Kim Tam-mi and Youn Yuh-jung star in the 1995 film 'An Eperience To Die For.'
Film fans who want to explore more works by cinematic trailblazer Kim Ki-young will soon have the opportunity to see one of his most controversial films: An Experience to Die For aka Be a Wicked Woman. The rarely screened film has recently been remastered and the 2K version will be screened in New York and available online.
Some of Korea’s most famous filmmakers—Park Chan-wook, Kim Ki-duk and Bong Joon-ho—all credit Kim Ki-young’s influence. Kim, who directed films between the 1950s and 90s, was not shy about creating stylized quirky cinema in an atmosphere of state censorship. His films mix elements of melodrama, horror and film noir. Kim’s first popular hit, the 1960’s film The Housemaid is considered by many critics to be one of the best Korean films of all time. The domestic thriller explores a family's destruction after a sexually predatory femme fatale enters the household.
An Experience to Die For was the filmmaker’s final creation. Although he finished the film in 1990 it wasn’t seen by audiences until after the director’s death in 1998, when it was shown during the Busan International Film Festival. It’s the last of Kim’s three collaborations with Youn Yuh-jung, winner of an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 2020 film Minari. She also appeared in Kim’s films Woman of Fire (1971) and Insect Woman (1972).
'An Experience To Die For' was finished in 1990 but not screened until 1998.
In An Experience to Die For, Youn’s character meets another woman, played by Kim Tam-mi. They’ve both been mistreated by their husbands and discuss how much they want to murder them. Why not kill each other’s husband, they say. Since they are strangers, no one will suspect them. It will be the perfect crime. So, begins the venomous and unhinged revenge journey these women take while seeking justice in their own twisted way.
The premise almost parallels Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 thriller Strangers on A Train, in which two men meet on a train and discuss killing each other’s wives. Only one of them is really serious. That’s also the case in An Experience To Die For. While both women have been treated badly, one of them is more predatory, more capable of cruelly taking her revenge.
The film will screen at New York City’s Metrograph on May 17 and 19. It will be available via Metrograph at Home (Metrograph’s VOD platform) for one month from May 17. Metrograph NYC, launched in 2016, is an independent movie theater that focuses on premieres, rare archival screenings (35mm and digital), and special Q&As, for a spectrum of audiences, filmmakers, and communities. Metrograph At Home launched in July 2020, brings films to a nationwide audience. The film is distributed by Echelon Studios.
