Hwaryeohan wichul, AKA Brilliant Outing
DIRECTED BY: Kim Soo-yong
FEATURING: Yoon Jeong-hee, Lee Dae-keun, Lee Yeong-ha
PLOT: A corporate executive travels in search of her dead twin sister’s spirit, and her journey descends into a surreal nightmare.
COMMENTS: “I had read the original script. . . and I expected that once Splendid Outing was made into a film, then surely its ambiguous meaning would take on some clarity—so I watched it with that hope. But again, I still couldn’t clearly grasp what its meaning was supposed to be. In the end, I began to wonder if this film was meant to be some kind of puzzle: ‘Here’s the question, now you try to solve it.’” – Im Yeong, Film: Theory and Practice (March/April, 1978) (essay included in the booklet that comes with the Blu-ray)
Gong Doo-hee embodies the stereotypical woman who “has it all”: president of the appropriately named Royal Group, she presides over multinational business deals with the regal grandeur of a queen. When she isn’t expanding her company’s territory into far-flung parts of the globe, she lectures at a local women’s association, gives television interviews about feminism, and supports a charity for disabled children. But when she goes home to her own kids in her suburban mansion, she sleeps alone and dreams of a mysterious girl performing a ritualistic dance.
A widow, the one thing lacking in Gong’s life is a husband. We gradually learn, through voiceovers, how this troubles her; she’s clearly conflicted on whether or not to sacrifice her position in order to remarry. Whenever Gong is alone and we’re privy to her inner thoughts, a male voice narrates them. Are the men in her life still telling this liberated woman what to do? Or has she adopted a male internal monologue in order to increase her own sense of command and authority? This is but one of many fascinating ambiguities peppering the narrative, each of which reveals the complexity of Gong’s character, to the point of completely destabilizing her identity. When Gong consults a shaman about her repeating dream, she learns she had a twin sister who didn’t survive birth. The girl’s spirit still exists, but Gong needs to revisit the seaside community where she was born in order to communicate with her.
Just the thought of the seashore gives President Gong a headache, but she dutifully drives herself out of Seoul, leaving behind her chauffeur and her pampered existence. Upon arrival, she’s immediately recognized by the villagers who, in a disturbingly strange scene, surround her car and attack her. In the first of many sudden outbursts of violence against her, Gong’s “splendid outing” quickly takes a very dark turn. Mistaken for the runaway wife of a local islander, fishermen promptly catch her in a fishnet. After a beautifully noir-ish sequence where she’s suspended in a shadowy space by blood-red netting, a crew of female divers deliver Gong to her “husband.”
The rest of the film leaves the viewer wondering if this is a case of mistaken identity. Is Gong, the illustrious head of a corporation, now cruelly kidnapped and held hostage by a lawless populace? Or is she the village runaway, who abandoned her abusive husband five years ago to live an alternate life in the city? Or have she and her unborn twin somehow traded places in an act of cosmic reversal?
The plot hints variously at all these possibilities by selectively surfacing the protagonist’s memories. Day-dream (1964), a seriously weird film also about a woman undergoing a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a man with whom she has an ambiguous relationship, apparently influenced Splendid Outing‘s fractured structure. The quick edits recall Franco Arcalli’s work with Giulio Questi, as does the color symbolism of contrasting reds and blues. The soundtrack features a mix of traditional music and then-contemporary electronics, also similar to Day-dream‘s even more disorienting score. The changes in tone heighten the contrast between the past and the present, the rural and urban, but also underline moments of idealized femininity.
Director Kim intended the film as a political allegory, one so skillfully hidden within a modernist narrative that government censors failed to notice it. While knowledge of South Korea’s Yushin Era history adds even more layers to President Gong’s story, that background isn’t necessary to appreciate the film’s sense of style and mystery. Even though the ending provides a concrete answer for Gong’s surreal experiences, a profound uneasiness still lingers even after the outing’s over.
Splendid Outing initially found few screenings outside of its native South Korea. In 2026 Radiance rediscovered it and released it on Blu-ray. Unfortunately, it is not currently available for streaming.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
Splendid Outing
- Following an eerie dream a successful tycoon takes a drive to the seaside but her outing becomes a nightmare as she is kidnapped.
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