As someone who hasn’t watched a lot of South Korean cinema, Project Y has made it abundantly clear that I need to step up my game. Because this is how you elevate women in cinema without trapping them in stereotypes that are harmful, regressive, and don’t really tell the nuanced perspectives of our lives.
At the center of Project Y are Han So-hee as Mi-seon and Jeon Jong-seo as Do-gyeong. They are two sisters who aren’t related by blood. But none of that matters because when it comes down to it, no one has their back more than the other. They live together, basically work together, and protect each other no matter what. They are the beating heart of this movie.
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Everything becomes a mess when they get swindled out of some money and find themselves smackdab in the middle of a heist with a bunch of dangerous people. And even though they consistently face challenges, sometimes with each other, they come together over and over again. And it’s really nice to see two young women fight so fiercely for each other and not let anything come in between them, be it their mother or a man.
Let’s talk about the men of Project Y. They don’t play a prominent role in this film. And that’s really refreshing to see because oftentimes stories about women are still centered on men. It’s about what women can do for men or how men’s lives are changed by the women in their lives. That doesn’t happen in Project Y.
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Yes, you might have one man as a villain or another man as a mediocre inconvenience. But the heroes of this movie are women. The strong enforcers who are breaking bones and getting things done are women. And the one that breaks hearts and says some of the most vile things to our two leads is a woman. Women are the focus of Project Y down to its very bones.
If I had any complaint about Project Y it’s that I wish it had a little bit more action. We’ve seen Han So-hee in My Name and Jun Jong-seo in Ballerina. We know they know how to throw it down. And when you combine that with the trailer we got and the poster, I was expecting a little bit more action. But the movie did not skimp out on the violence.
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That was definitely bloody, and I had to cover my face plenty of times to just make it through the movie.I also wish that we got to see a little bit more emotional moments between the two female leads. They had some things happen to them in Project Y that left their film feeling incomplete. But that could be transformed into a positive because that’s an easy avenue for a sequel. And this movie definitely deserves a sequel that explores what happens after the heist, after the pain, and after the drama. The two leads have more than enough chemistry we’d love to see explored.
Project Y screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
