Content Advisory: Suicide
An office drone sublets his bathroom to an odd and eccentric couple in The Tenants. Shin Dong (Kim Dae Geon) lives a soulless existence in a near-future Seoul ravaged by pollution and overpopulation. When Shin is threatened with eviction, he decides the use the Wolwolse system, which allows tenants to sublet a portion of their apartment. Shin Dong’s ad is soon answered by a very odd man (Heo Dong-Won) and his new wife (Park So Hyun), who decide to live in the bathroom. However, it’s not long before the new tenants’ strange behaviours become nightmarish.
The Tenants Synopsis
The Tenants is a very noirish surreal horror film written and directed by Yoon Eun-kyoung. The film is set in the black-and-white dystopian Seoul of the near future, where the population dreams of moving to the new utopian city Sphere 2. Shin Dong works in the offices of the Happy Meat corporation, where he dreams of being chosen for a hotly contested new promotion. To avoid eviction, Shin Dong sublets his bathroom to an eccentric couple and he is subsequently shocked to learn that they in turn used the Cheonjangse system to sublet the apartment’s ceiling space, with ceiling tenants being notoriously the scum of society.
My Thoughts on The Tenants
While The Tenants has elements of horror and science fiction, the film is best described as a dystopian drama with elements of film noir. Probably the most striking visual of the film is Heo Dong-Won as the unnamed fedora-wearing tenant, who frequently has conversations with Shin Dong on a park bench. The Tenants is ultimately a metaphor for Korea’s social inequality problems, though the film could be more clear about what genre of film it is aiming for.
Trailer for The Tenants – Fantasia 2024
