Take Care of My Cat고양이를 부탁해

Details

• Released: 2001• Director: Jeong Jae-eun ( 정재은 )• This ‘coming of age’ movie follows the lives of a

group of friends - 5 young women - a year after they graduate from high school, showing the heartbreaking changes and inspiring difficulties they face in their friendships and work. 

Awards• Though critically acclaimed, the box office returns

were poor, prompting a 'Save the Cat' movement in which film-industry professionals tried to in-crease viewership before its run finished.

• The film went on to many international film festi-vals as well, where it received awards and special mentions.

Cast

• Tae-hee Yoo (Doo-na Bae) • Hae-joo Shin (Yo-won Lee • Ji- Young Seo ( Ji-young Ok)• Bi-ryu (Eun-shil Lee) • Ohn-jo (Eun-joo Lee) • Chan-yong Uhm (Tae-kyung Oh) 

Jeong Jae-eun ( 정재은 ) 

• Screenwriter and director• Born: 1969• Debut: Take Care of my Cat• One of the first graduates of the

School of Film and Multimedia at the Korean National University of Arts.

• Yujin' Secret Codes: Grand Prize, 1999 - Seoul Women's Film Festival

Jeong Jae-eun ( 정재은 ) 

• The Aggressives ( 태풍태양 ) (2005)• If You Were Me (Segment: The Man with an Affair)

( 여섯 개의 시선 ) (2003, Short)• Take Care of My Cat ( 고양이를 부탁해 ) (2001)• Yu-jin's Secret Codes ( 도형일기 ) (1999, Short)• Girl's Night-out (1999, Short)• After School (Short)• Coming of Age Ceremony (Short)

Synopsis

• Five girlfriends in their early twenties live in the dingy port town of Incheon.

• A close-knit circle in high school, their paths begin to diverge as they step into the adult world.

• At the center is the beautiful and vain Hae-joo, who dreams of becoming a successful career woman.

• She leaves Incheon for an apartment in Seoul and a junior position with a brokerage firm.

Synopsis

• The other girls are left behind in solitude and unease.• Tae-hee works for her parents and takes dictation from

a poet suffering from cerebral palsy.• Ji-young seeks a job, while caring for her grand-par-

ents in their dilapidated apartment. • The twins Bi-ryu and Ohn-jo buffer

themselves from change with constant togetherness.

Synopsis

• The cellular phones ring as the girls coordinate their meetings.

• A lost cat, Tee tee, enters the lives of these young women, passing from one owner to the next as cir-cumstances pull lives and friends apart and others together.

More information

• The story of the 3 main characters contains important themes of modernity and how it affects the city of In-cheon.

• The twins are of Chinese descent, as we see when they drop off a regard gift to their grandparents, who speak Chinese. We do not know if the twins can speak or even read Chinese.

More information

• Incheon once had a sizable Chinese community and the characters are perhaps all of Chinese descent ex-cept possibly the girl with the cat.

• The director alludes to this through hints - one of the girl's father loves Chinese dumplings and one of the girls models a Chinese traditional red dress that fits her perfectly.

More information

• It is the poorest of the girls who is the real native of Korea.

• The story shows how alien Seoul is to this group of young women and how alienated the actual Korean girl is in this group of women who embrace the ethos of city life.

More information

• The young girl with cat is scholarly, artistic and filial (though she chides her grandparents she takes great care of them through her actions).

• Her character is representative of the Han spirit. • Yet her virtues mean little in the face of modern cul-

ture and times. • She represents traditional Korea and finds that old

Shamanistic and Confucian values have little impact on today's success.