On Sunday I did something I don’t do very often (maybe basically almost never): I watched a Korean movie all the way through, without subtitles.
I find it frustrating to watch without subtitles, because my Korean just isn’t that good. But when something comes on the TV, there are no subtitles. More often than not, I will just channel surf away from a Korean movie on broadcast TV, but for some reason something compelled to sit and watch this movie.
It’s a critically acclaimed Korean gangster movie from a few years ago, called 신세계 (New World).
Here’s the thing: the whole time I watched it, I more or less understood the basics of the plot. And the excellent acting and character development were somehow apparent despite my lack of ability to pick up on many details.
I didn’t even know the title as I watched it. I couldn’t figure it out, and I’d missed the beginning. Sometimes the broadcasters put little graphics showing what you’re watching in the upper left or upper right of the screen, but I couldn’t see a title in this broadcast of this movie.
How did I find out the movie’s name? I related the plot of it to a coworker, the next day, and they told me.
This is a kind of linguistic milestone, although I’m not sure how it could be characterized: watch a movie in Korean, tell the plot to a third person, and have them recognize the plot and fill in the details for you. Of course, this conversation was largely in English, but at least I was getting the plot from the movie, somewhat.
Anyway, I would perhaps like to re-watch the movie with subtitles. Or maybe after some indeterminate amount of time, that is approaching infinity, when my Korean is up to the task.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]