Do men and women think equally in terms of sexual politics?

According to talented director, Hong, Sang-Soo's movie, The Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, "No, but..."

This black and white film is divided into five parts. Each part features split points of view that prove how the battle of the sexes goes beyond politics and into the abstract, and explores the numerous ways in which they crash. The first and third tracking the love affairs of Jae-Hoon (Jong, Bo-Seok) who is a rich, young socialite and the second and fourth sections as seen by Soo-Jong (Lee, Eun-Joo) who is a writer. The last brings the two narratives together.

Jae-Hoon arrives at his hotel room and awaits a phone call from Soo-Jong. When she calls, she hesitates but he persuades her to come. The story moves back to when he and she first met in front of his art gallery. She is an assistant to producer Young-Soo, who studied with Jae-Hoon at art school. Young-Soo takes Soo-Jong to Jae-Hoon's gallery and the three have lunch together. A couple of days pass. Jae-Hoon runs into Soo-Jong at Kyungbok Palace, across the street from his gallery. She had somehow found a pair of gloves that he had left on a bench in the Palace park. That evening, all three get drunk after Jae-Hoon??s decision to financial support Young-Soo. After Young-Soo leaves, Jae-Hoon tries to steal a kiss from Soo-Jong but she resists. He tries to convince her to start a serious relationship but she refuse.

In Jae Hoon's point of view, it's clear he idealizes Soo-Jong to satisfy his romantic taste, and then wolfishly pursues gratification. In Soo-Jong, she's a not-so-naive girl who upgrades lovers to a romantic, gentle savior, a prince charming. Each character's memory of his or her first meeting is the proof of this. When they kiss at first, she remembers that she cried feeling something empty, but Jae-Hoon remembers that she feels as if his kiss technique was good. And when they meet in front of an art gallery, Jae-Hoon remembers his beauty and aloofness. She, however, remembers his personal chauffeur who even Jae-Hoon never remembers.

The director tries to deconstruct the idea of ??fact,?? which could be flexible in terms of people's point of view. With his non-definite narrative form, he argues not that people are incapable of remembering facts that they believe accurately, but that there??s no such thing as fixed truth to remember. Fact is what one sees and decides to store in one??s memory.

Hong has a reputation for well-intentioned pokes in plain stories about ordinary people, his choice of black and white film supports that reputation. This film seems to be soft compared with his other films. His debut film, The Day the Pig Fell Into a Well (1996) and The Power of Kangwon Province (1998) have been raved about as the creepiest, eeriest, roughest but best films.

This plain, colorless, soft, humorous work, however, is likely to keep him at the top of his field. However, as for the English title, The Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, which has a similar title as an oil painting by French artist Marcel Dunchamp, sounds less interesting than the original Korean title, 'Oh! Su-Jong.' In the fifth episode where Su-Jong and Jae-Hoon narrate together, the audience might understand why original the Korean title is more interesting than the English title.