Sisters on the Road: Bottom line

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Category: Diary

Boo Ji-young's Sisters on the Road (지금 이대로가 좋아요) is a beautiful melodrama about two half-sisters, Myung-eun (Shin Mina) and Myung-ju (Kong Hyo-jin) who go on a journey to find the younger sibling's long-gone father after the sudden demise of their mother, and by the same token... a bit of themselves and of each other perhaps.

The film is a formidable vehicle for both actresses and in more ways that I can get into here, a great "woman/human stoy". Now, I must admit I've never been too fond of Shin Mina and never thought too much of her acting skills, but she truly shines here, as she has never done before. Somehow, Boo Ji-young found a way to capture a hard-to-put-in-words quality about her, a je-ne-sais-quoi that, well, pretty much blew my mind away. Her sullen, subdued performance as a recently bereft and overly busy businesswoman, is nothing short of amazing. Of course, Kong Hyo-jin does an excellent job as the quirky ne'er-do-well fishmonger sister. Thing is: she always does a brilliant job at doing this, and it feels like "we've seen that from her before". Still, once again, she's good.

True enough, Sisters on the Road feels a bit reminiscent of Kim Tae-yong's Family Ties (that might just be me, though) and works within established melodramatic conventions, but it never feels derivative, or "borrowed". The directing, the strength of the performances and the sheer quality of the emotions conveyed in elevate this into a unique and extremely poignant film experience. 

Some pictures from the PIFF Village Outdoor "meet and greet" last Friday, October 3, 2008: