[DVD REVIEWS]Adultery isn't always charged with thrills

While the pressure anywhere to get married is often strong, in Korea it can be somewhere between oppressive and mercenary. And as one gets older, especially for the woman, the pressure only ratchets up higher. Stuck between the rock of responsibility and the hard place of love and passion, something's got to give.

"Gyeolhoneun Michinjisida" (Marriage Is a Crazy Thing)

Directed by Yu Ha. Starring Uhn Jung-hwa and Gam U-seong.

"Do you think it's possible a woman like you could be satisfied with your husband?"

"Absolutely possible. I'll never get caught."

It begins with a blind date. One of countless for both of them. It goes awkwardly, but still the two of them end up in bed.

Yeon-hee (Uhm) knows that marriage with Jun-young (Gam) is an impossibility. He's a part-time instructor at Yonsei University, i.e., way at the bottom of the totem pole and monetarily challenged. She wants someone who can keep her comfortable. Even after Yeon-hee gets married they continue to meet, as she becomes Jun-young's sugar mama. But if they think they can go on like this without getting hurt, they are sadly mistaken. Aren't they?

Uhm takes the biggest chance in this movie, playing an older, unsympathetic woman, a far cry from her usual chirpy, sexy, pop-star persona.

In many ways, this movie is not about the clash between love and money that it claims to be. The couple doesn't seem to be particularly attracted to each other or even in love, certainly not at first. And there is a constant resentment toward money and those with it that runs throughout the film. The sex scenes are fewer than one might expect, and vary in style between the sultry and the goofy (as most sex scenes do, I suppose).

The DVD itself is basic, with few goodies. And are all university movies set at Yonsei? Why?

In short, the movie feels like a shadow on a cave, an echo of a story on love, sex and marriage. As most such stories do, I suppose.

by Mark Russell