Shin-ae as a College Girl Who Sticks to Her Virginity in “Silver Knife”

Shin-ae (21, picture shown) who had played a naive nun in the movie “Season in the Sun” came back as a “Virginity Crusader.” She plays Min-suh, who was raised in a patriarchic family bestowed with “a gate of chaste woman” and educated with conservative ideas to preserve chastity, in the movie “Silver Knife” directed by Kim Sung-duk who produced “Boss Landing Operation.” Her college friend, Joo-hak (Oh, Ji-ho) tries hard to open up this woman of virtue.

In the interview on October 16th, Shin-ae said that she would never have a sexual relationship before marriage like Min-suh in the movie.

―Why do you think they cast you as a nun or a chaste woman?

“I think it’s because of my images in the commercials. Pure and a bit mysterious.

―What are the similarities you find in yourself and Min-suh in the movie?

“That we both regard sex, love, and marriage as the same thing. Also that we love only one person with passion.”

―’Goody two-shoes’ Gyeong-ju in the movie (Min-suh’s college girl friend) says, “I don’t want to have sex with a man I love. I want to love a man who knows how to do it.” What do you think?

“It’s just like saying, ‘I want to marry a guy with a lot of money.’ I don’t like it because it does not regard the sex as the same thing with love but rather as a condition.”

―What do you think of Joo-hak as a boyfriend who tries everything he could do to touch Min-suh?

“He’s quite honest. There are so many guys, thinking that they can do something to women after making them drunk. Joo-hak is thousand times better than them.”

―Min-suh resolves about preserving her virginity. Do you think a lot of young people would be interested in such a theme?

“I know a friend who gets all creepy over some man’s unintended touch of her arm. She said she was educated by her father to keep her virginity when she was young. Even to the college students now, preserving their virginity is an issue. Speaking of which, her father now bugs her asking, ‘Why are you not getting married?’”

There are two secret codes that prompt the audience’s laughter in the movie. The first one is a bathroom talk saying, “It is best to call a man when you’re having menstrual irregularities.” The second one is breaking the image of the pretty and sexy actresses by hearing dirty four-letter words coming out of their mouth.

The movie worked too much on sorting out characters into the different roles of virginity pledges, fake shy, free sex, and impotence one by one and fails to entail the real talks and humors of college students from their perspective. The ending is such a stereotype when the mother of Min-suh, who has lived all her life suppressed by her husband, knocks down “the gate of chaste woman,” shouting out for the women’s liberation. A stereotypical finale for stereotypical characters.

Opens November 18. Audience over 18.

Seung-Jae Lee sjda@donga.com