Critics reviews

The film arguably has too much going on... But it’s still a worthwhile, idiosyncratic film anchored with charismatic resignation by Youn.

Director E’s willingness to explore dark aspects of Korean society and Youn['s] boldness in the lead offer a potent combo in The Bacchus Lady, made all the more impressive for the film’s effortless staging and its approachability.

Young Yuh-jung displays gloriously unfussy and empathetic acting in the title role, where she could have license to go all out but keeps things restrained – and much better for it. The only downside is a poignant but rushed denouement with loose ends tied together too abruptly.

An interesting look at life on the fringes of an affluent city, The Bacchus Lady is [a] sad tale, though one filled with compassion and good humour. E avoids outward melodrama or unwelcome sentimentality, approaching So-young’s ultimate destination with the necessary pathos. The gentle accordion based score lends the film a whimsical air which is only undercut by the abrupt tonal shift and suddenness of the coda finale, but E’s aim is a serious one.

Together, Youn Yuh-jung and E J-yong add a poignancy and subtlety to the story of this particular Bacchus Lady in a movie that in lesser hands could collapse into gratuitous exploitation. Instead, The Bacchus Lady provides an unrelenting critique of how one of the world’s richest country has so dramatically failed its older population.

All too often Korea presents itself within its own cinema as racially homogeneous, a sin it shares with most other East and Southeast Asian film industries. The Bacchus Lady however surrounds itself with racial Others... This Korea is one seeking identity and direction, a preoccupation matched by the film’s decentralized narrative.

Youn’s stellar performance is also down to E J-yong’s delicate direction of a heartrending screenplay, with which he provides an engaging picture of the lonely lives of people considered by society as past their sell-by date through visits So-young pays to bedridden, senile and sick ex-patrons. Given the obsession with beauty and youth in South Korean screen entertainment, The Bacchus Lady is certainly audacious, and a powerful reminder of how lives could or would be lived once the youthful vigor is gone.

Although Youn has played key roles in Korean cinema and TV since 1971 (she debuted in Kim Ki-young’s “Woman of Fire”), this film may still count as one of her lifetime achievements... her performance is reflective and thoughtful, focusing on So-young’s simple goodness, and hinting that beneath her boundless resourcefulness and razor-sharp tongue, she wrestles with self-doubt and fatalism.

Many of the events in the film are brutal, and its themes are bleak as So-Young and her clients accept the fact that they are not quite so young anymore. This makes it a minor revelation that the film still displays tremendous warmth and wit.