Commissioned by South Korea's National Human Rights Commission, If You Were Me is an innovative omnibus film project to promote tolerance and human rights and shed light on the hardships disadvantaged people face in Korea. The first and second anthologies in the series, released in 2003 and 2005, invited directors like Park Kwang Su, Park Chan Wook, and Jang Jin to helm short films, and this third installment continues the If You Were Me tradition. Directors Jeong Yun Cheol (Marathon), Kim Hyeon Pil (Wonderful Day), Lee Mi Yeon (L'Abri), Noh Dong Seok (Boys of Tomorrow), Hong Gi Seon (The Road Taken), and Kim Gok and Kim Sun (Capitalist Manifesto: Working Men of All Countries) participated in If You Were Me 3, creating shorts on human rights issues of their choosing, ranging from labor conditions to gay rights to discrimination. Jeong Yun Cheol's "Muhammad, The Hermit King" follows a former Thai diving champion now working illegally at a dangerous chemical factory in Korea. Kim Hyeon Pil's "The Girl Bitten By Mosquito" revolves around an orphan teenage girl struggling to pay the bills and support the household. Noh Dong Seok's "A Tough Life" addresses racial prejudice with the story of a young Korean man who brings home a girlfriend of African descent. Lee Mi Yeon's "GaP" humorously pokes fun at unequal labor roles between men and women in marriages. Hong Gi Seon's "An Ephemeral Life" chronicles the frustrated struggle of a contract worker to get time off to see his hospitalized mother. Kim Gok and Kim Sun's "Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!" reflects on the blooming friendship between two teens, one of whom is constantly harassed and ostracized for being gay. |