karluk99 Reviews

Life Risking Romance (2016)

worth watching, as long as you're not expecting a masterpiece

[6/10 · 24 February 2017]

Life Risking Romance is a mixture of romantic comedy, suspense and murder mystery. Accomplished actress Ha Ji-Won plays the female lead, mystery novelist Han Jae-in (Jane Han) who has run out of creative ideas and decides to try to discover the identity of a real life serial killer so she'll have a plot for her next novel. She's assisted by police detective and childhood friend, Seol Rok-hwan (Sherlock Holmes).

The main suspects are a neighborhood burglar, who is definitely a thief and may also dabble in murder, handsome FBI agent Jason Chen, who was stationed in Miami when some similar murders happened there, and Detective Rok-hwan himself, who may be using his position in the police force to hide crimes.

It's fair to say that this mixture of genres works well at times and not so well at other times. The comedy has some good moments, but relies too much on fart jokes. The romance is a love triangle between Jane, the FBI agent and Sherlock Holmes. Both would-be suitors have their strong points, but it's a little hard to disregard the fact that either one could be a serial killer. As a murder mystery, there are too few suspects to leave room for more than passing doubt about who the real culprit is.

On the positive side, all of the actors do a very good job with the material they are given, Ha Ji-Won looks as fabulous as ever, and there is real chemistry between the leads. Jane has a good future with either boyfriend, if only she can figure out who is the murderer - before it's too late.

Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back (2015)

Light but funny romantic comedy

[6/10 · 23 September 2016]

Yi Ze is a young woman whose life is going nowhere. As an assistant to a film director, she wants to become a director herself. The director makes promises, but it's always "next time", not today. We also learn that seven years ago she fell in love with Yu Fei when she helped him get an audition for a talent show, despite turning in his application late. Yu Fei won the talent competition and has since become a star, first as a singer and more recently as an actor.

One day Yu Fei reappears to film a commercial. The two recognize each other from their previous meeting, and this elevates Yi Ze to a more prominent role in the commercial, giving her a chance to show her talent as a director. At the post production party, the two exhibit a strong mutual attraction and end a most romantic evening in bed together.

Having sped through the normal plot of a romantic comedy at breakneck speed, the movie needs to take a step back and allow complications to develop. It does so when Yu Fei stops returning Yi Ze's calls. Yi Ze is heartbroken by the breakup and goes to see a matchmaker/fortune teller (played with admirable gusto and just the right touch of zaniness by Chuan-jun Wang). The advice she gets is basically to be more reserved and play hard to get, so that Yu Fei will stop taking her for granted and start chasing her. This approach works wonders, proving that you should always listen to the advice of noodle bar proprietors who moonlight as fortune tellers. After various subplots have run their course, most notably the one where Yu Fei is forced to go on a concert tour in spite of having lost his singing voice, our two young lovers are reunited and presumably live happily ever after.

Ex-Files 2 is as light as a feather, but has the redeeming qualities of being consistently amusing and occasionally laugh out loud funny. Thats not a bad combination for a romantic comedy.

Close Range Love (2014)

decent teenage romance fantasy

[5/10 · 17 October 2015]

Yuni Kururugi is a smart and pretty high school student, who is doing well in all of her classes except English. In an attempt to improve her grades her English teacher, Haruka Sakurai, asks Yuni to attend regular after school tutoring sessions. Although she initially resents Mr. Sakurai, she rather quickly develops feelings for him, most notably when he rescues her from bullies who attack her because of jealousy over the extra attention Yuni is getting from the handsome teacher.

At this point the movie has to make a choice between being a realistic story of an influential teacher pushing a bright student to be her best, or diverging into a fantasy world in which an innocent schoolgirl inspires Mr. Sakurai with the most noble and self-sacrificing love that any teenage girl could wish for. In this case fantasy wins, and we spend the rest of the movie seeing how the love between this couple is just so perfect and right that all of the normal objections to a romance between teacher and student simply don't apply.

Given the fact that the movie is sheer fantasy, I find the scene where Mr. Sakurai kisses Yuni while she is hiding in the bottom of his lectern to be quite endearing. Sure, in real life it would be impossible for this to happen in front of the entire class without anybody noticing, but as a fantasy I can sympathize with wanting one's first kiss to be a memorable one, and this scene is nothing if not memorable.

