Shin Sang-ok's not-quite-noir-but-close It's Not Her Sin is a movie that parcels out its info in very small packages since neither husband Sang-ho (No Neung-kyeol) nor wife Seong-hui (Ju Jeung-nyeo) nor adopted sister Yeong-suk (Choi Eun-hie, the Queen of Sighs) nor her boyfriend Myeong-chil is initially willing to talk about why a married mother might pull a gun on her recently engaged best friend on a staircase inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This reluctance to speak also leaves the prosecutor the difficult tasks of figuring out why someone was trying to pawn off a wedding gift to raise one million won in quick cash and how a couple with no issues could possibly only have one child after eight years of marriage. To him that's strange! So if he doesn't get some answers fast, something terrible could happen. Not jail time exactly but a fate much, much worse... namely, divorce!
Which leads to the extended flashback that in turn leads to its own series of gnarly questions like... What's the sin referenced in the film's title? Is it pre-marital sex with a sleazy ladies' man (Jeon Taek-yi) or a coerced abortion with an unlicensed physician? Is it smuggling goods out of Japan or having a baby boy out of wedlock? Is it chain-smoking or bribery? Adultery? Lying? I personally think it's the sin of omission that haunts these characters. Speak up, people, and you may taste the delicious freedom that comes with living honestly.
Some particularly memorable moments outside the flashy open: adopted toddler Sik shoots at his birth mother with a toy machine gun then refuses her loving embrace; a slick-haired buyer of goods says, "Money is like a woman. It gives birth to more"; two women embrace after one shoots the other because girls gotta stick by each other!
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