South Korean film “Her Hobby” is a little country noir thriller revolving around one unlikely solidarity between two very different women. As one gets empowered thanks to some help and encouragement from the other, the movie gradually reveals the seedy and deplorable sides of their country village neighbors around them, and we get chilled at times as observing how these two women come to drastic measures for taking care of some personal matters.

At first, the story is unfolded mainly via the viewpoint of Jeong-in (Jung Yi-seo), a young divorce woman who came to her little rural hometown village some time ago. She has lived in her grandmother’s house, but her grandmother, who feebly but wholeheartedly welcomed her granddaughter into her house, recently passed away, and now she is the only one living in the house. While quite feeling alone, she is frequently annoyed by those busybody neighbors in the village who often willfully come into the house without any notice in advance, but she has to tolerate them because 1) she has to work for them for earning her meager living day by day and 2) she has nowhere else to go above all.

As Jeong-in is working as usual on another summer day, there comes a little change in the village. Some young woman from Seoul moves into a big house right above Jeong-in’s house, and everyone in the village is naturally curious about who this new neighbor is. All they can know about her is that she is pretty affluent as reflected by her clothes and some other expensive stuffs belonging to her, and they are not so pleased when she turns out to be quite haughty and confident without being not so friendly.

As this mysterious woman’s neighbor, Jeong-in also cannot help but curious about her, and, of course, they eventually come across each other under a rather awkward situation. To Jeong-in’s little surprise, Hye-jeong (Kim Hye-na) shows some generous care and consideration to Jeong-in, and, what do you know, Jeong-in gradually finds herself interacting more with Hye-jeong. Despite being often elusive as usual, Hye-jeong gladly shows more of herself to Jeong-in, and Jeong-in surely appreciates that because nobody in village has been that nice to her except the young South Asian wife of one of her neighbors.

Meanwhile, we see more of the ugly and deplorable sides from many of those village people. There is a despicable young delivery guy who turns out to be more problematic but has been tolerated by many of village people just because he is, well, one of them. There is also a middle-aged man who has been very mean and rude to Jeong-in, and we are not so surprised to learn that this detestable dude is the main reason why Jeong-in always sleeps with a certain sharp object right next to her at every night. When it is later revealed that Jeong-in’s grandmother saved a considerable amount of money for her granddaughter, many of village people attempt to meddle more with Jeong-in for utterly selfish reasons, and this consequently leads to the realization of her worst fear.

Now I should be more discreet about detailing how the screenplay by Lee Yong-yeong, which is based on the short story of the same name by Seo Mi-ae, unfolds its darkness step by step. As Hye-jeong advises her that she should consider herself and her life above all else, Jeong-in slowly becomes more motivated to confront her increasingly tricky circumstance, and that results in some deadly consequences as expected.

Watching Jeong-in’s disturbing inner transformation along the story, I was reminded of “Bedevilled” (2010), another disturbing South Korean film about the loathsome human evil inside a remote rural town and the following wrathful retribution from a woman who has been abused and exploited for years. Although “Her Hobby” is less violent and more restrained in comparison, it has a fair share of vengeful anger under the surface, and that is evident when Jeong-in shows cold rage and contempt to a certain figure later in the story. While not admitting anything at all, she indirectly conveys to that figure in question what she did for her belated revenge, and that figure certainly gets what she implies between her phlegmatic but undeniably spiteful words.

The movie depends a lot on the quiet but palpable intensity emanating from Jung Yi-seo, who has been more notable since her brief appearance in Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film “Parasite” (2019). Even when she does not say at all, we can feel Jeong-in’s suppressed torment and anger behind her weary detachment, and that is the main reason why the last act of the film works with considerable dramatic catharsis around the screen. On the opposite, Kim Hye-na ably complements her co-star in addition to filling her relatively less developed role with enough presence and allure, and she is fun to watch whenever her character subtly encourages Jeong-in to be more, uh, active in taking care of her impending troubles.

Overall, “Her Hobby”, directed by Ha Myeong-mi, is engaging mainly thanks to the fascinating relationship development between its two main characters as well as the solid duo performance behind it, and that is more enough for compensating for several notable weaknesses including the rather slow narrative pacing during its first half. Although it is one or two steps behind the harrowingly bloody aria of vengeance in “Bedevilled”, the movie serves its own dishes of revenge fairly well on the whole, so I will not grumble for now.