Close Range Love is surprisingly aware of how many legitimate objections there are to a teacher falling in love with a student, but of course none of them apply to Yuni and Mr. Sakurai. He never makes any physical demands on her, so their displays of affection are limited to a few stray hugs and kisses. Adolescents are typically need time to find their place in life, and sure enough, Mr. Sakurai selflessly pretends to break up with Yuni so she has no reason not to pursue her dream of studying abroad. Yuni is devastated by the break up, but is smart enough to figure out later that Mr. Sakurai did it for her and really is still in love with her.

The acting left a lot to be desired, but this is most likely the result of the source material being a manga. Yuni's emotions are always portrayed by quirky mannerisms - touching her ear lobe, eating doughnuts, clutching her skirt in her fist, stroking her cat pin jewelry - so the lack of visible emotion in her face is probably intentional.

All in all, I felt a 5/10 rating was fair. Close Range Love doesn't have a lot of appeal except to people looking for an escapist teenage romance fantasy, but as an escapist teenage romance fantasy it does a decent job.

Plan Man (2014)

Uneven, but highly entertaining

[8/10 · 10 June 2015]

Plan Man starts out as a typical opposites-attract romantic comedy, with free spirited Yoo So-jeong agreeing to take uptight librarian Han Jeong-seok under her wing to help loosen up his obsessive personality. So-jeong is a singer and Jeong-seok miraculously turns out to be an excellent pianist, so they decide to form a group and audition for a talent show.

The setup is no more plausible than is typical of most romantic comedies, but it works well here because the two both get something out of the relationship that was missing from their lives. Jeong-seok gradually discovers that not every detail of his daily routine needs to be meticulously planned out, and So-jeong finds someone who is steady and reliable enough to be counted on.

Plan Man is much more than just a light-hearted romantic comedy. In addition to the talent competition, it has subplots involving So-jeong's relationship with her former lover and flashbacks to Jeong-seok's childhood, where the origin of his compulsive behavior is revealed. With the movie trying to do so much, it's natural that some of these subplots work better than others. I found the flashbacks to Jeong-seok's childhood to be far too melodramatic and emotional to fit in well with the rest of the movie. On the other hand, the music competition was fun. The songs were well done and entertaining.

Plan Man is a very good movie that deserves watching. It's not without flaws, but its strengths easily outweigh its weaknesses.

Innocent Crush (2014)

top notch psychological thriller

[8/10 · 20 May 2015]

Young-eun develops a crush on her high school physical ed teacher, Jun-ki. Jun-ki initially finds her attractive, but then tries to break off the developing relationship after scandalous rumors threaten his career. This is easier said than done, since Young-eun becomes obsessed and refuses to let him go.

This certainly isn't the first movie with a similar theme, but there's a lot to like about Innocent Thing, foremost among them being an outstanding performance by Jo Bo-ah as Young-eun. She seemingly without effort displays a wide range of emotions, from cute and flirty to dark and menacing. The movie could not succeed without a strong performance from her, and Jo Bo-ah delivers splendidly.

I normally would not like the disjointed editing that frequently makes it impossible to tell whether a scene is really happening, or is simply a hallucination in Young-eun's psychotic mind. But in this movie I thought it was a great way to allow the viewer to experience Young-eun's descent into madness. We think that she is a cold-blooded murderer who will let nothing come between her and her obsession, but then discover that at least one of the murders never happened at all. How about the other one? I'm not sure, and I doubt that Young-eun knows either. It could be murder, it could be an insane revenge fantasy that never happened.

There is a lot of moral ambiguity in the movie. Jun-ki starts out with an indefensible attraction to a high school girl, but at least never lets it develop into a real affair. The pregnant wife starts out as an innocent victim of her husband's unfaithfulness and Young- eun's jealousy, but then commits what would be a serious offense while trying to hush things up. Depending on your point of view, Young-eun is either a menacing psycho or the victim of Jun-ki's lust and the wife's attempted cover-up.

I suggest you see Innocent Thing with friends. It's entertaining enough to keep you all on the edge of your seats, and there will certainly be a lot to talk about afterward.

