PISCES

Love can be kind of an obsession. One is free to love but if the object of affection doesn't return it, that love can lose its course and end up wandering. Through this film, by crossing the light and shadows of love, I wanted to bare the inner flesh of hidden, bitter loneliness to all who live in the city. Kim Hyung-tae A highly controlled drama of obsessive love, Pisces is ultimately flawed by its own inability to let off the brakes, but remains a very promising debut by writer-director Kim Hyung-tae, who reportedly spent seven years prepping the movie. Headlined by a luminous performance from looker Lee Mi-yeon (Whispering Corridors, Harmonium in My Memory), pic never lapses into either soupy melodrama or stalker thriller, touching on but never elucidating the essence of emotional desire. Neat to the point of mania, Jung Ae-ryun takes over a video shop and soon falls for a customer, handsome singer-composer Yu Dong-suk, who works opposite. A friendship slowly blooms, and she seems to accept the fact he has a girlfriend; very gradually, however, she starts to bug him, secretly arranging for a break in his career and clandestinely visiting his apartment. Initially just picture-book pretty, Lee negotiates a transition to a harder-faced obsessive an hour in that's remarkable, though pic is weakened by Choi's blander perf as the singer and the lack of a suitably cathartic climax. Pristine lensing by Hwang Seo-shik is a big plus.