The Lost Choices: She's Not Having It

Ji Eun (Shin Hyon-bin) has one damned ugly life. An orphaned young woman with only one friend (Yim Seo-joo) at the fabric factory where they're bored shitless, she's unable to find a better job as a graphic artist despite her talents because of a severe speech impediment. After witnessing her gal pal (who's also her next-door neighbor) get physically and mentally abused at home and at work almost daily, Ji Eun gets gang raped. Then a shady cop is dismissive of her account despite a fistful of hair she's ripped from the head of one of her attacker. Then one of her rapists returns to rape her again. Who wouldn't want be consumed by anger? Who wouldn't want revenge?

But Ahn Yong-hoon's grimly satisfying The Lost Choices isn't content with reveling in serial killings by a survivor vigilante. This effective drama also does an excellent job at reflecting the patriarchal biases and attitudes that inform this most misogynist of crimes. On the criminal side, the perps are not only oblivious of the harm they've inflicted but also don't remember the face of their victim... and repeatedly cast themselves as victims when the tables take a deadly turn. On the law side, the only one sympathetic to Ji Eun is the sole female cop (Yoon So-yi), who knows a thing or two about the PTSD that accompanies sexual assault. What especially engrossed me about The Lost Choices was how the script charts both the heroine's spree and the lady copy's consciousness expanding. The ending is not what you'd expect!