Directed by: Yoo Ji-young (유지영)
Starring: Lee Se-young (이세영), Kim Hyun-jun (김현준), Nam Tae-boo (남태부)
The Film: On a small lake in the city of Daegu, Hee-jung (Lee Se-young) works for a paddle-boat rental shop whose boats are all equipped with large canopies in the shape of a duck. In her free time, Hee-jung studies English to the point of exhaustion as she is preparing to take an exam that will allow her to transfer universities to Seoul, where she dreams that life will be better.
One day while working, Hee-jung falls asleep while studying when an older man takes one of the paddle boats out to the middle of the lake where he then jumps out and drowns in the lake. When a neighborhood boy, Young-mok (Kim Hyun-jun), who happens to be filming in the area catches Hee-jung planting a life jacket into the water in order to avoid liability for the man’s drowning, the boy blackmails her by threatening that he will take his footage to the police unless she helps him with some work he’s doing at a suicide prevention center. Hee-jung, angry and reluctant, begins to help Young-mok with his ambitious anti-suicide book project. However, Young-mok’s motives become unclear when Hee-jung learns that he was the former leader of an online-suicide club.
Duck Town is primarily a film about suicide and reasons people both attempt and contemplate it. Knowing this, and after reading the film’s premise above, you may be surprised to hear that Duck Town is advertised as a comedy film. And while the film has a comedic tone, it should be noted that this is really a drama film disguised as an extremely dark comedy with some fantastic elements.
Unfortunately, this gives the film somewhat of an identity crisis and ultimately comes off as tonally confusing. This is because Duck Town actually works better in its more dramatic periods that center around Hee-jung’s family life. Hee-jung has a very contentious relationship with her mother that explodes at one point, making for one of the film’s most dramatic and compelling scenes. But more importantly to the film’s story, Hee-jung’s brother, Hee-jun (Nam Tae-boo), who is lost in books most of the day and has no interest in his own life, becomes incrementally drawn into the story in a clever but also slightly predictable way.
Filmed largely on location in the fall season near the real lake of the film’s Korean title (Mercury Pond), the film’s lush green and orange color palette is absolutely gorgeous to look at but adds to the awkward tone. Even with the mysterious grand allure surrounding the city of Seoul that seems to attract nearly all Korean people to want to live there, her home town is portrayed so beautifully one really wonders why Hee-jung would want to escape there so badly. Perhaps it is just that point the filmmakers were trying to say, but having the fall colors there throughout the entire film and not perhaps incorporating a changing of the seasons seems like a stylistic missed opportunity.
Although Duck Town’s themes surrounding suicide and finding meaning in the world are somewhat in focus if you can get passed the odd attempts at mostly failed comedy, the relationship between Hee-jung and Young-mok is where the film really suffers. And while it makes sense that Hee-jung could have been easily swooned into working for the charismatic former suicide-club leader Yong-mok, the two characters themselves have almost zero chemistry together. There are scenes that really could have made for a special moment between the two of them that just fell flat.
There is an important message within Duck Town as well as moments of acting brilliance, primarily from lead actress Lee Se-young. And when the drama works, it works very well. However, the comedy just didn’t do anything for me. On top of the film’s awkward tone, the film fails to find its footing as it takes a few too many twists and turns in reaching its conclusion. As an independent film that has been circling the Korean festivals for about a year now and just now getting an official limited release, don’t miss an opportunity to see Duck Town if it comes your way, but don’t go out of your way to see it either. 6/10 – Above Average
If you enjoy this content and would like to support our ability to continue to update and increase the quality of our content.
