South Korean couples are breaking up over feminist film Kim Ji-young, Born 1982. Why?
- The hit movie has shed light on the struggles of women in the country’s deeply patriarchal and conservative society
- It has also exposed a chasm in perspectives between the genders that is proving too much for some romances to bear
It was date night for Han Ah-eum. The 27-year-old office worker and her boyfriend decided to catch a screening of Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, South Korea’s critically acclaimed drama and box office hit about a woman who becomes a stay-at-home mother.
She did not expect to find herself in an argument with her partner afterwards.
“My boyfriend said he wondered if his mother and aunts had faced such struggles,” Han said.
“He also thought the main character’s husband was unrealistically perfect because he helped with childcare and chores,” duties Han argued should be expected of men.
Korean dramas, or K-dramas as the genre is known, have a reputation for romance and sentimentality. But in Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, originally a bestselling novel published in 2016 by writer Cho Nam-joo, the core relationship between a husband and wife played by Gong Yoo and Jung Yu-mi is neither romantic nor idealised.
