Cheaters (2007)

"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife". The interpretation: There are plenty of men coveting their neighbor's wives, so the practice should be strictly banned to maintain the society's declining morality. For many (if not all) human beings, however, making something forbidden only increases its tempting allure. Coveting a neighbor's wife, therefore, is a pithy statement about human desire and limitation, which is also an intriguing theme of "Cheaters" (Nae-yeoja-ui namja-chingu), a small-budget film directed by Park Seong-beom. Seok-ho (Choi Won-yeong) does not covet his neighbor's wife - technically. He's married to a beautiful wife, but he does not want to remain faithful. A self-styled playboy, Seok-ho covets, well, unmarried women. He's maintaining sexual relationship with Ji-yeon (Ko Da-mi), a voluptuous photographer who wants something more than capturing a man's body through her camera lens, and also wants to seduce Chae-young (Kim Poo-reun), a college student who seems to be the most virtuous girl in Korea. The neighbor's-wife-coveting dynamics is also at work here. Ji-yeon keeps romanticizing about Seok-ho, an easy-to-play game that he thinks is obviously in his favor. Given that he has firm control over the photographer, it's a waste of time for Seok-ho to invest more time and energy in their relationship. He obsessively ventures out to conquer more, and the target is the paragon of innocence - Chae-young. No matter how hard he tries to seduce her by offering expensive gifts and usual date tricks, Chae-young doesn't budge at all. Of course, her persistent refusal heats up Seok-ho's inflammable passion further - more evidence suggesting that a human desire, when the fruit is forbidden, gets magnified to an extreme. So far, so plain, in terms of cinematic techniques. Director Park, however, reveals his real intentions gradually from this point on. He shifts the omniscient camera angle to Chae-young, who turns out not to be so chaste. Juxtaposing Seok-ho's images, the director discloses what the girl is really up to at each scene. In most cases, she's sleeping with her boyfriend, a college student who spends more time at a motel than in the library