The Other Aligning Love Story in ‘Decision to Leave’

Ga-in (Jeong Ha-dam) and Seo-rae (Tang Wei) share commonalities. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI.  

This second Decision to Leave essay reflects on San-O and Ga-in, the devastating story within a story that metaphorically sets up the imperative dynamics between the main protagonists Hae-joon and Seo-rae.

We are introduced to San-O via Hae-joon’s unsolved cases wall, a wall of disturbing crime scene photos hidden behind a blue-green curtain. Before Seo-rae’s involvement with him, the Jilgok District murder in Busan has been Hae-joon’s top priority. The pictures of this particular crime focuses on a victim’s skull found on the side of a mountain— cause of death being barbarically bludgeoned by a hatchet. Ki Di-soo’s discovered body is another death caused by severe head injuries and located beneath a mountain. Beom and Di-soo’s deaths employ opposing revenge tactics— one coldly displaying intent and the other cleverly suggesting suicide. Yet, the reasons for both of these demises are on the accounts of them being extremely cruel to women. Ga-in’s mistreatment is San-O’s excuse for killing Beom. Di-soo’s physical and emotional abuse is Seo-rae’s.

Seo-rae poses a question on if an outside love can penetrate the concrete foundation of an existing marriage— connecting the poetic coincidence between her and San-O. They’re both in love with married people. However, San-O knew Ga-in prior. Seo-rae is experiencing love for the first time with Hae-joon. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI.

Like Seo-rae, San-O (Jeong Min Park) fits the anti-hero archetype— making rash decisions that have horrendous consequences all for the good of another person. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI.

Ga-in, an abuse survivor and accessory-after-the-fact of San-O’s crime, follows the men behind, not realizing what San-O’s outcome will be. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI. 

Hae-joon— who often sees criminals as criminals— learns that he and San-O share common ground despite acting on opposite sides of the law. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI.

Furthermore, San-O and Seo-rae are individuals who take matters into their own hands. They could not report to the police mainly due to immoral pasts—San-O, a former prisoner having no desire to return behind bars and Seo-rae, wanted in her native China for the pacifying murder of her mother. How could San-O ask Hae-joon about Beom’s assaulting Ga-in without being judged for his previous crimes? Hae-joon never doubts that San-O is guilty, keen on him as the murderer from the start. It is the reason for Beom’s murder that Hae-joon is trying to decipher. If Hae-joon were as attentive to detail as San-woo— Hae-joon’s Busan partner blatantly criticizing Hae-joon for being sexist—there are doubts that he would be so quick as to providing Seo-rae true emotional support. In the second half of the film, a hardened Hae-joon treats Seo-rae as he likely would have in the first part if his tender feelings hadn’t distracted him from his task, going as far as arresting her, placing her in jail, and administering a polygraph test. 

“Why do women sleep with such trash?”

During his emblematic rooftop confrontation with Hae-joon, San-O brings up an age old thought that predates time— blaming women for staying in terrible relationships. The patriarchal system has stretched across the world, across history. For centuries, women have been treated as men’s property, often left incredibly helpless. Women must be kept in line with abuses ranging from emotional, psychological, sexual, physical, and financial. In many scenarios, breaking free from trapped unions are imprisonment sentences is simply not an option. Thus, it is easy to fault the vulnerable, to pin the man’s inflicting cruelty onto the victims themselves, but rarely inquiries into why men are inflicting the cruelty. Ga-in, a mere beauty shop owner living faraway, needs support and care. Like Seo-rae, Ga-in found herself in an inescapable predicament with Beom. Seo-rae could not leave Di-soo because of the power he wielded over her. While San-O eventually rescues Ga-in and hides away with her, Seo-rae— a friendless immigrant— has no choice but to place her survival above all else. 

After they brilliantly solve the Jilgok case together using hints of their own love story, Seo-rae drops by the utterly depressed Hae-joon’s home. Together, they burn the Jilgok and Huso Mountain crime scene photos. DP: KIM Yi-jong/MUBI.

Seo-rae aides in Hae-joon’s sleeplessness, a subtle calm before the approaching storm of her own crimes coming to light. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI.

“Actually I like a woman too. But her husband beats her. I want to kill that bastard so much it hurts!”

