Take Care of My Cat

Take Care of My Cat (Korean: 고양이를 부탁해; RR: Goyangireul Butakhae) is a 2001 South Korean coming of age film, the feature debut of director Jeong Jae-eun.[2] It chronicles the lives of a group of friends — five young women — a year after they graduate from high school, showing the heartbreaking changes and inspiring difficulties they face in both their friendships and the working world in the context of globalization.[3]

Take Care of My Cat
Theatrical poster
Hangul고양이를 부탁해
Revised RomanizationGoyangireul Butakhae
McCune–ReischauerKoyangirŭl Put‘akhae
Directed byJeong Jae-eun
Produced byOh Ki-min
Written byJeong Jae-eun
StarringBae Doona
Lee Yo-won
Ok Ji-young
Music byPark Gi-hyeon
Kim Jun-seok
Jo Seong-woo
Kim Sang-hyeon
CinematographyChoi Young-hwan
Edited byLee Hyun-mi
Distributed byCinema Service
Release date
  • October 12, 2001 (2001-10-12)
Running time
112 minutes
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
Box officeUS$9,866[1]

Plot

In the bleak industrial landscape of historical port city of Incheon, five young women struggle to transition from high school to the adult world. Hae-joo pursues a career at a brokerage firm in Seoul, Tae-hee works without pay at her family's sauna and volunteers as a typist for a poet with cerebral palsy, Ji-young struggles to find work while living in a dilapidated house with her elderly grandparents and a kitten named Teetee, and twin sisters Bi-ryu and Ohn-jo live on their own and sell handmade jewellery on the street.

Hae-joo tries to make herself invaluable at work but finds that she is at the bottom of the workplace hierarchy, relegated to running errands like sending faxes and bringing coffee. She is preoccupied with impressing her bosses at work and improving her physical appearance. In contrast, Ji-young has more immediate concerns—finding work to support herself and her grandparents and getting the landlord to fix the roof that is on the verge of collapsing. Unable to find meaningful employment, Ji-young grows increasingly frustrated with her poverty-stricken life with her elderly grandparents. Without parents to vouch for her, and without computer skills or driver's license, she drifts from one low-wage job to another. Tae-hee, who is constantly belittled and ostracized by her comfortably middle-class but oppressively heteropatriarchal family, dreams of escaping the conformity but does not know where she could go. She finds herself drawn to ferry terminals and foreign migrant workers. Bi-ryu and Ohn-jo, whose Chinese-speaking grandparents have disowned their mother and refuse to see them for reasons not discussed in the film, live on their own in an ethnic Chinese enclave in Incheon.

Hae-joo and Ji-young, who used to be best friends in high school, drift apart throughout the film in part due to their divergent socioeconomic status. After a sleepover at the twins' house one night, Ji-young returns home early in the morning to find that the roof of her house has collapsed, killing her grandparents. Refusing to cooperate with the police investigation and without any family support, Ji-young is locked up in juvenile detention though she has committed no crime. Tae-hee, who has grown closer to Ji-young, tracks her down and visits Ji-young in a youth detention facility. Ji-young reveals to Tae-hee that she has nowhere else to go even if she were released.

When Ji-young is released from the detention center, she finds Tae-hee waiting for her with a suitcase packed for a trip. Tae-hee reveals that she has run away from home, having taken the money she was owed from working for her family without pay for a year. She suggests that they travel together, perhaps on Working Holiday, as they had discussed earlier in the film.[4] The film ends with Tae-hee and Ji-young at the Incheon International Airport, about to depart for an unknown destination.

Symbolism

The cat Tee-tee is an important symbol of the ties between friends. Ji-young first brings the stray kitten into her home and later gives her as a birthday gift to Hae-joo. Hae-joo returns Teetee to Ji-young after just one night, saying that she has no time to raise a misbehaving cat in what appears to be a reflection of their deteriorating friendship. After Ji-young loses her home, she asks Tae-hee to take care of Teetee. Later, Tae-hee leaves Teetee in the care of Bi-ryu and Ohn-jo.

