Take Care of My Cat

Take Care of My Cat
Theatrical poster

Hangul	고양이를 부탁해
Revised Romanization	Goyangireul Butakhae
McCune–Reischauer	Koyangirŭl Put‘akhae
Directed by	Jeong Jae-eun
Produced by	Oh Ki-min
Written by	Jeong Jae-eun
Starring	Bae Doona Lee Yo-won Ok Ji-young
Music by	Park Gi-hyeon Kim Jun-seok Jo Seong-woo Kim Sang-hyeon
Cinematography	Choi Young-hwan
Edited by	Lee Hyun-mi
Distributed by	Cinema Service
Release dates	October 12, 2001 (2001-10-12)
Running time	112 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Box office	US$9,866^[1]

Take Care of My Cat (Hangul: 고양이를 부탁해; RR: Goyangireul Butakhae) is a 2001 South Korean coming of age film, the feature debut of director Jeong Jae-eun.^[2] It chronicles the lives of a group of friends — five young women — a year after they graduate from high school, showing the heartbreaking changes and inspiring difficulties they face in both their friendships and the working world.

Plot

Five girlfriends in their early twenties live in the dingy port town of Incheon. A close-knit circle in high school, their paths begin to diverge as they step into the adult world.

At the center of the group is the beautiful and vain Hae-joo, who dreams of becoming a successful career woman. She leaves Incheon for an apartment in Seoul and a junior position with a brokerage firm.

The other girls are left behind in a state of solitude and unease; Tae-hee works for free for her parents and takes dictation from a poet suffering from cerebral palsy and Ji-young seeks a job, while caring for her grandparents in their dilapidated apartment. The twins Bi-ryu and Ohn-jo buffer themselves from change with constant togetherness.

The cellular phones ring as the girls coordinate their meetings. A lost cat, Tee tee, enters the lives of these young women, passing from one owner to the next as circumstances pull lives and friends apart and others together.

Cast

Bae Doona as Yoo Tae-hee^[3]
Lee Yo-won as Shin Hae-joo
Ok Ji-young as Seo Ji-young
Lee Eun-shil as Bi-ryu
Lee Eun-jo as Ohn-jo

Reception

Though critically acclaimed in its native South Korea, the film's box office returns were not so great, prompting a 'Save the Cat' movement involving film industry professionals and Incheon residents to try to increase viewership before its theatrical run would be cut short.^[4] A campaign was also launched for a theater re-run.^[5]

Local filmmakers organized a festival to support the survival of films that hold fast to artistic significance and compromise commercial success (in the process come and go without much recognition). The title of the event, WaRaNaGo, came from the initial syllables of four 2001 movies － Waikiki Brothers, Raybang, Nabi ("Butterfly") and Goyangireul Butakhae ("Take Care of My Cat") － which all fared poorly in the box office.^[6]

The film won numerous awards at international film festivals, namely the NETPAC Award and New Currents Award Special Mention at the Pusan International Film Festival, the FIPRESCI Prize at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Best Picture award ("Golden Moon of Valencia") at the Cinema Jove Valencia International Film Festival, a KNF Award Special Mention in the competition section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. It was invited to the Young Forum section at the Berlin International Film Festival and was also theatrically released in Japan, Hong Kong, U.K and U.S.A.^[7]