ACTRESSES (Korea, 2009)
Directed by: E J-Yong
Starring: Kim Ok-Vin, Kim Min-Hee, Choi Ji-Woo, Ko Hyun-Jung, Lee Mi-Suk, Youn Yuh-Jung

If celebrity is the art form of our times, then ACTRESSES is the most dizzying, hall-of-mirrors art project ever unleashed in a movie theater, like something Andy Warhol would have dreamed up if he was the editor of US Weekly. It’s a minute-by-minute record of a Christmas Eve Vogue cover shoot, filmed in real time, featuring six of Korea’s greatest actresses playing...themselves. They are:

Yoon Yuh-Jung – the fabulous old grand dame of Korean cinema. A bitchy, insecure diva who comes across like a Korean Bette Davis.

Lee Mi-Sook – one of the “Troika of the 80’s” she ruled Korean screens in that decade but now age has mellowed her into a seen-it-all trooper.

Choi Ji-Woo – a model turned TV drama actress, Choi is invulnerable because she has an army of Japanese fans who fanatically worship her every move, naming her their "Princess Ji Woo." This international fan base gives her a security and longevity that other actresses can’t compete with.

Ko Hyun-Jung – a TV star who married into the wildly wealthy Samsung family in 1995, she retired from acting for almost ten years. Then she sparked a scandal by getting divorced, talking openly about her plastic surgery and returning to the screen where she became a favorite of arthouse auteur, Hong Sang-Soo.

Kim Min-Hee – a trend-setting clothes-horse, Kim Min-Hee is one of those young stars whose every dress sets a trend, whose every gesture is breathlessly captured by the paparazzi and whose every movement is scrutinized by the tabloids.

Kim Ok-Vin – the youngest of the bunch, she was discovered by director E J-Yong in his DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS and sky-rocketed to fame when she was the only Korean actress willing to take on the overtly sexual starring role in Park Chan Wook’s THIRST.

As the photo shoot breaks down into chaos, these actress send up their own identities, shuffling their many images as quickly as a magician cutting and shuffling a deck at dizzying speed. And at the end, E J-Yong, one of Korea’s great directors of women, shows us that actresses are slightly silly, slightly self-important, somewhat self-obsessed, completely self-sacrificing, stupid and smart in equal measure. It's a movie that speaks the international language of celebrity while looking behind the glittering image of its stars, peeling back all their style to get to the substance.