Happy End
ハッピーエンド
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
An unemployed husband, a working wife, her lover, and a title that lies.
Seo Min-ki was a banker until he was laid off. Now his wife, Choi Bo-ra, supports the family by running an English-language school, and Min-ki keeps house and looks after their baby daughter. He spends his free hours in a second-hand bookshop and on park benches with romantic novels, and watches soap operas at home. Bo-ra is having an affair with Kim Il-beom, her boyfriend from university, whom she lost when he went into the army and met again by chance.
Min-ki grows suspicious. He notes the mileage on her car and checks the toll receipts, finds a key he does not recognise, traces it to Il-beom's flat and lets himself in, where he finds an album of Bo-ra's photographs. He does not confront her. He tells her only that he would be happy if she were a good mother to their child.
Bo-ra does not want to break up her family, and tries to end the affair. Il-beom will not let her go. He rings the house when Min-ki is at home and turns up at their door. Cornered, she agrees to meet him for half an hour, crushes a sleeping pill into the baby's milk and leaves her alone in the flat. Min-ki comes home to find the baby alone and feverish, and takes her to the hospital. Back at the flat, he sees Bo-ra in Il-beom's arms.
Min-ki plans carefully. He sets off by train, apparently for the funeral of an old teacher, with a woman friend from their building as his alibi. Then he comes back and kills Bo-ra, and uses the key to Il-beom's flat to make it look as though Il-beom did it. The police are persuaded, and the investigation closes with Il-beom as the killer.
Starring
Choi Min-sikas Seo Min-ki
A laid-off banker who keeps house, reads romantic novels and quietly discovers his wife's affair.
Seo Min-ki’s story
Min-ki worked at a bank for six years until he was laid off. He spends his days with romantic novels in a second-hand bookshop and on park benches, then collects his daughter and cooks; Bo-ra says he acts like a defeated soldier. He notes the car's mileage, keeps the receipts, traces an unfamiliar key to Il-beom's flat, finds an album of his wife's photographs there, and says nothing. That night he weeps over his sleeping daughter, and he turns from romances to detective novels. After he sees Bo-ra in Il-beom's arms at their door, he boards a train in front of a neighbour, gets off, kills Bo-ra and plants evidence against Il-beom. Cleared by his alibi, he weeps over her photograph, burns it, throws away her ring and falls asleep beside his daughter.
Jeon Do-yeonas Choi Bo-ra
Min-ki's wife, who runs an English-language school, supports the family and is having an affair with her old boyfriend.
Choi Bo-ra’s story
Bo-ra runs an English-language school and keeps the family. She met Il-beom again by chance, years after he went into the army and they parted, and she goes on seeing him in his flat, lying to Min-ki about where she has been. When Il-beom wants more, a key, a present for her daughter, calls to the house, she tries to end it and tells Min-ki that everything is settled. Then Il-beom turns up drunk at her door. With no one to leave the baby with, she crushes a sleeping pill into her milk and goes out to meet him for half an hour, and he carries her home. One evening she finds a photograph she had hidden back on her dressing table, and Min-ki, who is supposed to be on a train, kills her.
Joo Jin-moas Kim Il-beom
Bo-ra's boyfriend from university, back in her life and unwilling to let her go a second time.
Kim Il-beom’s story
Il-beom lost Bo-ra when he went into the army, and he has kept her photographs and letters ever since and never taken off their old couple ring. Meeting her again by chance, he becomes her lover and builds the website for her school, but he wants more than an affair. He gives her a key to his flat, buys a present for her daughter, rings the house when Min-ki is at home and, drunk, turns up at her door. On the night he carries her home, Min-ki sees them embrace. When Bo-ra is killed, the evidence in his flat points to him, and the police take Il-beom for her killer.
Why it matters
Happy End turns round the roles a Korean melodrama of its day would expect. The wife earns the money and has the affair; the husband stays home with the baby, reads romantic novels and watches soap operas. It was Jung Ji-woo's first film, a commercial success, and its frank love scenes were much talked about in Korea on release. The film does not make Bo-ra a villain or Min-ki a victim. It watches, mostly with a handheld camera, as a man who has lost his work and his place turns the patience he has learned at home into planning. The questions it raises have lasted: what happens to a man's sense of himself when his wife supports him, what an affair looks like when the one betrayed is the parent at home with the child, and how quiet a man's violence can look until the moment it is not. Its title is its bitterest joke.