The friends stay in touch through the use of mobile phone, with text messages and ringtones appearing frequently throughout the film as ubiquitous threads that connect their lives to each other.[5]

Cast
  • Bae Doona as Yoo Tae-hee[6]
  • Lee Yo-won as Shin Hae-joo
  • Ok Ji-young as Seo Ji-young
  • Lee Eun-shil as Bi-ryu
  • Lee Eun-jo as Ohn-jo

Reception

Though the film was not successful in the box office, it was critically acclaimed and generated a large fan base including a "Save the Cat" movement involving film industry professionals and Incheon residents who tried to extend its theatrical run.[7] A campaign was also launched for a theater re-run in 2001.[8]

Kevin Thomas for The Los Angeles Times praised the film for "depicting women's concerns without being the least bit preachy."

Local filmmakers organized a festival to support the survival of films that hold fast to artistic significance and compromise commercial success (in the process come and go without much recognition). The title of the event, WaRaNaGo, came from the initial syllables of four 2001 movies － Waikiki Brothers, Raybang, Nabi ("Butterfly") and Goyangireul Butakhae ("Take Care of My Cat") － which all fared poorly in the box office.[9]

The film won numerous awards at international film festivals, namely the NETPAC Award and New Currents Award Special Mention at the Pusan International Film Festival, the FIPRESCI Prize at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Best Picture award ("Golden Moon of Valencia") at the Cinema Jove Valencia International Film Festival, a KNF Award Special Mention in the competition section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. It was invited to the Young Forum section at the Berlin International Film Festival and was also theatrically released in Japan, Hong Kong, U.K and U.S.A.[10] In 2020, the film was ranked by The Guardian number 19 among the classics of modern South Korean cinema.[11]

Awards
2001 Busan International Film Festival[12]
  • NETPAC Award
  • New Currents Award - Special Mention
2001 Chunsa Film Art Awards
2001 Blue Dragon Film Awards
2001 Director's Cut Awards
2002 Baeksang Arts Awards
2002 Busan Film Critics Awards
2002 Korean Film Awards
2002 Hong Kong International Film Festival
  • FIPRESCI Prize - Special Mention
2002 International Film Festival Rotterdam
  • KNF Award - Special Mention
2002 Cinema Jove Valencia International Film Festival
  • Golden Moon of Valencia (Best Film)
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References
  1. "Take Care of My Cat". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-03-04.
  2. "Interview with Jae-eun Jeong: The Road that Crosses the World, Children Who Leave Home". Kino International. October 2001. Archived from the original on 2011-07-05. Retrieved 2012-11-21.
  3. Kim, Yaeri (2015-07-03). "Desiring displacement: globalization, nationalism and gendered desires in Take Care of My Cat". Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema. 7 (2): 149–166. doi:10.1080/17564905.2015.1087153. ISSN 1756-4905.
  4. Yoon, Kyong (2014-09-03). "The racialised mobility of transnational working holidays". Identities. 21 (5): 586–603. doi:10.1080/1070289X.2014.909815. ISSN 1070-289X.
  5. "FILM IN REVIEW; 'Take Care of My Cat'". The New York Times. 2002-10-18. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-23.
  6. Park, Jeong-ho (7 October 2001). "Flashy, Rebellious and Ready for Stardom". Korea Joongang Daily. Retrieved 2012-11-21.
  7. Seong, Tae-won (11 November 2001). "9 Lives? 'Cat' Lovers Want Just 2". Korea Joongang Daily. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 2012-11-21.
  8. Cho, Woo-suk (8 November 2001). "Don't Let This Film Fade to Black". Korea Joongang Daily. Retrieved 2012-11-21.
  9. Chun, Su-jin (4 January 2002). "New life for commercial orphan films". Korea Joongang Daily. Retrieved 2012-11-21.
  10. "Talking Architect". M-LINE Distribution. Archived from the original on 2015-06-02. Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  11. Bradshaw, Peter. "Classics of modern South Korean cinema – ranked!". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  12. "Take Care of My Cat - Awards". Cinemasie. Retrieved 2012-12-04.
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