Between the Knees (1984) Jang-ho Lee

Between the Knees is a 1984 South Korean film about a married woman who suffers from abnormal sexual tendencies which leads to her downfall.

Ja-young is experiencing difficulties navigating the two worlds of her traditional Korean customs and those of the West. Having been scarred by inappropriate contact by an adult as a young girl; she has difficulties distinguishing between right and wrong behavior with young men. Her overbearing mother has driven Ja-young to the point where she can no longer act on her own will and this leads to trouble for her. There is a theme of men fondling and caressing women's knees in the is film which is the focal point of all male sexual advances towards Ja-Young. Things spiral out of control for not only Ja-Young but her family who has their fair share of issues and skeletons in the closet. We tend to see this film as addressing some of the modern issues that affect the lives of young Koreans in the 1980's.

Between the Knees (1984) was made in an era when Koreas commercial film industry was in shambles, and the governments only response was to relax its oppressive censorship measures with regard to sex (and sex only). The film exhibits the low production values that are typical of that cinematic era, but bad boy director Lee Jang-ho (who over a decade later would help to launch PiFan) adds unexpected flourishes to his loosely constructed narrative. As a psychologically realistic depiction of a womans inner struggle with sexual issues, the film leaves something to be desired. But what is expressed more successfully is a sense of a society fraught with complexes, bored and unsure what to do with itself in the stifling atmosphere of the time.