I Don’t Fire Myself (2021)

…an engaging personal drama that quietly opens a relevant dialogue with its audience

It’s safe to say that the equality movement has been a little slow on the uptake in certain Asian cultures. But that’s not to say that the status quo isn’t beginning to be nudged, with films such as I Don’t Fire Myself finding purchase in mainstream media.

Written and directed by Tae-gyeom LEE, the film follows the struggles of Jung-Eun (Da-in YOO from 2019’s The Snob), an employee of an electric provider, who is relegated to a small coastal subcontractor outside the city after her abusive male colleagues attempt to oust her from head office.

Once she arrives at the new outpost, where she finds herself to be the only female employee, Jung-eun faces a new wave of misogynistic and sexist challenges before one of her co-workers, Choong-ski (Jung-se OH of It’s Okay To Not Be Okay fame), who happens to be raising three daughters on his own while working numerous jobs, reluctantly takes her under his wing.

As a workplace drama, I Don’t Fire Myself is an effective insight into the abusive culture seen in Korea’s corporate world, but where the film really shines, is in its ability to showcase the psychological damage such a culture inflicts on its victims.

Making his directorial debut, Tae-gyeom shows remarkable sensitivity with his characters, instilling his protagonist with a fragile strength and insight that never indulges problematic narratives or victimhood. Da-in YOO’s portrayal of Jung-eun is beautifully realised, with the actor deftly embodying a vulnerability and desperate determination that adds a heartbreaking realism to her fleeting moments of self-loathing, alcohol abuse and her eventual lashing out at those manipulating her career path.

I Don’t Fire Myself isn’t exactly the perfect metaphor for the social issue it tackles, but it does effectively use its narrative to deliver an engaging personal drama that quietly opens a relevant dialogue with its audience.

In my personal opinion, the plot and setting of this film is too slow and monotonous. For the first hour even I felt sleepy while watching it. Apart from that, the plot is also a bit confusing at the start (or am I the slow one? LOL). If I don't force it (because of Oh Jung-se for sure), maybe I'll choose to drop off. However, in the second half of the hour, I started to feel the tension, the film also started to show its direction, although it wasn't extremely exciting either.

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An engaging but sometimes slow watch

I Don't Fire Myself presents exactly the situation the prompt describes. An abused and thoroughly discriminated worker is given an ultimatum that leads to her thrust into an unfamiliar working situation which is as unwelcoming as the first. Slowly, perhaps sometimes unbearably slow she begins to acclimatise as ironically she finds the plight of those there to be similarly downtrodden. The film rethreads the paths many now deep into their drama careers have seen as the labour issue consistently brought up in Korea but its message is far from cliche. Though not entirely free from those, such occurrences do not entirely hamper the film at all instead inspire a sign of disappointment that these things persist.

The acting performances were all fantastic Yoo Da In does a good job in the lead role as does Oh Jung Se in the supporting. Cinematography wise the film is competently shot with some particularly beautiful imagery centring on the paradoxically deadly transmission towers the characters must brave. All in all, it's good for a one time watch though it might be just as easily skipped.

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