One Perfect Day (2013 Video)

charming short film

[8/10 · 8 April 2014]

The protagonist of this film is a socially awkward young man named Un-cheol who is looking for a girlfriend. Through a series of flashbacks, we see him pursuing a series of disastrous first dates, and as the film opens is involved in yet another date with a young woman named Yoo-jin. The couple goes on a long walk and ends up at the bottom of a series of steps. Un-cheol proposes that they play a game of rock-paper-scissors to see which of them will make it to the top of the steps first. Yoo-jin, desperate to ditch this klutzy young man, intentionally allows him to win. Eventually he gets so far ahead of her that she is able to slip quietly away into the night, no doubt thanking her lucky stars that Un-cheol was so involved in the game that he didn't realize he was being ditched.

So far the moral of the story is simply to stop acting like a jerk and your dates will go better, but now the story gets a little more complex. We see additional flashbacks of Un-cheol with his father, who taught him all about the fine points of rock-paper-scissors, along with some life lessons that have stuck with him. He returns a stray dog to its owner, a sweet young woman named Eun-hee. He gets to play one last game of rock-paper-scissors with Eun-hee with the reward being a date with her if he wins the game. But he tells her in advance what he is going to play, so she has the choice of whether to intentionally win or lose. What will she do?

By the end of the movie I had come to the conclusion that Un-cheol's apparent poor choice of activities on his date with Yoo-jin was actually not so bad after all. Sure, he managed to drive an attractive young woman to take extreme measures to ditch him, but all that really means is that they weren't compatible in the first place. There's nothing wrong with taking long meandering walks with the woman you love, or to engage with her in a spirited game of rock-paper-scissors, if that's what you both like to do. Yoo-jin hated every minute of it, so it it's good that she left. Eun-hee is quite a different person, and the film ends on a note of anticipation, with the audience wondering whether Un-cheol will get a chance to date her and what the outcome will be if he does.

Not bad at all for a film clocking in at 35 minutes. A lot of movies run several times as long without ever saying as much.

My Boyfriend Is Type-B (2005)

Sometimes it's OK to say goodbye

[3/10 · 22 January 2014]

My Boyfriend Is Type B uses the superstition that it's possible to tell a person's personality from his blood type to explore a relationship between Ha-mi and her type B boyfriend Young-bin. The two meet when they accidentally exchange cell phones and Ha-mi decides they are fated to be together in spite of warnings from her cousin, an experienced match- maker, that a type B boyfriend will mistreat her.

And sure enough, mistreat her he does. Over and over again in excruciating, painful detail. With no apparent remorse, or even any sense that anything he does is wrong. OK, we get the message: Young-bin is an insensitive clod and Ha-mi should end the relationship and move on with her life.

But wait. After watching almost an entire movie trending towards one inescapable conclusion, the audience is then treated to ten minutes or so of the film reversing course and trying to convince us that these two young lovers belong together after all. How special. Young-bin is still a selfish jerk, but a selfish jerk who really, really, really cares about Ha-mi.

I guess if you're a young woman who believes that any boyfriend, no matter how bad, is better than no boyfriend at all, then My Boyfriend Is Type B is for you. For everyone else, don't waste your time on this nonsense.

My Girlfriend Is an Agent (2009)

very funny action romantic comedy

[8/10 · 19 January 2014]

My Girlfriend Is an Agent is only a very ordinary action movie and doesn't work well as a romance, either. The premise that the two stars are both secret agents who must constantly lie to each other to protect their covers is certainly a good plot device to keep them apart until the final reel, but it also makes us wonder what they see in each other in the first place. If that were all there was to the movie, I would say don't bother watching it.

But forget about action, forget about romance, this is a comedy movie first - one of the funniest Korean comedies I've seen. It's a little slow getting started. The introductory scene with Ahn Soo-ji (Kim Ha-Neul) on a jet ski chasing bad guys in a speed boat isn't funny. And I didn't like Lee Jae-joon's (Kang Ji-Hwan) first failed attempt as a field agent either. Foolishly responding aloud to the voice in his earpiece while the bad guys are in the same room is just dumb, not funny.

Fortunately it doesn't take long for the comedy to hit its stride, and from then on things really get rolling. All of the characters are earnestly trying to do their best to save the country from a deadly biological agent, but their efforts seem in vain as scene after scene goes awry in the most creatively improbable ways.

I see that many of the other reviews compare this movie to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I can see the superficial similarity of characters and plot, but to me this movie has a lot more in common with the Pink Panther movies. There's serious work to be done and the stars are trying as hard as they can, but are only rewarded with one uproariously funny failure after another. For real secret agents that wouldn't be good enough, but for us movie watchers it's more than enough reason to tune in to My Girlfriend Is an Agent.

