MovieChat Forums > Haemoo (2014) Discussion > Questions I have about this movie

Questions I have about this movie

posted 8 years ago by alexi-s-s-s6
2 replies | jump to latest

1. Why did she leave?

This topic has already been discussed here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3303728/board/thread/244621594 , and my theory is the same as the answer given by user Blair_The_Critic:

"The way I saw it, she mentioned she was looking for her 'o-pah' in Seoul. This literally means elder brother in Korean... but it's also an affectionate name given to a boyfriend."

However, as mentioned by Blair himself, she explicitly said she is looking for her real brother:

"- What's your relation to this brother?
- You don't know what a brother is?
- 'Course I know. Your real brother?
- Yes.
- Oh! It's just that in Korea, girls have many kinds of brothers."

So the question remains: why did she leave? Or maybe, she just lied to him so that she could stay in the engine room?

2. There's a scene where she turns a lever in the engine room, and smoke comes out. Then, later, everyone in the storage tank suffocates due to a "gas leak". Could it be that she's the one responsible for all those people's deaths?! (I'm liking this girl less and less!)

3. In the end scene, could be that one of the children, the eldest, belongs to the sailor? She seems to like ramen just as much as him! And the age of 5-6 seems to fit her. Would the director go out of his way like that to indicate that she's eating ramen (by having the mother ask for hot pepper for the ramen) if she wasn't really his daughter?

The other kid, the youngest, could belong to the new guy, her "eldest brother" or someone else entirely.

4. Did anyone notice that things started going to *beep* after the crazy-hair sailor was caught by the balding sailor having sex in the engine room, who immediately slapped him around, saying that it's bad luck to do that kind of thing on a ship?

"Pull it out, you little *beep* ... Told you not to do it on the boat! It's bad luck!"

Not that the director wanted to indicate that that's the real reason these things happened, but it could serve as an added layer of symbolism (directors like to do that kind of thing).

Although I don't have the answers to these questions, just formulating them seems to clarify the movie a bit.

Add more questions, if you have any, on this thread!

[–] jamasian_man 8 years ago

1. I figured she was just using him to survive. At first she was unsure of his intentions, because he kept whisking her away to the engine room away from the others, and she thought he would be like Kyung-Kool, trying to give favours to get laid.

Once she finds out he's a gentleman, she eases up. Once she finds out the others died, it could have been a movie of desperation, them having sex immediately after witnessing a murder. They had sex because of the heightened terror, or because she wanted to enthrall him to save her own life and give him stakes to save her.

Once they reached land, she wasn't about to stick around for the Coast Guard or police. He has no job because the boat capsized, he didn't have the money maybe, or maybe she snagged it off of him. (they could have inferred that). But she did bind his wound with a scarf or bandanna or handkerchief so she wasn't completely heartless.

2. I don't think this is the case. If it were, it'd be poor storytelling to not show the ramifications. They didn't have the engineer mention anything in the engine room being defective would lead to the fish room, or her guilt of it. Also, he said it was a freon leak, meaning the refrigeration units down below gave out, the thing she touched had to do with steam so I doubt this was the intention.

3. The director leaves it open to interpretation. There was no condom scene earlier when they had sex, and having a kid might lead to getting citizenship perhaps, she could lie and say the father was Korean and died or something. Also, the director or writer made sure to include the construction workers talking about the above ground subway, and the food areas around that, so we are to infer that the woman may be her, and the kid might be his. (but then what about the second kid?) It could just be some random woman with her two kids while Dad's at work taking her kids to eat. Or the kid is his but the second one is not.

4. There is a slow build up, but the whole bad luck and women thing has been around for ages. There is even a reference in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 I believe. Women on ships were considered bad luck, not sure why.

[–] fipper_1 8 years ago

Women on ships were considered bad luck because women were a distraction for the men. If the men lose focus they might cause a slip up that can have detrimental effects on a boat.