A powerful, independent Korean businesswoman’s world is upended when she’s kidnapped to act as the wife of a brutal fisherman on a secluded island in Kim Soo-yong’s 1978 Spendid Outing in a spiffy new release from Radiance Films.
The Film
Profilic South Korean director Kim Soo-yong’s 1978 film Splendid Outing is an odd slice of slightly surreal feminist thriller, with more than a dash of horror. No matter what genre one would place it in, it’s a fine film, with a hell of a great performance by Yun Jeong-hie and a lot to say. Gong Do-hee is a powerful woman in 70s Seoul. The head of a massive corporation, she knows what she wants and will get it. Outspoken in work and politics, she speaks as part of a women’s business conversation about how women are threatened at work. She is a force to be reckoned with. But she has to deal with large amounts of misogyny from the men she works with; it’s prevalent across culture and time. After strange dreams, she takes to the shore, only to find herself kidnapped and treated as a missing wife to a brutal fisherman on a secluded island. Her identity is gone, with no one in her new world willing to help her or even recognize that she is not the person they all think she is. And even if she was, they ignore her cries and wishes, pushing away her wants for the forced domesticity. It’s an anxiety-drenched film. A spendid outing indeed (/s just in case…)
It’s a film that twists and turns of gender roles, dealing with and fighting against them. Splendid Outing is an extreme way to talk about the constraints put upon women. Gong deals with one harrowing intuition; to get a little 3rd act – so skip ahead if you don’t want to know- after leaving the island, she’s thought to be dead but pretty much erased from society. Her full self and place in the world have been subjugated and buried by her life on the island, locked into the family situation she doesn’t want. One can see how metaphor and direct statement can exemplify the terrible situations.
Yung Jeong-hie gives a fantastic, gripping performance. She’s a commanding presence, and one of a set of three top of the pops actresses in Korea at the time, as I learned in the special features. I can see why she was grasped by the public; she’s phenomenal. Like the director, she’s also prolific with over 300 (!) credits.
I love the way Kim Soo-yong shoots. There’s a voyeuristic use of the camera, representing the always being watched and scrutinized of the women in this (and our) world. There are great throughlines of twinning and duality (I was glad the commentary spoke to this, too), flashbacks and flashforwards, montage use. Fantastic use of the medium of film to tell Chairwoman Gong’s story, adding a layer of surreal touches of Lynch and Bunuel. She’s living a nightmare, as her power and structure are upended; at the start, she inverts the typical by being on top in a male culture, then is torn down, and how to rebuild?
Splendid Outing is a complicated, complex film about the control of domesticity. Heavy drama, infuriating in how women are treated, and a horrific nightmare of a situation, told with incredible skill; in direction from Kim Soo-yong and a terrific lead in Yun Jeong-hie.
The Package
Radiance Films releases Spending Outing via a limited edition Blu-Ray. The hard case for the single disc has a reversible sleeve with the original artwork and new art from Time Tomorrow. Synopsis and features are presented in Radiance’s normal OBI strip, leaving more room for the art. It contains a booklet with new writings by Chung Chong-hwa and Pierce Conran, and older writings by director Kim Soo-Young. It is limited to 2500 copies, and is coded to regions A, B, and C.
The Presentation
Splendid Outing is presented with a new 4k scan from the Korean Film Archive. It looks incredible, such fine detail and vivid color. It’s clean and clear and a beauty to look at.
Audio is uncompressed mono PCM Korean, with new subtitles available in English.
The Features
All features are new to this release
Audio Commentary by Ariel Schudson
A fully engaging talk, wide-ranging in the world of the film, Korea, and Korean cinema, and heavily featuring the themes of the film. Schudson is a little awkward to start, with odd breaks to try to time to specific events, but she opens up and flows better as she gets into the groove. In English.
Interview with Lee Chang-dong
Lee lavishes love on lead actress Yoon Jeon-Hee, who was in Lee’s film 2010 Poetry, while discussing the breadth of her wide career. Apparently, she was a massive star, one of the biggest women actors of the 70s. She passed away in 2023. Fasciating. In Korean with English subtitles. (15m)
Interview with assistant director Chung Ji-young
Ji-young talks of his long collaboration with director Kim Soo-Yong (who died in 2023). A great discussion of the pair’s collaborations, the Korean film world they were a part of, and how it shifted and altered over time, and how often Kim Soo-Yong was the one leading the changes. In Korean with English subtitles. (21m)
Stranded by Not Afraid: The Island Women of Classic Korean Cinema
Pierce Concan presents a video essay on a strangely specific Korean sub-genre. Apparently, there was a whole series of films featuring women stuck on islands. Conran looks at the whys of Korean culture that would lead to such a push, especially in how widows (Gong in Spendid Outing is one) are treated. As a lover of folk horror, I was glad to see an inclusion of Io Island, which I watched recently. In English with no subtitles. (15m)
Final Thoughts
Splendid Outing is, indeed, a splendid outing. Harrowing and anger-inducing in the surreal and fascinating story of a woman dealing with misogyny in culture and directly, it has a lot to say and does so very well. Radiance puts together a nice package with a beautiful transfer, an interesting commentary, and just under an hour of features that work together to help give a context to those, like me, who might not be as aware of everything surrounding the film.