‘Love and Leashes’ (2022) Review: Demystifying the Myths of BDSM Relationships
It’s extremely rare to see a South Korean movie exploring a BDSM relationship and yet, Park Hyeon-jin’s Love and Leashes is certainly an entertainingly saucy movie. It stars Girls Generation’s Seohyun, who plays a woman not aware of her instinctive control over others and Lee Jun-young, her new coworker with a strong tendency to obey others. Following the success of Squid Game and All of Us Are Dead, South Korean drama has been extremely popular on Netflix.
Love and Leashes is based on a webtoon called Moral Sense, and it begins as Jung Ji-woo (Seohyun) opens a parcel mistakenly delivered to her instead of Jung Ji-hoo’s (Lee) desk. The parcel ends up in her hands and opens to find a spiked collar inside. Ji-hoo tries to play it off as a dog collar, but Ji-woo is suspicious. Meanwhile, Ji-hoo worries that she might tell their colleagues about what she found in his parcel and afraid of losing his job, he tells Ji-woo the truth. The two co-workers engage in a contractual dominant and submissive relationship, but little do they know that their feelings will get in the way of it.
In the past, Hollywood movies have misrepresented BDSM relationships with movies like 50 Shades of Grey. But unlike that movie, Love and Leashes discusses consent, the emotional aspect of the relationship for the characters, mutual respect, and the unabashed message towards sexual kinks.
When Ji-woo discovers her desire to engage in a dominant and submissive relationship, Ji-hoo doesn’t pressure her to join or do anything that would make her feel uncomfortable. Before she decides to participate in the relationship, she takes the time to process her emotions and learn about BDSM, which is something that the film explains through narration to the audience. She researches the concept and introduces ideas to Ji-hoo before they mutually agree to go ahead with it. The scenes where Ji-woo learns about the relationship are educational as well as impactful moments. Even after they begin the relationship, Ji-woo asks Ji-hoo whether he feels uncomfortable. These moments are carefully and easily communicated between the characters, although it takes time for them to familiarise themselves.
There are funny and light-hearted moments between them, and the situations that they get themselves into are hilariously ludicrous at times. Regardless, Love and Leashes explore and accept that it’s okay to have these kinds of sexual expressions. Ji-woo learns to not feel ashamed for what he prefers and Ji-hoo accepts to embrace her relationship and newfound instinctive control. Love and Leashes discuss the importance of mutual respect and consent for BDSM relationships through the lens of Ji-woo’s friend who falls into an uncomfortable situation where a man pressures her into engaging in it. It represents the value of healthy and consensual relationships between two people and is an educational guide to dom-sub relationships.
