The film ‘Her Hobby’ is Ha Myung Mi’s feature directorial debut. It is a beautifully told thriller noir set against a quiet landscape village focussing on friendship and revenge.  It is based on an original short story by SeoMiae that featured in a Korean magazine of mystery stories.  The short story was also made into a webtoon.

 The film script itself however was reworked by director Ha Myung Mi, SeoMiae and Lee Yong-yeon. The latter being a veteran writer of horror, thriller and mystery.  

The story begins with a recently divorced woman, Jeong-in, who moves back in with her grandmother, who sadly passes away, shortly after.

Jeong-in resumes her quiet village life to rebuild and recover from her abusive ex-husband but is constantly harassed by her interfering and inquisitive women neighbours and the local men who make unwanted advances towards her.

A charming older woman, Hye-jeong, relocates from Seoul to the countryside village and the two form an unlikely friendship, bonded by the proximity of their houses and a discovery of a particular hobby. Soon Jeong-in is able to get her comeuppance on those who have wronged her and treated her ill.

I really enjoyed the film and found the performances of both actresses Jung Yi-Seo (Jeong-in) and particularly Kim Hye-na (Hye-jong) quite strong. The film was beautifully and thoughtfully shot and although the themes centres on revenge, one could not help but be drawn into the narrative of Jeong-in and Hye-jeong.  

I was lucky enough to catch the film as part of the ‘Stories of Women’ strand at the 2023  London East Asian Film Festival in October and stay for the Q&A that director Ha indulged the audience in.

She explained how the script differed from the original story and discussed the cinematography choices. As the film is set against the backdrop of a local village; and deals with some quite dark and sombre topics, it was important that the film be visual and stunning. In a way that amplified the sadness. I thought this was quite beautiful.

She spoke of the relationship between the two main characters and why she chose not to go too much into Hye-jeong’s back story; but simply that Hye-jeong had been through a similar experience to Jeong-in, and although the colours they wore define their characters; darker greens for Jeong-in; and then red and white for Hye-jung;  the colours start to overlap to show they become closer towards the end of the film.   

She also explained and touched on the symbolism in the film and the use of Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) to make the two houses appear closer in the film than they really were.

One of the things I thought was also very striking is that though the film deals with violence; it is not shown on screen. Director Ha, commented on this following a question from the audience and said the audience’s imagination was far more powerful than anything a director could depict. By leaving it up to the imagination of the individual, it actually intensifies the violence that the characters actually go through.

She went on to speak of the symbolism in the film; the limited budget they had and how long the actual filming took, which was 1 month. However it took 6  months in post production; adding in sound , colours and CGI.

Another audience member asked if the two characters ended up finding happiness; to which Director Ha replied that the two are just trying to survive and are not looking for anything extraordinary; just the everyday happiness afforded to all. This is what they want; to survive exist in peace.

‘Her Hobby’ is streaming on : YouTube.com [VOD Services], Coupang Play, Korean OTT Platforms Wwave, Watcha, Naver, Cinefox, U+mobile TV