Take Care of my Cat DVD

33-year old director Jae-eun Jeong's 2001 film Take Care of my Cat is a perceptive coming-of-age film about five young Korean women trying to cope with the transition ... Read on

33-year old director Jae-eun Jeong's 2001 film Take Care of my Cat is a perceptive coming-of-age film about five young Korean women trying to cope with the transition from high school to the adult world. The title of the film, which received a major award at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2002, refers to a stray kitten, Tee tee, which is passed between the five girls and, as circumstances pull their lives apart, serves as a connection between them.

The bleak working-class environment of Inchon establishes the mood of the film. The girls are in constant movement. Whirling through the city on subways and buses between work, clubs, and restaurants, we get a sense of their optimism and energy. Programmed to play entire melodies, their cell phones ring constantly as the girls coordinate their meetings and activities. Tae-hee, in an outstanding performance by Doo-na Bae, is the glue that holds the friendships together by arranging meetings and bringing people together. She works for her father in his traditional "hot-rock" healing spa and, in her spare time, types for a poet afflicted with cerebral palsy who has developed strong feelings for her. The girls' world seems strange to the older generations, but the harsh reality of survival is constant, their ambitions often at odds with the male-dominated society.

Take Care of my Cat has no peak dramatic moments, no plot contrivances that propel us toward certain emotional responses, only the sad undercurrent of the inevitability of change in a confusing world. Backed by a moody electronic sound track by Kim Jin-cheol and Byul the film is an affecting experience. Jae-eun Jeong does not provide easy answers as to the direction the girls will take, but, by avoiding cynicism, she allows us to see all of their possibilities.
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