Ramping up in severity over the last decade, a social scourge known as molka (hidden camera) has threatened the safety and security of women in South Korea, leading to widespread outrage across feminist organizations but, sickeningly, very little in the way of legal prosecution for the perpetrators. Instances of spy cameras illegally installed in public bathrooms, changing rooms and motel rooms, and the subsequent distribution of the obtained material, were reported on average 17 times a day in 2018, leading former president Moon Jae-in to label the wave of crimes as an ‘epidemic'. The Guest, Yeon Je-gwang's feature debut, having its North American premiere at New York Asian Film Festival on July 22, takes the real-life horrors of molka to craft a taut and tense thriller that asks us just how much we're willing to ignore to save our own skins.
The film follows Min-cheol (Lee Ju-seung) and Young-gyu (Han Min), two-night shift workers at a seedy motel that's a hotbed of molka crime – and they should know, as they're the ones setting up the camera. Although the pair of them seem to struggle morally with their participation in such a crime, it's made clear that they are both working under the threat of financial collapse and aggressive loan sharks who instruct them to up the intensity of the material they're catching on camera. When a particularly suspicious man checks in for the night carrying a drunkenly unconscious woman over his shoulder, the pair are faced with a dilemma – step in and save the woman, or stay quiet and secure the paycheck?
The Guest stumbles at its biggest hurdle before it even starts barreling through its fast-paced cat-and-mouse chase – for such a dynamic to work with any sense of stake, you need to at least care about the mouse. It's a big ask of your audience – particularly female viewers – to sympathize with men who knowingly participate in sexual assault, no matter how dire their financial circumstances. Neither Min-cheol nor Young-gyu meet the specifications needed to be classed as either an unlikable protagonist or an anti-hero, meaning that the audience has little reason to care about the quandary they face.
However, if you're able to overlook this decision (that almost certainly comes from a choice to focus on Korea's Hell Joseon reality of capitalist corruption rather than any comment on gender) The Guest is undeniably well-crafted with several truly nail-biting set pieces. Yeon wisely keeps the gore scarce, meaning that what bloody scenes do unfold land with much more severity, and cinematographer Han Sang-kil knows all the right ways to make the sordid spiritual rot of the motel seep off the screen. Jeong Soo-kyo as the perverted behemoth cuts a terrifying figure, and the voyeuristic scenes of his sordid hotel rendezvous elevate The Guest from a simple, single-location slasher to a dread-inducing and frighteningly bleak nightmare come to life.
As The Guest's sole female character, Oh Hye-won does her best with a role that exists as little more than a vehicle to demonstrate the contemptible reality of the situation, but she's given very few opportunities to evolve as a character, sidelined instead for Min-cheol's hero arc to progress. In a movie seemingly so concerned about the real-life horrors women face in a misogynistic world, perhaps it might have been wise to centre the story on a woman, rather than men complicit in the same rape culture that bought her to the hotel in the first place.
Characterization quibbles aside, fans of gender-focused Korean thrillers like Midnight and Broken will not want to miss The Guest – at a lean 77 minutes, Yeon's debut never outstays its welcome and will have viewers on the edge of their seats throughout.
The Guest screened on Monday, July 22 at the New York Asian Film Festival.