The Berlin File (2013)

Enjoyable action film

[7/10 · 17 September 2013]

After an arms smuggling deal goes bad, North Korean agent Pyo Jong Sung finds himself and his wife, translator Ryeon Jung-hee under a cloud of suspicion and tries to uncover the real culprit. North and South Korean, Russian, U.S., Israeli, and Arab agents are everywhere, to the point where it seems it's only slightly more likely to see a German citizen on the streets of Berlin than if the action took place in Seoul.

Once all of these players are introduced, the movie does a good job of sorting them all out, as Jong Sung investigates who is responsible. There are a number of very effective action sequences throughout the film to keep things moving.

The relationship between Jong Sung and Jung-hee is central to to plot. For an action movie, the characters are very well presented. But fans expecting a repeat of Jun Ji Hyun's delightfully over-the-top performance in The Thieves will be disappointed. Her role as Jung- hee in The Berlin File rarely goes beyond that of a typical damsel in distress.

The movie is exceptionally well filmed to reflect a tense, somber mood. There were some shots that looked almost as if they were filmed in black and white to harmonize with the prevailing tone.

The end of the movie strongly foreshadows that a sequel is in the works. Of course that typically depends on how well the movie performs at the box office. By all reports The Berlin File easily did well enough to justify a sequel. I'll be looking forward it.

Oasis (2002)

Nobody cares about this couple, should you?

[7/10 · 1 April 2013]

This turns out to be a surprisingly difficult question to answer, especially considering that watching Oasis is a complete waste of time if the answer turns out to be "no". Obviously the producers, screen writers, actors and director are all doing their best to generate a positive response.

But it is a tribute to the integrity of the story that a "yes" vote doesn't come easily. Jong-du is an ex-con with three convictions on his record. After being paroled for vehicular manslaughter, he unaccountably decides to pay his respects to the family of his victim. There he meets Gong-ju, a young woman stricken with cerebral palsy. He gives her flowers, but a follow-up visit ends disastrously in an attempted rape that is interrupted only when Gong-ju faints from horror.

During this visit, Jong-du gave Gong-ju his phone number in an attempt to put her at ease, and Gong-ju eventually decides to call him. Against all expectations, they find they have a lot in common and a romance blossoms.

Against this unpromising backdrop Oasis has a long uphill climb to win the audience's sympathy. It's not an easy transition. The revelation that Jong-du is innocent of manslaughter and confessed only in order to save his older brother helps. The inexcusable neglect and mistreatment of both Jong-du and Gong-ju by their families helps even more. These are two people that deserve better treatment than they are getting from their closest relatives.

Oasis benefits from outstanding performances by both its stars, great directing, and a riveting screenplay. In a lot of ways it's not an easy movie to watch, but I was mesmerized by the characters coming to life before my eyes and forming a relationship that for a time provided a refuge from their bleak existence, just as an oasis in a desert provides relief from an otherwise barren landscape.

My Scary Girl (2006)

Pursue your true love, even if a few dead bodies lie in the way

[5/10 · 16 January 2013]

Shy and socially awkward Dae-Woo falls in love with Mi-Na, his beautiful but mysterious downstairs neighbor. Gradually he finds out that she is not quite the woman he expected. Mi-Na, instead of being an art major with an interest in Russian literature, turns out to have never heard of Dostoyevsky or Mondrian. Worse yet, she judges people based on their blood types and astrological signs, superstitions which Dae-Woo has always scorned.

But what's poor lovelorn Dae-Woo to do? He either has to accept Mi-Na the way she is, or give up the woman he loves. He swallows his pride and resumes the relationship. But worse is yet to come! There's a body part in Mi-Na's kimchi refrigerator and an eclectic assortment of unexplained deaths and disappearances in her past.

My Scary Girl is too much fun to give it a "not worth watching" rating. But a good romantic comedy needs to have lead characters that the audience can envision falling in love with themselves, and Mi-Na is not an easy person to love. She is shallow and superficial and completely unapologetic about the crimes she has committed. Her only comment about marrying an old man for his money and then murdering him is that, "He would have died anyway. I just speeded it up a little." Sheesh, try telling that to the judge and see if it gets you a lighter sentence.

I eventually split the difference and gave My Scary Girl a 5 rating. If you're like me, you'll finish the movie and think to yourself, "That was fun, but there a lot better movies out there that I could have been watching instead."

