In a world of crime, Hyun-jung (played by Kim Hye-Soo) is tough lady. She crawled herself to be the second top guy in the criminal underworld. Movie starts off strong with a lot of sex and Hyun-jung was taping the whole thing in the hopes of blackmailing who's in the videos.
Their objective to expand their criminal reach and take over businesses to make them legitimate somehow. At this conjuncture, Hyun-jung was already contemplating retirement unknown to her colleagues when the expansion is complete. Meanwhile Sang-hoon (played by Lee Sun-kyun), who's got a fatal attraction to her could not accept that she doesn't fancy him so the bitterness in him begins.
Sang-hoon had other plans for their organization and their top boss along with Hyun-jung disagrees with his vision. This led Sang-hoon to tie up with a government prosecutor, Choi (played by lee Hee-joon) to orchestrate a plan to topple gang boss Kim (played by Choi Moo-sung). Choi who was also a victim in the blackmail scam, tries his best to retrieve the scandalous movie from Hyun-jung.
The movie then goes into hypermode with Hyun-jung trying to evade the clutches of Sang-hoon and Choi. Near the end, it was then discovered that Gang Boss Kim's son, is actually Hyun-jung's son as well. So expect some surprise on the son at the end of the movie.
Honestly, we can't make sense about this movie except that it showed a mother's love. That's it. Although it was shown near the end of movie, this is the thing that endeared to us. This movie is an slow burning ember, and we don't know why some peeps consider this as one of the best movies to date in Korea. It's like a Kill Bill movie plot but only slower.
We can't blame Kim Hye-soo for this as we deemed she was great as the lead here. Even Lee Sun-Kyun whom we see as the lead in Korean TV drama's whom we adored, playing a villain was a stretch for us. It took us a while to accept that he is that SOB character here. We see him a lovable actor then here we are trying to hate him in this movie. He did pull off nicely as a villain here but maybe a few more films in this character might do the trick for him.
We can say the same thing for Lee Hee-joon as the evil prosecutor. He looks so sweet in the beginning, but the story tells it this way and then the story flipped a switched and he became a nasty corrupt government employee. We love him best here as the transition from good to bad in his performance was commendable.
If you come to know of Korean movies as being sweet and romantic, you will have a great surprise with this one. Just focus on the motherly love and some woman empowerment in the movie.
Does one person really looks on the outside? Our lead here is Kang Hanna (played by Kim Ah-joong). She's a plus sized part time phone sex call center agent and ghost singer for a popular singer Ammy (played by Ji Seo-yun). She's got a huge crush on director Han Sang-jun (played by Joo Jin-mo) and she tries her best to be noticed. But then there was an instance that she overhears a conversation between Ammy and Sang-jun that she was just being used for her voice and this hurt Hanna so much. She decided to end her life that night but was pre-empted by a call from her phone sex regulars who happened to be a famous plastic surgeon. She begged him to transform her from weight loss and plastic surgery operations on her whole body.
She went on a one year hiatus without telling anyone that she would be undergoing such an arduous procedure. Ammy and Sang-jun were trying to find her as The former's career is on the line without her but to no avail.
A year past and when we see Hanna again, she turned into a slender and incredibly beautiful woman. Even her best friend Park Jung-min (played by Kim Hyun-sook), a back up singer, didn't even recognize her. Hanna wants to go back to her previous work as Ammy's ghost singer and with Jung-min's help, she auditions as Jenny in front of Sang-jun and Ammy. Impressed with her singing, instead of being hired as a ghost singer for Ammy, she was awarded a contract.
Jenny's first single "Maria" became a hit and they were having celebrations when Ammy bring's Hanna's (Jenny) father into the party. To keep her new identity as Jenny, she ignores her father much to the disgust of her best friend Jung-min. Even with her secret, Sang-jun was still able to discover that she really is Hanna. He tells her that they will still use her new identity Jenny and will still continue with her planned big concert.
With Ammy's doing, she tries her best to prevent Jenny's concert from happening. Even threatening to divulge her secret to the public and the music company executives were scared with the scandal it would create. Sang-jun would have none of it and still wants to push with the concert.
During her opening act, Jenny's father went in front of the stage and started dancing with her. A few security personnel accosted her father and she stopped singing. What happened thereafter was a big revelation of sorts. She confessed in front of the crowd that she isn't Jenny but is Kang Hanna, a plus sized ghost singer and she revealed that with the new identity, she couldn't remember who Hanna was. With Sang-jun's help, he played Hanna's old singing videos on the big screen. Her fans moved by her confession accepts who she was and began chanting "its okay".
The following day "Jenny" was a has been, with records and posters being pulled out from stores. But Hanna was a big hit, and she became a famous singer. All her Jenny records and posters were replaced by Hanna and her fans loved her.
From the title itself, you will immediately have an idea of how the story will be told. A plus sized girl falling in love with a handsome guy, then thinking that she won't be noticed, tries her best to slim down and undergo the knife to be beautiful. She thinks the guy is superficial and would only go with beautiful women. So expect a lot of situations that will show her oversized figure and what happens after the transformation.
Having said that, we did not anticipate how the story would be told beautifully and cleanly. Character development even with mostly comedic rendition would endear to us and hold us to an emotional state in the end. What we thought was a predictable story line gave us some roller coaster rides midway and a big drop was shown near the end. That drop gave us tears in our eyes as we felt Hanna's pain and vindication.
