October 5, 2023
Kim Yeol (Song Kang-ho) was a film director whose last projects have failed to live up to the excellence of his first film. He had just wrapped up on his latest film entitled "Cobweb," but he was having disturbing nightmares on how it could be done better. Wanting to reshoot the whole ending over in two days, Kim convinced production executive Mido (Jeon Yeo-been), who took over from her aunt Chairman Baek (Jang Young-nam) who was on leave.
All the main actors returned to the set -- playboy lead actor Kang Ho-se (Oh Jung-se) as the wealthy heir, and actresses Lee Min-mi (Im Soo-jung) as his wife, Han Yu-rim (Krystal Jung) as his mistress and Mrs. Oh (Park Jung-soo) as his imperious mother. However, while the shoot was going on, the censors bosses also visited the set that day to check if this film was indeed still shooting despite their disapproval of its controversial topic.
As a movie buff, it was very interesting to watch the behind-the-screen processes by which a film was shot. Since this movie was set in the 1970s, there were no computerized digital effects yet, so every scene and every stunt had to be shot the traditional way. Since Kim shot his incendiary ending as a long continuous shot, we witness this perfectly blocked and executed scene that involved actual fire also shot as a long continuous shot itself.
It was fun to watch the relationship of writer-director Kim with his producers, his staff, and his temperamental actors, especially Ho-se and Yu-rim who were keeping secrets from him. Fresh from his Best Actor award at Cannes last year for "Broker," Song Kang-ho played Kim and his eccentricities so naturally and credibly, even if he had not actually directed a film himself. The supporting actors all played their roles in a lurid, over-the-top style, which was very funny.
Director Kim Jee-woon is well-known for directing the bloody classic "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003), the gruesome action thriller "I Saw the Devil" (2010) and the dignified historical drama "The Age of Shadows" (2016). In "Cobweb," Kim was not averse to going hyperbolic with the dark comedy which made this film-within-a-film very entertaining to watch, with all its purposefully absurd exaggerations that the cast all pulled off with gusto. 8/10
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