Baby and I (2008)

Have faith in your children, they usually turn out all right

[6/10 · 27 December 2012]

Joon-su is a teenage trouble-maker, whose bad conduct angers his parents so much that they run away from home to teach him a lesson. On the same day that his parents leave, Joon-su finds a baby abandoned in a grocery store, along with a note indicating that he is the father.

Leaving an innocent baby with an irresponsible teenager is a recipe for disaster, but Joon-su rises to the occasion admirably. He and the baby are inseparable companions, he cares for its every need, and goes out looking for work when his money runs out. Unfortunately Korean society is just as unkind to teenage parents as elsewhere, so Joon-su eventually gets expelled from school and repeatedly turned down for jobs because he has nobody to care for the baby when he's at work or school. His situation is truly desperate, when his parents opportunely return to save the day.

There is no doubt that Baby and I is hopelessly unrealistic. It's quite unbelievable that an immature teenager like Joon-su will suddenly morph into a responsible young father just because an unknown infant comes into his possession. Nor did I find it to be particularly successful as a comedy. One of the running gags is that the baby refuses to drink formula, so Joon-su needs to approach strange women asking them for breast milk. Ha ha, I guess.

But Baby and I is much too enjoyable a movie to be overly critical of its imperfections. The baby is adorable, the love interest (played by Kim Byeol) with the smartest girl in the school is sweet and believable, and Joon-su is just too decent a guy not to turn out well, even if it does take more time than the compressed plot of the movie allows for. I kept thinking that Joon-su's parents should be thankful that they raised such a fine young man, rather than giving up and running away. Parents everywhere should keep the same thought in mind when facing the inevitable conflicts that come with raising immature teenagers.

Motmalinun Gyerhon (2007)

Unstoppable Marriage would work well as the pilot for a TV show...

[4/10 · 21 November 2012]

...so I guess it's not surprising that that's exactly what happened with Korean TV adapting it into a TV show. Traditional doll maker Eun Ho meets playboy plastic surgeon Ki Baek after a minor hang gliding accident, when he agrees to attend her doll making workshop. They initially can't stand each other, but then abruptly decide they are in love and want to get married. That more or less ends the romantic part of the movie. The rest of the film is dedicated to an intermittently amusing attempt to get the snobbish mother of Ki Baek and the poor-but-proud father of Eun Ho to agree to the match. Ki Baek's mother is a rich business woman who wants to build a golf course and needs to buy land owned by Eun Ho's father, who (it goes without saying) doesn't want to sell. The only thing that they can agree upon, it seems, is their mutual desire to break up the engagement. The parents eventually discover that the other family isn't as awful as first appeared and they both want what's best for their child in any case, so hey what's wrong with this marriage after all? Nothing, apparently, so the audience gets to enjoy a standard romantic comedy happy ending.

I gave Unstoppable Marriage a 4/10 rating. To me that means it's a slightly below average romantic comedy. The comedy works fairly well; the romance not so much. I was a little put off by all the pointless swearing. Ki Baek's mother frequently lapses into English in what seems to be an effort to show off her upper class behavior, but can't string a sentence together without cussing. It was probably meant to be funny, but became tiresome from overuse.

Du eolgurui yeochin (2007)

Surprisingly good

[7/10 · 14 November 2012]

The main reason to have low expectations for Two Faces of My Girlfriend is that it is an unapologetic knock off of the far superior My Sassy Girl. But before I go too far with unfavorable comparisons, let me hasten to add that it's possible for a less than perfect imitation to be a good movie in its own right, and that's what Two Faces of My Girlfriend is - a very good movie.

Gu-chang is a poverty stricken college student struggling to establish a career. One day he finds a lost wallet and "borrows" some money from it to buy a meal. That leads to a friendship with the owner of the wallet, Ani. Ani is sweet with a childlike innocence and the two hit it off immediately. Everything's perfect, right? Well, not quite. As luck would have it, Ani suffers from multiple personality disorder and her alter-ego, Hani, is a vicious street fighter who mercilessly beats up Gu-chang whenever her personality is in control. Add in the plot twist that Ani's multiple personalities are a byproduct of unresolved grief over a deceased boyfriend and the similarities to My Sassy Girl are obvious - college student falls in love with abusive girlfriend who needs to find a way to put her former love behind her.

