[HanCinema's Film Review] "Double Exposure"

Myeong-seon (played by No Ji-hoon) is a professional photographer. While working with Ah-ran (played by Lee Yu-jung), Myeong-seon learns that she has a boyfriend, Gi-joon (played by Kim Sung-kyung-I), and ends up employing him as a model. In the somewhat fragmented narrative of "Double Exposure" the opening scene was actually Myeong-seon having a wet dream about Gi-joon, despite the fact that they hadn't met each other yet.

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On one end "Double Exposure" is a questionable title in this day and age. It's been used often enough search engines might have trouble understanding that anyone wanting information about this film are interested in this specific boys' love title, rather than the noirs that title more intuitively evokes. Oddly enough, "Double Exposure" is a bit of a noir in and of itself, and the metaphor about the literal photographic mechanism of double exposure is also relevant.

I should note that in terms of raw screentime (no pun intended), there's a lot of on-screen sex in this movie- certainly more than I can recall ever having seen in any other boys' love title in recent memory with a pretense of having a story instead of just being pure pornography. There's also more sex, and certainly more explicit sex, in "Double Exposure" than I noticed when I reviewed "The Inside Story" a couple weeks ago. That was a heterosexual version of trying to draw up just barely enough of a story to frame around the more erotic material.

But those pretenses of a story in "Double Exposure" are more distinctive than they have any right to be. Myeong-seon has fairly subdued, fairly professional conversations with Ah-ran with minimal camerawork. They're disaffected and flat, and quite deliberately so. When Myeong-seon has his first conversation with Gi-joon, however, Gi-joon is nervous throughout, boyish even, especially when contrasted with the borderline middle-aged maturity of Ah-ran, who kisses her boyfriend in bed only to go right back to her book.

The overall plot of this movie, which largely consists of Myeong-seon seducing Ah-ran's boyfriend away from her, seem especially odd given that boys' love stories are generally aimed at women. It's hard to read what exactly the fantasy is in this context. Maybe it's that Gi-joon's sexual immaturity is almost comfortingly not a failure of Ah-ran's attractiveness? There could also be an element in there of Ah-ran liking Gi-joon enough that she doesn't want to hurt his feelings, and he always acts so fragile it's a bit of a wonder that Myeong-seon doesn't break him.

Myeong-seon isn't really a very mean or rough protagonist, but it's a little hard to ignore that the story of "Double Exposure" is quite literally about him sexually harassing Gi-joon out of heterosexuality. Although really, discussing the noirish, or wish fulfillment, or ethical dimensions of "Double Exposure" feels a bit silly. The actual purpose of the movie is to provide the viewer with a lot of titillating yet emotionally warm gay sex scenes. And that, it definitely has.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Double Exposure" is directed by Kim Min-wook-I, and features No Ji-hoon, Kim Sung-kyung-I, Lee Yu-jung, Roh Shin. Release date in Korea: 2024/06/07.