Kim Ji-young, Born 1982
82年生まれ、キム・ジヨン
The Moonlight essay
CinemaKim Ji-young, Born 1982, and the Voices She Had to BorrowRead the essayStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
A young mother begins speaking in other women's voices; the book that split Korea and sold more than 130,000 copies in Japan.
Kim Ji-young is in her thirties, married to Jung Dae-hyun, an office worker, and at home with their small daughter. To have the baby she gave up a job she loved at a marketing firm, where she admired her team leader, Kim Eun-sil, the only woman in charge. Now her days are laundry, meals and the playground, and she tells everyone she is fine.
She is not. At moments of strain she begins to speak as other women. At her in-laws' house for the Chuseok holiday, after cooking and cleaning while the family relaxes, she tells her mother-in-law, in her own mother's voice, that Ji-young is someone's daughter too and should be allowed to go home. Afterwards she remembers nothing. Dae-hyun, frightened, films the episodes in secret and consults a psychiatrist; Ji-young takes the card he gives her but does not go, because the sessions cost too much.
She wants to work again. Out with her baby, she hears strangers sneer at her as a "mum-roach", a slur for mothers said to live off their husbands. Kim Eun-sil, who has started her own firm, offers her a way back, and Dae-hyun offers to take a year's parental leave. His mother is furious and rings Ji-young to scold her for damaging her son's career. Ji-young's own mother, Mi-sook, who gave up school so that her brothers could study, sees one of the episodes for herself and weeps. Ji-young gives up the job.
At last she asks Dae-hyun why he keeps pushing her towards a doctor, and he shows her the videos. She begins seeing the psychiatrist and talks about everything that has worn her down, at home and at work. The episodes ease. When she is sneered at again, she answers back. She starts writing, and her pieces appear in magazines. The film ends with her at a desk, beginning a book of her own.
Starring
Jung Yu-mias Kim Ji-young
A former marketing employee at home with her small daughter, who at moments of strain begins to speak in other women's voices.
Kim Ji-young’s story
Ji-young gave up a marketing job she loved to have her daughter, and tells anyone who asks that she is fine. She is not: under strain she speaks as her mother or her late grandmother, and afterwards remembers nothing. She nearly works again, when Kim Eun-sil offers her a place and Dae-hyun offers to take parental leave, but no sitter can be found, her mother-in-law is furious, and she lets it go. Out with her baby, she is sneered at as a 'mum-roach'. When she asks Dae-hyun why he keeps pushing her towards a doctor, he shows her his videos; shaken, she asks what to do first, and begins treatment. The next time strangers sneer, she answers back. Given a pen engraved with her name, she starts to write: magazine pieces, then a book of her own.
Gong Yooas Jung Dae-hyun
Ji-young's husband, an office worker who notices her episodes, records them in secret and tries to find her help.
Jung Dae-hyun’s story
Dae-hyun is an office worker who loves his wife and sees before she does that something is wrong: under strain she speaks as other women, and afterwards remembers nothing. Frightened, he films the episodes in secret, consults a psychiatrist and slips Ji-young the doctor's card rather than tell her. When her old team leader offers her a way back to work, he offers to take a year's parental leave, knowing it may cost him promotion, and his mother rings Ji-young in a fury. Asked why he keeps pushing her towards a doctor, he shows Ji-young the videos and breaks down, saying he feels he drove her to this. She begins treatment. Near the end, at a crossing, he is in tears again when she points out the first shoots of spring, and she tells him she is fine.
Kim Mi-kyungas Mi-sook
Ji-young's mother, who gave up her own schooling for her brothers and wants more for her daughters.
Gong Min-jeungas Kim Eun-young
Ji-young's outspoken older sister, single by choice, who makes their spoiled younger brother do his share.
Park Sung-yeonas Kim Eun-sil
Ji-young's former team leader, the only woman in charge at her old firm, who later starts her own company.
Why it matters
Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 turns a statistic into a person. Its heroine carries one of the most common names of her generation, and the film shows how ordinary the sexism around her is: a family that spoils the son, an office that passes women over, a holiday spent cooking for someone else's parents, a stranger who calls a mother a parasite. Ji-young's illness, speaking in her mother's and grandmother's voices, reads as a way of saying that the women before her never got to speak for themselves. The novel it adapts sold more than a million copies and divided Korea; when the film opened in October 2019, its lead actor received thousands of hateful comments, a petition asked the president to stop its release, and people rated it down online before it was shown. The film's answer is quieter than the fight around it: a husband who notices, a mother who weeps, a woman who starts to write.