Motel Cactus follows four separate events in room 407 of a ‘love hotel’ in Seoul. Despite its warm and sympathetic acting, the film sketches a pessimistic picture of contemporary relationships between men and women.Choi Hyun-Joo celebrates her birthday with her boyfriend Lee Min-Koo in the Cactus Motel. She feels at her ease in room 407, but he feels intimidated.The student Yoon Seo-Kyung has rented the room for a couple of hours to shoot a scene for a video film he is making for school. He is waiting for his girlfriend/actress and his cameraman. When the latter fails to show, they set to work on their own. Then the student finds out that his girldfriend was deflowered the previous evening.‘Salaryman’ Kim is killing time in a bar when he meets Choi Hyun-Joo from the first scene. They get drunk together and set off for room 407, where they make quite a mess before surrendering to love.Kim is in the room again. He is soon joined by an old flame from his student days, Min Hee-Soo, whom he recently bumped into at a funeral. They hope to blow new life into an old passion but mainly rediscover old pain in each other’s company.The well-known Australian-Asian cameraman Christopher Doyle was shooting in Korea for the first time, making a film that is different from many other contemporary Korean films in style and tone.