So the plot isn't too original, but the movie is so well done that I didn't care. There are many truly funny moments, superior acting, and likable characters that I wanted to see happy together in the end. I especially like the way that Hani gradually develops a grudging respect for Gu-chang's devotion to Ani. Two Faces of My Girlfriend is an enjoyable film that deserves a look.

Too Beautiful to Lie (2004)

great premise lacks execution

[4/10 · 31 October 2012]

Kim Ha-Neul plays Yeong-ju, a convicted criminal who has just won parole by using her acting skills to make the parole board feel sorry for her. Through a chain of coincidences involving a stolen engagement ring, she ends up in a small town pretending to be the pregnant girlfriend of a man she sat next to on the train. It's a great idea for a romantic comedy that may very well work for some viewers.

But a great comedy needs to actually deliver laughs, and I found that the laughs were few and far between. As for romance, it was difficult to figure out why the two lead characters fell in love. They don't seem to enjoy each other's company very much. A few more scenes showing them drawing closer together would have made it easier to root for a happy ending.

Yeong-ju's character was unconvincing as an ex-con. Sure she prides herself on being able to mislead people by spinning convincing lies, but otherwise she's as high-minded and moral as any woman you'll ever meet. It would never occur to her to steal money just because it's there for the taking.

I was surprised to discover that Kim Ha-Neul won an acting award for her role as Yeong-ju. She spends too much time mugging for the camera for my taste. Her performance in Almost Love was definitely better than here. But I won't quibble. She's a talented actress who deserves multiple awards. It took a strong performance from her to make Too Beautiful to Lie worth watching at all.

Overall verdict: Too Beautiful to Lie has its moments, but overall there are better Korean romantic comedies to watch.

Abbaga yeojadeul jongahae (2010)

doesn't quite feel real

[5/10 · 19 October 2012]

Lee Na-yeong stars as Ji-hyeon, a woman facing the challenges of living a new life after a sex change operation. Unbeknownst to her she has a nine year old son from an earlier marriage, who longs to find his birth father. One day the son appears at her door, and she has to face the difficult challenge of being a father to her son while at the same time pursuing a promising relationship with her make-up artist boyfriend.

The plot sounds contrived, but it actually works quite well on some levels. The producers could easily have made the same movie without the sex change and still had a very interesting story of a young boy trying to form a bond with the birth father he's never met.

Where Lady Daddy falls short is oversimplifying the complex relationships being portrayed. All of the characters act as if they are aware they're being filmed and need to be on their best behavior at all times. The ex-wife doesn't seem to feel any trace of bitterness at being abandoned, nor does the step-dad show any real jealousy that his son seems to prefer Ji-hyeon to him. Ji-hyeon warms up quickly to her previously unknown son instead of resenting the intrusion that threatens to unmask her former life. The boyfriend initially recoils from Ji-hyeon after learning her secret, but quickly realizes that he loves her after all.

It's all very convenient and leads to a conventional happy ending. Taken individually I have no problem with believing any of the characters. Any of them COULD act that way, after all. But there aren't just one or two characters that insist on acting supremely rationally for the good of the group. When everyone acts that way, it begins to feel less like a slice out of real life and more like the escapist fare it is.

Lady Daddy isn't a terrible movie and it does deliver the uplifting message that what's on the inside is more important than appearances. It just fails to deliver the emotionally satisfying ending that it could so easily have had with a more realistic plot.

Love Phobia (2006)

wonderful love story outweighs cheesy plot

[8/10 · 16 October 2012]

Love Phobia has all of the ingredients that can drive Westerners away from Korean movies - a gimmicky, unbelievable plot about a girl named Ari, who pretends to be an alien from outer space, and her boyfriend, Jo Kang, who either pretends to or actually does believe her. Naturally their love is so strong that by the end of the movie this nonsense turns out to be true, conclusively demonstrating that Koreans must live in some alternate universe unknown to you and me.

Luckily, what Love Phobia also has is a beautifully told love story that makes it possible to suspend disbelief and let the story lead the audience wherever it wants. All of the seemingly silly talk about aliens and ghosts turns out to be deep conversations between two kindred souls who have found a way to share their deepest hopes and fears. Ari believes in these things because she needs to believe in something that's better than what the world has to offer her. Jo Kang understands Ari, so he willingly follows into her fantasy.

