jung, Choi Ji-woo, Kim Min-hee and Kim Ok-vin.

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