A skilfully written and wonderfully acted ensemble drama packed with unexpected twists and turns, ‘Intimate Strangers’, is not only an absorbing and entertaining “thriller” but also a frank examination of relationships in our modern age.
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A remake of the immensely successful 2016 Italian comedy ‘Perfect Strangers’, ‘Intimate Strangers’, directed by Lee Jae-kyoo (who directed popular TV series ‘Beethoven Virus’), is an ensemble drama starring Yoo Hae-jin (‘A Taxi Driver’), Cho Jin-woong (‘Believer’, ‘The Spy Gone North’), Lee Seo-jin, Yum Jung-ah (‘The Mimic’), Kim Ji-soo, Song Ha-yoon, and Yoon Kyung-ho. It set the record for being one of the highest grossing Korean comedies in 2018.
They play a group of long-time friends gathered together for dinner reunion at Seok-ho’s (Cho) house. Someone suggests a kind of dare: As such close friends, they should have nothing to hide from each other, and so it shouldn’t be an issue if all of them put their cell phones on the table and share any call, text message, or email they receive with everyone else. It’s a simple but intriguing and tantalizing time-bomb of a premise.
Right from the outset of the film, we are kept at the edge of our seats. Whose secret will be divulged? And what kind of secret? Naturally, we’d think of infidelity secrets. And granted, there are such secrets, but it’s the way the secrets slowly untangle and the revelations slowly unfold that makes ‘Perfect Strangers’ so compelling to watch.
Adding to the great writing and dialogue are the cast of actors who so skilfully breathe life to words on the page. Special kudos go to Cho and Yum. Cho, who gave a brilliant career-boosting performance in ‘The Spy Gone North’, brings almost the same earthly humanity to his wealthy plastic surgeon character who struggles to reconnect with his distant wife due to her feelings of neglect and insecurity about his profession where he does breasts enhancement surgeries and their differences in parenting. Yum, meanwhile, plays Soo-hyun, the repressed wife of her highly conservative husband (Yoo), who struggles to find a sense of self after spending her life taking care of her children and mother-in-law.
A skilfully written and wonderfully acted ensemble drama packed with unexpected twists and turns, ‘Intimate Strangers’, is not only an absorbing and entertaining “thriller” but also a frank examination of relationships in our modern age.
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