Evaluation

From studying South Korean films, I found out that women are often represented as the eccentric heroine character and that many of the popular films are dark and horrific, the characters use inventive murder weapons and there is often a theme of revenge. The eccentric heroine character was often found  in romantic comedy films where the main female character was quite clumsy and was the boss. In '100 Days With Mr Arrogant' in particular, the eccentric heroine character has ideas of revenge which helps bring out the characteristics even more to the audience. The films in which were dark and horrific, were often thriller's, they were used to emphasise the struggle of identity that the country has been put through over the years. To incorporate all of these factors, I decided to make a film a mixture of the romantic comedy and thriller genre, as South Korean films tended to break many rules anyway.

The eccentric heroine character type is characterised by the "boyishness" within both the character's physique and personality, they are often clumsy and not very domestic. I noticed that this character type is often common within Korean romantic comedy films and as my film was partly within this genre, it should include this type of character. I tried to reinforce this stereotype, mostly at the end of my script and key frames, when Ji-Min (the main female protagonist) has taken both her friend and boyfriend into the small, dark room and is connected with the frame of the spade to give the impression that she is to attack with this weapon. From our own experiences from Hollywood films, this is not a typically feminine trait, to kill or harm with this particular weapon so by choosing this mise-en-scene item it brings with it the "masculine" atmosphere, which helps build up the idea of the eccentric, boyish character type. I had the character only speak through a voice over so that she was expressing her personal thoughts and feelings about each situation, this helped build up this character type as we (as an audience) would get to see her plans of revenge and what she feels and wants to do.

The images below compare eccentric heroine's from other South Korean films to my eccentric heroine. I feel that my eccentric heroine character appeared quite effective due to the actions that she completed and the locations that she was within. However, I feel that I could have made this character type more effective by having her hair and makeup not so perfect within the dark rooms scenes as characters within the other films did not always have perfection within this all of the time, this may have built up the image of the eccentric heroine more. If I had another chance at making the key frames show this character type more, I would have darkened the shots of her face more as her face is very bright in a lot of shots which is not entirely accurate for the eccentric heroine. I would have also experimented with the costume that I put her in as although I was trying to put her in white to create the school girl type image, I think that it made her look too feminine so I would experiment with putting her in different coloured clothing and perhaps also clothing that was more baggy or casual to emphasise the boyish-ness within her appearance.

The other popular thing that I picked up from my research was the use of the films being dark and horrific, the inventive murder weapons and the theme of revenge. The dark and horrific films with this type of cinema were often within the thriller genre, for example Old Boy, and as my film was to be half within this genre, I decided to use this within my key frames. As my key frames were to be a mixture of these genres, I decided that I would set the locations within a school (as this tended to be popular within the romantic comedy genre) and in the dark location (to emphasise the darkness within the film.) The dark location was to be used for the close, intensive scenes, which included the capturing of the best friend and the boyfriend. I think that this worked well and looked effective but there was a lot I could have done to make it look better. As I needed such a contrast with the two locations, I should have made the shots in the dark room darker, by controlling the lighting much more, and not have the faces of the characters lit up so much. The whole frame should have been darker to create more of an atmosphere. I could have also improved the frames of the best friend and boyfriend in this dark room as both of these shots have a white background behind them which makes them look less effective and less dark and horrific; this is then breaking this stereotype and doesn’t make it as effective. By also having this white backdrop there is then created a shadow behind the characters, although this looks effective I think that this should be completely dark behind them, as this would be what it would look like in a Korean movie.

The inventive murder weapons was pulled off effectively in my key frames as when the weapon is revealed, the spade, it helps build up the eccentric heroine character type as mentioned before. It also brings an element of surprise with it as the audience would not have expected the character to act like this and the element of surprise is very popular within South Korean cinema. I feel that the use of this mise-en-scene object was done so effectively.

The theme of revenge was important within my key frames as the reason the character captured the other two was revenge of what they did to her. From my research I learnt that the theme of revenge is extremely popular and common within South Korean films, perhaps because of what Korea have gone through in the past and they feel that revenge is something that is building up inside them. The character within my key frames reveals within her voice over “This is my revenge.” This is revealed after the audience is shown her best friend and boyfriend together and she reveals within her voice over that they are meeting behind her back. I feel that the theme of revenge was effective within my key frames as it brings another idea and causes the whole reason for this short film. 

Generally, I think I pulled my key frames off effectively and successfully to be like a South Korean film