Hyung-man (Ahn Sung-ki) is a man in his 50s who leads a lonely, ordered life. He runs a small camera repair shop, and his mastery of this intricate skill draws customers from across the city. He also has a talent for photography, though for him it’s more of a hobby than a vocation. He’s still single, in fact he has never even dated a woman before. If the world were more fair he would be materially secure, but years earlier one of his best friends took his life savings and ran off. Since then, his life has never been the same.
Therefore he is stunned and flummoxed when his former friend summons him to his deathbed for an unconvincing apology and, on top of that, a request. The man’s daughter Nam-eun (Lee Ha-na), now in her 20s, will be alone after he is gone. Would you please stop in every once in a while and check on her, the friend asks. Hyung-man feels rightly that he owes his friend nothing. But the daughter has done him no wrong, and eventually he knocks on her door.
I think it’s fair to say that the one line summary of The Fair Love - a man in his 50s and a woman in her 20s meet, fall in love, and start a relationship - is not for most viewers especially appealing. (Excepting, perhaps, fifty-year-old men!) But the 34-year-old independent director Shin Yeon-shick presents his story in a thoughtful, nuanced way that encourages you to consider this relationship with an open mind. In some ways you could call this film a love story, in other ways a comedy, but most of all it’s simply a portrait of two lonely people and how they choose to deal with the emptiness in their lives. Thanks to two great acting performances and the director’s compassionate viewpoint, the story leaves a lasting impression.
The film’s first half is particularly memorable, when it introduces us to the characters and the everyday spaces they inhabit. There is something about the camera repair shop - its myriad tools and objects, and the interactions between the people who work or hang out there - that is quietly fascinating. There’s something that draws you in to Nam-eun’s home as well, as empty and ordinary as it is. Most of all, it is the scenes when Hyung-man and Nam-eun are getting to know each other that stick in the mind. There is a subtle energy and tension between these two characters that many melodramas try, and fail, to create. Lee Ha-na’s performance, and some well-written dialogue, deserve much of the credit.
The second half presents more of a narrative challenge. What at first strikes us as an unconventional or bizarre coupling eventually comes across as ordinary, as we get to know the two of them better and adopt their perspective. Hyung-man starts to feel and even act like a teenager in love (exhilarating for him, awkward for the viewer). But ultimately they are a couple like any other. The Fair Love retains a realist perspective as it moves towards its conclusion, but the film itself, which felt so fresh in the opening reels, ends on a more conventional note.
The title of this work (in Korean it is simply a transcription of the English) refers not to the “fair” of My Fair Lady, but to the saying, “All’s fair in love and war.” It’s an awkward and thought-provoking title which well reflects the character and strengths of the film as a whole. Is their relationship fair? Are they being fair to each other, and is it “fair play” in terms of society’s rules? It’s to the film’s credit that it never fully answers these questions.
Darcy Paquet