[HanCinema's Film Review] "The Empty Dream" + Full Movie

Remake of Tetsuji Takechi's "Daydream", one of the most controversial pink films of all time, "The Empty Dream" is one of the weirdest movies one can watch in the YouTube of the Korean Film Archive.

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The film begins in a dentist's, where a young man is waiting for his turn. While he is waiting, a rather beautiful woman also appears, sitting across from him and waiting for her turn. The man notices her immediately, and starts looking at her, with her reacting somewhat annoyingly at his intense gaze. A bit later, however, they both end up in the dentist's chair (yes, he took them both in), and completely unconscious due to the anesthetics they were given. Soon, they both become part of a delirious vision that lingers between the dream and the nightmare. In the dream, the woman is in a relationship with a man who looks like a circus presenter, who abuses her in any way he can. The aforementioned man appears in her life, the two fall in love and he tries to save her, but the obstacles are not so easy to overcome.

Yu Hyun-mok directs a truly delirious movie, with the fact that something rather strange is happening being evident from the start and the intense close ups in the dentist's patients' mouths, which look like something out of a horror movie in the beginning, before they take more sensualistic paths. The parallel with heavy machinery, jackhammers for example, also moves in the same direction, but the movie completely loses its grip with reality as soon as the two patients are unconscious, with the way the two lose their senses also bordering on the disturbing.

The delirium that ensues includes elements of musical, which is actually how the movie begins, with an intro of two children dancing in a variete of sorts, with this aspect being presented throughout the movie. The second axis revolves around the torture the young woman is subjected to by her " boyfriend ", in an aspect filled with S&M notions, which also takes an intensely voeyeuristic turn upon the appearance of the young man, who, in the beginning at least, just watches the woman he is in love with being exploited in various ways.

The sensual/voyeuristic aspect is implemented excellently here, with DP Sim Jae-heung approaching this and all the aforementioned elements with an artistry that also adds much to the sexual energy the movie emits. That all the different settings appearing in the story (dentist's music clubs, houses, alleys, and even a dystopian setting) are depicted with the same prowess is a testament to his work. Furthermore, the fact that a number of them are obviously artificial/studio sets and not exterior locations is embedded excellently in the narrative, with Sim actually stressing the fact, adding to the overall deliriousness of the title.

The experimental/almost dialogue-less/collection of vignettes that comprise the narrative result in a rather abstract outcome that manages, though, to remain captivating through their diversity  from beginning to end, even if the frequency of many dancing/music parts "threaten" to make the film a musical. This aspect benefits the most by the presence of Park Su-jeong in the role of the woman, with the way she is presented as an object of desire in a number of different ways, particularly through the close ups to her face and body and her rather sensual moans that actually begin in the dentist's chair, being one of the greatest traits of the movie. Again, Sim's job in this part is excellent, as much as in the way Kang-Shin Sung-il, who plays the man, is implemented as the embodiment of the viewer's gaze, and the main representative of the voyeuristic element in the film. Lastly, Yu Hyun-mok and Ree Kyoung-ja's editing adds to the overall absurdness of the title, with the occasionally frantic cuts that lead to completely different settings, while at 71 minutes, "The Empty Dream" definitely does not overextend its welcome.

"The Empty Dream" is a hallucinatory, sadomasochistic delirium that is as weird as it is entertaining, and definitely one of the most interesting titles one can find in the aforementioned YouTube channel.

Review by Panos Kotzathanasis

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"The Empty Dream" is directed by Yu Hyun-mok, and features Kang-Shin Sung-il, Park Su-jeong, Park Am, Jo Hui-ran, Ji Bang-yeol. Release date in Korea: 1965/07/03.