The Hydra

 When Ryu is being interviewed by his superiors at the end of Shiri regarding the nature of his relationship with Hee/Hyun, the interviewers ask him how he could not have known all along that the very woman he asked to marry him was Hee all along. How could he have fallen into her trap? Ryu brings up the analogy of her being a Hydra: she has multiple heads that are entirely different people, playing entirely different roles.

What then does this mean with regard to the film’s portrayal of women, gender roles, and the categories that which women are ‘supposed’ to fit into? Is there one specified delineated category for the role of the woman? Instead of having one combined head, why must there be a separate head for each role or trait?

 

In Kim Kyung Hyun’s article, Kim states that  “Yi Pang-hui the North Korean Agent, Yi Pang-hui/ Yi Myong-hyon the girlfriend, and Yi Myong-hyon the hospital patient – combine the traits of the violent terrorist, the attractive and entrepreneurial lover, and the useless and irrecoverably sick woman. She is triply constructed within a patriarchal discourse that has set its parameters within the terms of her sexuality and that invokes the “monstrous-feminine,” something Barbara Creed has designated in her study of Western horror films. Shifting from asexual Yi Myong-hyon to sexual Yi Pang-hui/Yi Myong-hon, and then to overly hysterical Yi Pang-hui who would rather destroy herself with booze than confront her reality as a double agent, she is continually forced into a role of a ventriloquist until she is killed” (261).

So does this suggest that it is impossible for a woman to play all three roles at the same time? She cannot be attractive, entrepreneurial, violent, or dependent at the same time, but she must be one or the other. And even when she does separate those traits and worlds into 3 different heads, the effort is futile because it only ends in self-destruction. The Hydra is fated for failure.