Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 (film)

Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 is a 2019 South Korean drama film starring Jung Yu-mi and Gong Yoo. Based on the million-seller novel of the same name by Cho Nam-Joo, it was released on October 23, 2019. The film is about the story of Kim Ji-young, a woman in her 30s who starts acting strangely, seemingly possessed by her mother and late grandmother after becoming a stay at home mom.

Plot
The film starts of showing Jiyoung (Jung Yu-mi) doing typical housewife activities. She is a stay-at-home mom whose main responsibility is raising her daughter whilst her husband, Daehyun(Gong Yoo) works a day job at an office. Through flashbacks we see that Jiyoung used to work at a marketing firm and was happy while she was being productive and having a career. She also looked up to one of her female seniors, team leader Kim, who has risen to quite a high position in the company whilst being a mother at the same time as there is discrimination towards working mothers in the workplace. On one occasion team leader Kim calls in Jiyoung to praise her for doing well at work.

A few years later, now as a stay-at-home mom, Jiyoung starts to develop feelings of being trapped and unfulfilled. As well as losing a bit of her personal identity, she also suffers from postpartum depression. Due to all these, Jiyoung unknowingly started to develop a mental disorder which consists of her seemingly becoming briefly possessed by the personality of her mother or late grandmother. During these possessions she will start to act and say things that her mother or late grandmother would say, even going as far as to mimic their vocal tones. She usually starts acting like this under situations where she feels a significant amount of stress or underlying unhappiness; for instance, during a visit to her mother-in-law's house and some instances in front of Daehyun. Daehyun starts to notice this and becomes very concerned, he starts to video record instances of Jiyoung's possessions and eventually approaches a psychiatrist and asks her for help, to which the psychiatrist requests to see Jiyoung immediately.

Daehyun subtly encourages Jiyoung to go and see the psychiatrist by giving her the psychiatrist's card. However, to his disappointment, Jiyoung does not see through on the appointment as she realizes how expensive the sessions would be. Still feeling despondent while being a stay-at-home mother, Jiyoung starts to contemplate working again, and considers getting a part-time job working at a bakery. Eventually, Jiyoung decides to get in contact with team leader Kim who has started her own marketing firm. Daehyun realizes how important work is for Jiyoung and how it has the potential to cure her strange malady. He encourages Jiyoung to return to work and says that he will take parental leave for a year and become a stay-at-home father and take over the responsibility of raising their daughter. Jiyoung is happy to return to work. While her strange bouts of possession continue to plague her at home, they do not happen as often, and she is notably in better moods.

When Daehyun's mother learns that Daehyun had taken parental leave in order for Jiyoung to return to the workplace, she is enraged and calls Jiyoung to scold her for hindering Daehyun's career progression. She demands that Jiyoung quits her job and return to being a stay-at-home mother. Daehyun returns his mother's call and reveal the truth of Jiyoung's possession and mental instability. He referenced an instance of it occurring during Jiyoung's visit to her house. Jiyoung's mother eventually witnesses an instance of Jiyoung's possession first-hand and cries at the sight.

One day, Jiyoung finally confronts Daehyun about his insistent urge for her to seek professional counselling as she is still personally unaware of her possession. Daehyun relents and shows Jiyoung video recordings he had taken when Jiyoung undergoes her possessions. Shocked to discover this, Jiyoung agrees to see the psychiatrist. She also quits her job as she believes it is healthier to stay out of work while she recovers.

Jiyoung becomes a stay-at-home mother again, but this time, as per her psychiatrist's encouragement, she begins documenting her emotions in a journal. As she attends more sessions, she also becomes more open about the unhappiness she had experienced due to sexual discrimination in her workplace. As well as the overall discrimination women in the workplace have suffered as they are deemed less competent than their male colleagues, Jiyoung is also mocked by her juniors as they view her as a freeloader scrounging off her husband. Jiyoung shares her feelings and fears of falling behind others in society and how that has affected her.

Emboldened by these psychiatric sessions, Jiyoung becomes more outspoken in public, speaking up for herself when she hears her colleagues talking bad about her behind her back. Eventually, she also starts writing opinion pieces and personal accounts for magazines, and voicing concerns about issues that mothers and women face in South Korea. As Jiyoung becomes happier and healthier, the movie ends with her sitting down at a desk and starting the first line of her self-titled memoir, implying that she has also decided to become an author.

Main

 * Jung Yu-mi as Kim Ji-young, Dae-hyun's wife,former employee of the company and housewife with some unusual symptoms
 * Kim Ha-yeon as 12 year old Ji-young
 * Gong Yoo as Jung Dae-hyun, Ji-young's husband and employees of the company who noticed her abnormality

Supporting

 * Kim Mi-kyung as Kim Mi-sook, Ji-young's mother who open the restaurant
 * Gong Min-jeung as Kim Eun-young, Ji-young's older sister who has a career as a teacher
 * Park Sung-yeon as Kim Eun-sil, Ji-young's father
 * Kim Sung-cheol as Kim Ji-seok, Ji-young's younger brother
 * Lee Bong-ryun as Hye-soo
 * Kim Gook-hee as Soo-bin's mother
 * Lee Eol as Young-soo
 * Cha Mi-kyung as Mrs.Jung, Dae-hyun's mother
 * Son Sung-chan as Mr.Jung, Dae-hyun's father
 * Woo Ji-hyun as Byung-shik
 * Kang Ae-shim as Ji-young's grandmother
 * Yoon Sa-bong as Soo-hyun

Special appearances

 * Ye Soo-jung as Ji-young's grandmother
 * Yeom Hye-ran as Woman with scarf in the past

Development
The film marks actress-turned-director Kim Do-young's debut feature film. While adapting the novel into a film, Kim's "biggest task was to weave the series of independent episodes in the original material into a story with a central narrative."

Casting
On September 12, 2018, Jung Yu-mi was confirmed to play the titular role of the film. On October 17, Gong Yoo was confirmed to play Kim Ji-young's husband, starring for the third time alongside Jung Yu-mi after Silenced (2011) and Train to Busan (2016). After these announcements, the cast received hateful comments from anti-feminists (comments which had already been made when the novel became popular in South Korea), but both actors "said that they didn’t mind the haters as much as many had feared [and] instead, their desire to do the story justice was their main focus."

Filming
Principal photography began on January 21, 2019 in Gwangmyeong. Filming was completed in April.

Release
On September 21, 2019, a character poster featuring Jung Yu-mi was released with the announcement of an October release. On September 26, the official trailer was released. On October 12, it was confirmed that the film would premiere on the 23rd.

The film will be screened at the 2nd Pyeongchang International Peace Film Festival, whose year's theme is "woman," in June 2020 in the Spectrum K section.

Impact
According to a study made by the National Library of Korea, Cho Nam-joo's Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 was the most borrowed novel in South Korea in 2019 for the second consecutive year. The book was mostly borrowed by women in their 40s and the number of loans increased by 43% in October when the film was released.

Box office
In South Korea, the film topped the box office for the week of October 27, 2019. It surpassed 1 million moviegoers in five days, 2 million in eleven days and 3 million in eighteen days. As of November 2020, the film has reached 3,679,099 total admissions grossing $27,168,574 in revenue.

Critical response
According to Pierce Conran of the Korean Film Council, "reviews for the film have been strong while the largely female audience (roughly 68%, according to Naver portal viewer ratings) have also been extremely positive."