There are no twists and turns in the plot, and no climactic dramatic conflicts.
It's the story of an elderly sex worker, with only a lonely life and a lonely death.
When it comes to sex work, the general public instinctively carries a sense of wonder and contempt.
But the fairest thing about life is that no matter what people's social class is, they are all equal in the face of old age, sickness and death.
Director Lee Jae-young, no big name either, rose to fame with a porno movie and has been mediocre since.
This new movie, his best work in recent years, has a Douban rating of 8.0.
In China, old men and women go square dancing when they get lonely. As long as they dance fast enough, loneliness can't catch up with them.
In South Korea, on the other hand, the lonely old men and women are much more miserable because they never do the magical cure-all square dance.
The protagonist of the movie is an old prostitute, still working in her seventies, an old whore with a long career ahead of her.
She is not married, has no children, lives alone in a rented room, makes her living by standing on the street and picking up clients, and suffers from gonorrhea.
When she learns she has gonorrhea, she doesn't even show sadness, but just tells the doctor to cure her as soon as possible so she can keep picking up customers.
Beyond the other grandmothers, she dresses sort of stylishly, wears light makeup and has a curly perm, and keeps her body in good shape.
But it was hard to tell her emotions from her face, she didn't seem to be happy or sad, she always looked like she didn't care.
No one knew what was happening to her.
The only thing everyone knew was that she was skilled. So when she stood in the street with a group of prostitutes, she was always picked by the men.
The old whore worked her ass off all day long to be able to ensure a decent life.
When she was younger she worked in a factory, but now that she's old, there aren't many jobs that will hire her. What else was there to do? She wouldn't pick up bottles and collect rags to make money, so she had to go into prostitution.
One day she met a young Filipino boy who had been abandoned by his parents, and brought him home, feeding him and putting him to bed.
She did this, perhaps out of kindness, but more because she was so lonely.
Even if the other person was a kid who didn't speak Korean, at least the room wasn't dead anymore.
She still went out during the day to pick up customers, leaving the child in the care of a neighbor.
The day started with an old man who couldn't get an erection, who bowed beforehand and said respectfully, "I'll take care of you then.
The scene is hilarious, as Koreans are so polite even when it comes to prostitutes.
The ML scene with the two old men is a bit disgusting, but this is the tragic reality, people have to be old, when the desire is still there, probably this is the way.
The old whore later met a young man on the street, who was so young that he could have been her grandson.
The old whore asked the young man what he was doing, the young man said he was waiting for someone, the old whore said that you want to whore me down, the young man asked how much money, the old whore said that you counted on a cheaper, 30,000, right (equivalent to RMB 176 yuan), the young man said OK.
The business was done so happily.
When they arrived at the hotel, the young man suddenly took out his video camera and said, "Grandma, I'm actually filming a documentary about the old whore, so I hope you can cooperate.
You can imagine the look on the old whore's face at that moment.
She slammed the door with pride, although she was a whore, a whore has the self-respect of a whore.
The old whore's business was a bit dismal these days, first she was scolded by the old man when she was looking for a john in the park, and then she was embarrassed when she accidentally hooked up with her best friend's husband.
But the old whore was undeterred and continued to go out every day looking for work.
On a whim, the old whore learns that one of her regular customers has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke.
This old customer had been very good to her before, and had been very generous with his money.
The kind-hearted old prostitute immediately rushed to the hospital and saw the old patron lying on the hospital bed.
This is a poor old man, the son's family immigrated to the United States, and he does not care about him.
The daughter-in-law also suspects the old prostitute's purpose, thinking she wants to possess the old man's inheritance.
The old man's body is completely immobile, and he thinks he is living with no dignity, so he wants to die.
He begged the old prostitute to help him commit suicide, but she refused at first.
But she bought a bottle of medicine, cried and poured it into the old man, assisting him to commit suicide.
Afterward the old whore walked out of the ward on a cloud, found a john, and had a snog in the field.
The day's harvest was so good that the old whore, with money in her pocket, passed by KFC and bought a chicken to go back and eat with the Filipino kids.
The next few days, the old whore was addicted to learning from Lei Feng, and kept helping old men who were disappointed with their lives to hurry up and die, such as going hiking with them and pushing them off a cliff.
Or get a room with them in a high-class hotel, watch them swallow sleeping pills and lie in bed together waiting to die.
The most shocking thing is that throughout the entire process, the old whore maintains a composure that is difficult for ordinary people to comprehend.
I'm not going to tell you how the old whore ends, and it's not going to be the way you want to see it.
I can only tell you that you will be so scared at the end that you will be unconsciously right, that you will see your parents or grandparents in it.
What's even more chilling is that it's as if you're getting a preview of your own old age, so frustrating, lowly and unbearable.
You feel disappointed, sad, and uncomfortable that this movie presents you forcefully with facts you don't want to know, and that you, in turn, have to accept because you don't have a choice.
You can choose to watch this movie carefully, it may make you break down and cry, it may make you change your mind about sex workers, or it may make you more fearful of the whole getting old thing.
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