A Film a Week - 3670

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

At least theoretically, we understand what it means to be a member of an underprivileged minority and some of us even had practical experiences in that department. Being a “double minority”, a member of minority on two aspects, is a bit more extreme setting most of us know nothing about. The thing is that there is not a mathematics formula to be used in counting and measuring loneliness, isolation, lack of privilege or emotional pain.

In his feature debut, “3670”, the Korean filmmaker Park Joon-ho tries to envision one such situation. The film has been on the tour of festivals since its premiere this spring, and we caught it at San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Cheol-jun (Cho You-hyun) is a North Korean deflector living in Seoul in and around the community of his compatriots. They all attend the same college preparation classes and the same church services, so one might assume that their community is a close-knit one, or that the rest of the South Korean society is hesitant to accept them. However, Cheol-jun fears discrimination within the and expulsion from the group, so he hides one crucial thing about himself from his buddies: the fact that he is gay.

Since the hook-ups via the phone app do not give the desired results for him (Cheol-jun wants a relationship, while the rest of the users, like the one seen in the opening scene, are there just for some casual sex), he finally summons some courage to attend the meeting / blind dating event with some guys from the South. However, once they learn that he is a deflector, they lose the last interest they had in him.

The exception to the rule of rejection comes at his part-time job at a store where he encounters Yeong-jun (Kim Hyeon-mok) who also attended the meeting and lives in the area. He becomes Cheol-jun’s friend, romantic interest and the guide to the seemingly vibrant Seoul gay scene where both young man seem to feel liberated. However, Yeong-jun also has some secrets that he keeps…

The title “3670” is actually a code the young gay men in the film use in their texting communication, and the fact they have to communicate in codes reveals a sad truth about the daily life of a gay person in Seoul. There is a certain code of conduct: whatever happens behind the closed doors stays there, and there is no way that it comes out to the public limelight. But is not it the case with the most of the countries and their societies in our world?

It seems that, like his protagonist, Park Joon-ho has to deal with two sets of problems in the South Korean society, with a difference that the character has to find his place under the sun, and the filmmaker has to expose them to the audience. In Park’s case, it seems that he bit more than he could chew. Although the slow exposition of the characters’ backgrounds and a number of lower-intensity subplots they spawn might seem like a detailed road map for the actors to create a compelling characters, it burdens the core story with excessive minutes of runtime.

Park has some directorial tricks up in his sleeves, like the use of the hand-held cinematography by Han Sang-kil that gets calmer as the protagonist catches the ropes of his life. Unfortunately, the filmmaker is also his own editor, which takes a toll in the terms of pacing. The actors do more than a decent job to make “3670” a watchable experience. The leading duo shares some on-screen chemistry, while the rest of the cast, including Jo Dae-hee as the most popular guy in the club, get enough screen time to create solid episodes. However, Cho You-hyun is the star of the movie, channelling the shyness and almost virginal naivety of his character.

Noble intentions and the necessity to address the country’s structural injustices aside, “3670” is sometimes too big, too clumsy and too “engineered” for its own good. Simply put, the execution does not match the ambition, which is a dead giveaway for Park’s lack of experience. A more streamlined version could have worked better, both with the festivals’ committees and with the regular audiences.