There is a tearjerker ending that I won't describe. By the time it rolls around, Love Phobia has made a convincing case that these two people belong together. The fact that they might not be together for long is a tragedy, but far less tragic than if they had allowed their phobia to keep them apart. It's not a particularly earth-shaking discovery for a romantic movie, but it's one that this particular romantic movie makes extraordinarily well.

Innocent Steps (2005)

Enough plot for three movies, and that's the problem.

[6/10 · 8 October 2012]

The part of Innocent Steps that deals with the developing love between professional dancer Young-Sae and innocent 19 year old immigrant Chae-rin succeeds brilliantly. There is nothing that is not entirely believable and touching about their love, from Young-Sae's initial rejection of Chae-rin, to his compassion for her when she is in danger of being forced into prostitution, to the gradual development of their relationship from being a sham marriage into becoming a real couple, and ending with their lyrical declarations of mutual love during their (separate) immigration interviews.

The dance-competition-thwarted-by-malevolent-gangster portions of the movie suffer greatly by comparison. It's simply not believable that Chae-rin can go in only three months from being a complete novice to what is apparently the best female dancer in all of Korea. So much so that Young-Sae's chief rival goes to extraordinary lengths to not only break up the partnership but also steal Chae-rin for himself. That's quite an achievement for a 19 year old girl, who looks more like 12. I wasn't buying it. Even if I did, the plot twists guaranteed that there would be no triumphant performance for Young-Sae and Chae-rin in the national competition. Admittedly, having the underdog succeed against all odds is a sports movie cliché. I would have been receptive to a well thought out alternative, but in this case the alternative reads something like "The world is an evil place. Get used to it." What a disappointment.

Fortunately the writers came to their senses soon enough to allow Young-Sae and Chae-rin a future together. Overall, Innocent Steps rates a five for a great love story mixed with an overly melodramatic plot.

4th Period Mystery (2009)

A pleasant diversion

[7/10 · 19 September 2012]

Even though the teenage stars have nothing in common with Angela Lansbury, I was irresistibly reminded of "Murder, She Wrote" while watching this film. There is a murder mystery to be solved, enough plot twists to keep the audience guessing, and resourceful detectives to ferret out the clues, just in time for the final scene, naturally. Don't expect anything too deep, and you'll have a good time watching this entertaining movie.

I don't remember too much that deserves severe criticism, but among the negatives would be that there is too much filming of the characters as they rush from one classroom to another. I expect that the director's intention was to develop a sense of urgency as the clock ticks down toward the end of period four, but there are probably more entertaining ways of building suspense than showing the actors running through the hallways.

Shinbu sueob (2004)

This movie succeeds by not being too ambitious

[7/10 · 17 September 2012]

"Love So Divine" is the story of a developing love between a Catholic seminarian, who is on the verge of becoming a priest, and his free-spirited student from America, the lovely Ha Ji Won. The plot obviously sets up an inevitable conflict between human and divine love. Considering the conventions of the romantic comedy genre, plus the undeniable charms of Ha Ji Won, it's not too difficult to guess the final decision.

The rather standard plot is saved from cliché by the likability of the stars and their good on-screen chemistry. I especially like the plot devices that allow the couple to reveal their mutual love as a part of their religious faith, not outside of it.

I would have to say the film could have done just fine without the music video style song and dance number. It was entertaining enough, I suppose, but I've never been in a Catholic service that would have tolerated such an irreverent tone to worship. Unless the Catholic Church is considerably different in Korea than it is in the U.S., this scene could simply never have happened in real life, so it made it a little disconcerting to see in a movie.

My Sassy Girl (2008)

Everything about this remake is a mess.

[1/10 · 21 August 2012]

I loved the Korean original and sincerely wanted to like this remake. But the two physically attractive stars have absolutely no on-screen chemistry and some poorly thought out script changes make for any number of head-scratching moments. To take just one example, in the Korean version the male lead is a lazy, unmotivated college student who by the end of the movie decides he needs to make something out of his life for the sake of the girl. In the remake, the Jesse Bradford character begins the movie with a promising, albeit boring career ahead of him only to see it all sabotaged by his psychotic girlfriend. At the end of the movie he decides to chuck it all for the sake of the girl. Only a little change, I suppose, but it's the difference between two people that are stronger as a couple than apart, vs two people that always seem to delight in reinforcing each other's self-destructive behavior.

I simply couldn't root for these two losers to get together. Please take my advice and skip the putrid remake in favor of the Korean version.