Candidly pretending Di-soo remains alive, Hae-joon speaks to San-O about Seo-rae in present tense; his words depicting both a purposeful distraction and a heartfelt confession. Hae-joon is falling for Seo-rae and hates not having had the power to protect her from possessive Di-soo. This romantic declaration revealed to a murderer’s ears showcases the chink in Hae-joon’s armor— the new Achilles heel he could not have anticipated. Hae-joon too is capable of the very evil acts that a guiltless San-O has done in the name of love. If Hae-joon prevented Seo-rae’s silent suffering prior— meaning breaking the oath of the badge and perhaps later further sabotaging his mediocre marriage— his honor would still be destined to shatter. From their first meeting, an undeniable connection between them started to form.  

The two intertwined stories of San-O and Ga-in and Hae-joon and Sri-rae dissect the nooks and crannies of moralistic plot, exploring beyond good and evil counterparts of the human psyche. The viewer is left imagining fairy tale scenarios for these unfortunate characters. What would have happened if San-O had not ever been a prisoner? Would he and Ga-in have stayed together living in perfect bliss? Or is it in his inherent nature to conduct on the wrong side? Is it possible that Hae-joon could believe Seo-rae’s battered wife account and put the shady immigration officer Di-soo away for his many misdeeds? Would Hae-joon be able to leave his wife and child behind for happiness with Seo-rae— a woman who mercy killed her own mother merely because it was asked? 

Seo-rae knows that her time with Hae-joon filters through an invisible hourglass. She continuously initiates physical contact during the second murder investigation— embracing him, giving up evidence, kissing his lips, and stroking his face and hands. Deep down, Hae-joon must know it too. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI. 

The glaring difference between Ga-in and Hae-joon’s similar situations is that Ga-in willingly stays with San-O. She accepts his aggressive overprotective nature. She is okay with him killing her husband. San-O probably told Ga-in that he did it for her. Yet, San-O also admits to feeling that Ga-in is responsible for his destructive behavior. However, prideful policeman Hae-joon is not the kind of person who could live with Seo-rae’s crimes, especially not after their stolen moments together. Hae-joon’s gentle benevolence and Seo-rae’s nurturing spirit would have been a blissful pairing. Instead of looking within, Hae-joon holds Seo-rae liable in his own failures to do his job properly. Yes, Seo-rae not only lied, she had Hae-joon destroying evidence. At the same time, as a married officer of the law, he should have listened to San-woo. Now with their forbidden love story marred by Seo-rae’s betrayal, Hae-joon— not as forgiving as Ga-in— would always be doubting whether Seo-rae truly cared about him, if she played a seductive ploy to get out of facing capital punishment. Thus, Hae-joon no longer trusts Seo-rae, but she trusts him, seemingly implicating herself as both an apology and cryptic profession of love. 

San-O’s death includes scissors and a nasty plunge right in front of Ga-in and Hae-joon. DP: KIM Ji-yong/DP. 

Meanwhile, Seo-rae's choice expresses a woman patiently waiting to die alone. Her note lies in the last phone call with Hae-joon, echoing his words in her native Mandarin, words she knew he would not understand yet. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI.

Decision to Leave’s parallels of Ga-in and San-O and Hae-joon and Seo-rae tells such a sorrowful trajectory. San-O makes the choice to die rather than face incarceration/death penalty. His suicide is as bloodily violent as his crime. Also, his jumping off the rooftop mirrors Seo-rae’s attempted framing of Di-soo’s mountain fall. Seo-rae—whose fate was sealed the moment she fled China—takes Hae-joon’s words to literal creation. She crafts a quieter, moving end within the earth itself. While Ga-in is able to cling to San-O’s broken body and see that he is lost to her, Hae-joon will be forever tormented by the memories of the mysterious Seo-rae, crying piteously as he unknowingly steps over her sand/sea grave. 

A distraught Ga-in cradling her dead lover San-O whilst looking up at the only other witness to his suicide. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI. 

Hae-joon in complete despair searching for Seo-rae whose disappearance bears no witnesses, no clues. She secretly ends her life in Korea just as she entered it— by sea. DP: KIM Ji-yong/MUBI. 

There lies a gut wrenching depression in bearing witness to the end of a life. Yet, an even greater horror exists in never again seeing the someone you could not resist holding briefly in your heart.