Yoo Ah-in as Jong-su, Jun Jong-seo as Hae-mi, and Steven Yeun as Ben in Burning (photograph via Palace Films)

The story has been transplanted to South Korea. Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) is in his early twenties. A budding writer currently living on his father’s cattle farm, he is gathering names for a petition to free his father, who has been imprisoned for assaulting a police officer. Early in the film, Jong-su meets Hae-mi (Jun Jong-seo), an old school friend. Jong-su’s awkwardness is made more acute because he fails to recognise Hae-mi. She puts this down to the fact that she’s had cosmetic surgery. She also claims that when they were kids, he told her she was ugly, which he doesn’t remember. It’s enough to have us doubting that the two really know each other, a doubt reinforced later when Hae-mi recalls another incident that Jong-su doesn’t remember.

Hae-mi is about to go to Kenya for a holiday. Jong-su agrees to look after her flat and feed her cat while she’s away. Despite his efforts, he never actually sees the cat. He and Hae-mi make love before she leaves and he spends the ensuing weeks forming an attachment to her. His visits to her tiny, cramped apartment become an opportunity to revel in the memory of that one afternoon of passion between them.

Jun Jong-seo as Hae-mi in Burning (photograph via Palace Films)

Any chance of building on their physical encounter comes to an abrupt end when Hae-mi returns to Seoul with Ben (Steven Yeun). It’s immediately obvious that the slightly older Ben is more charismatic, more successful, and more confident than Jong-su.

Despite the anticipated romance coming to a halt, a deeper friendship develops between Jong-su and Hae-mi. Jong-su becomes a regular third wheel in the relationship between Hae-mi and Ben. This leads to another Murakami trademark. While there is often a sexual frankness between men and women in his works, the interplay between two men is often the most complex dynamic. And so it is here. Jong-su desires Hae-mi, but he is fascinated by and envious of Ben’s urbanity. He describes Ben as a Jay Gatsby, a young man who has acquired wealth in a mysterious way and who doesn’t work, while Jong-su toils away on a farm, working off his father’s bad deeds. He ruefully remarks that Korea is full of Gatsbys.

For his part, Ben returns Jong-su’s fascination. At one point Ben tells Jong-su, ‘You should write about me, I’ve got a story to tell you.’ Jong-su never follows up on the suggestion. Perhaps if he had it would have been one less mystery in a film full of tantalising ambiguity.   

There is an increasing intensity between the two men that could easily be read as homoerotic. Jong-su even questions Hae-mi as to why someone as worldly as Ben would be interested in her. She shows no concern, believing that being a simple shop girl is what he finds so charming. Conversationally, she is out of her depth with the two men, at one point asking the meaning of the word ‘metaphor’.

Yoo Ah-in as Jong-su and Steven Yeun as Ben in Burning (photograph via Palace Films)

Later Ben gives Jong-su a killer of a metaphor when he’s describing the hobby that gives the film its title. We, along with Jong-su, don’t take in the real meaning of what he says, but his words linger for the rest of the film and long after it has ended. We contemplate the chill of his dispassionate delivery and the implications of his words.

The exchange comes at the end of a remarkable extended scene that takes place in front of Jong-su’s family farm. The three protagonists have shared a joint listening to Miles Davis on Ben’s car stereo. Then, for the fourth time in the film, Hae-mi dances. With each dance she reveals more of herself, and on this occasion her enraptured, topless reverie in the fading light is breathtaking.

It is a moment that encapsulates the aural and visual beauty of Burning. Hong Kyung-pyo’s widescreen lensing is a joy to behold. You can almost feel the cold from the blue-hued exteriors. Elsewhere, the camera glides elegantly through Ben’s pristinely chic apartment, accentuating the contrast with the cluttered chaos of Hae-mi’s pokey flat and the dank confines of Jong-su’s farm. Mowg’s original score is an equally valuable asset, evoking a palpable sense of mounting dread.   

All three actors are quite perfect. We learn so much about their characters from the difference in the way each one moves, and the physical chemistry between them. Yeun walks a fine line between silky charm and cold-bloodedness that would be the envy of any Bond villain, Jong-seo is utterly beguiling in a very physical role, while Ah-in carries the emotional weight of the film, embodying a young man so unsure of every situation he finds himself in. It is a mesmerising study of human implosion.     

Director Lee Chang-dong co-wrote the screenplay with Oh Jung-mi. They have wisely eschewed voiceover, often a blight in film adaptations that doggedly try to capture as much of a book’s content as possible. The beauty of Chang-dong’s Burning is that he lets the visuals speak for themselves, keeping a sense of mystery to Murakami’s internalised characters. The result is more eloquent than words could ever be.

Burning (Palace Films) 148 minutes, directed by Lee Chang-dong. In cinemas 18 April 2019.