Queen of the Morning Calm

Directed by Gloria Kim, Queen of the Morning Calm follows Tina Jung’s Deborah as she struggles to overcome a whole host of obstacles while raising her young daughter (Eponine Lee’s Mona). It’s well-worn territory that’s employed to earnest yet progressively underwhelming effect by Kim, as the filmmaker, working from her own screenplay, delivers a deliberately-paced drama that does, at the outset, fare better than one might’ve anticipated – with the picture benefiting substantially from sporadically stylish visuals and a uniformly strong assortment of performances. (There’s little doubt, in terms of the latter, that Jung’s often captivating turn as the sympathetic protagonist remains a consistent bright spot within the proceedings.) It’s clear, then, that Queen of the Morning Calm‘s downfall is due mostly to a meandering second half that slowly-but-surely wears out its welcome, as the movie’s exceedingly (and excessively) familiar atmosphere does, beyond a certain point, negate the proliferation of positive attributes proffered by Kim (and it doesn’t help, either, that the film suffers from an increasingly sluggish execution that only highlights its deficiencies). The final result is an obviously well-intentioned piece of work that isn’t quite able to become the searing drama Kim has intended, although, by that same token, the degree of promise contained within Queen of the Morning Calm admittedly bodes well for her next endeavor.

** out of ****