Kim Ah-joong really was the driving force in the movie and thank god she was spectacular here. She gave us a performance that would endear us for a long time. Joo Jin-mo played second fiddle here and he gave a decent acting for us. Wasn't the same level as Ah-joong, but it wasn't bad either. He gave us a smoldering presence that we can feel him from start to finish. A great support to our Ah-joong.
Another thing we liked with the movie was the presence of a lot of celebrities who did cameos along the way. We have Lee Beom-soo as a taxi driver, Kim Yong-gun as the company CEO, Lee Won-jong as a fortune teller, Ryu Seung-soo as a traffic officer.
To add credence to the movie, this one got lots of awards not only for Ah-joong but for the rest of the production. To kick you more in the butt, Ah-joong sang most of the songs here. Really, she sang 5 out of 11 from the movie soundtrack. This girl can sing.
So better watch this movie and add this in your playlist. Currently showing in Youtube, simply click on the thumbnail below.
We admire Gong Yoo in his portrayals in The Goblin and Coffee Prince in the Korean dramas that we like to see him in a movie setting. Here we find him playing seconds to Kim Sun-a (who plays that police detective Chun Jae-in) who works undercover always as a highschooler.
In most parts in the film, Jae-in infiltrates a school to befriend a daughter of a notorious gangster. As the gangster is in hiding from his gangster enemies, Jae-in tries to protect the daughter Cha Seung Hee (played by Nam Sang-mi) and possibly extract more information about the father's activities. This wasn't as simple as she thought it would be as Seung Hee has a reclusive type personality. She knows her father's activities and she disapproves of it. So much so that she is a recluse, never wants to make friends in school, making Jae-in's mission a bit difficult. At the same time with Jae-in's arrival comes Kang No-young (played by Gong Yoo). Nothing much was shown with No-young's intentions in the early parts of the movie except that he also is interested in Seung Hee and both of them live across Seung Hee's residence. Eventually Seung Hee's warms up to Jae-in and they are best of friends. Meanwhile other characters pop in to create a stir in the story. Another agent cop swoops in as a teacher and a motorcycle riding character zips in to protect Seung Hee's father. The latter wears a helmet always so you can't discern who it was. Later on Jae-in suspects No-young is that motorcycling individual. Like in most story plots, all must come in the end. Seung Hee was kidnapped to bring in his father where a duel with the rival boss was inevitable. Also Jae-in teams up with No-young who was revealed as a gang member protecting Seung Hee's father. The team was able to subdue the whole gang and both Seung Hee and her father was rescued. No-young being a gangster, he escaped just in time the police arrived, must to the dismay of Jae-in whom she had started to have feelings for. Although she was wary of that kind of relationship since she is already mature compared to No-young. Several months later in another of Jae-in's assignments, she pretends to be a nun to capture a criminal. In the ensuing chase, No-young shows up and helps her catch the criminal. A kiss was forthcoming but Jae-in had to be sure, that No-young was just a youthful looking man. The whole film is a feel good movie and the storyline is so thin if you ask me. Although not original in concept, it was still refreshing to see this with both Gong Yoo and Kim Sun-a. The latter was a bit over the top during the first few minutes of the film, but somehow she mellowed down and came back to earth and then we loved her. Gong Yoo came much in the middle and his presence is always overshadowed with that of Sun-a. But just a smile from Gong Yoo will bring him back on screen again. Both by the way looked good together but a romantic relationship only started to be felt past midway. Not much situations were given to offer that cute moments between the two as the story line calls for the protection of that gangster's daughter. A lovely film if you ask us, just a little thin but its not bad either. For an asian film made in 2005, this is already watchable. We are wary of early asian films but this one will not disappoint. Currently showing on YouTube, of course not High Definition, but best of all its free.
We love that actor Daniel Henney when we saw him X-Men origins: Wolverine and in that another asian movie Shanghai Calling. Here he plays an expat Robin Heiden assigned to a Korean branch where he meets up with Min-June (played by Uhm Jung-hwa). Their first encounter was coincidental as Min-June was playing hooky when suddenly she figures in a car bumping incident with Robin. The latter speaks in English while the former feigns she doesn't know english, creating confusion between them. Unknown to both, they would again find each other as both were working in the same office. Robin being the new country manager where Min-june works.
A classic tale of awkwardness befalls our two leads as Min-june is always mired with her boyfriends while Robin tries his best to educate her in the game of love. In the process of her education, both finds themselves falling in love with each other.
This is a romantic comedy so surely you will find some cute moments between the two. The clash of two cultures is apparent here as the Americanized Robin mingles with Korean Min-june. The perception of incompatibility is to be expected as this movie gives no surprise there. What endears this movie to us is the comedic and acting prowess of Uhm Jung-hwa as that out of luck in love Min-June. She really brings the character to life and even if some of the scenes might not be realistic as dictated by the script, she pulls us back to be entertained by her performance.
Daniel Henney is great as that corporate stiff boss who tries very much to "help" Min-june. His performance was nice here but if you have watched his other asian flick Shanghai Calling, you will find it equal to that. So equal in fact that you might think the other was a sequel. LOL.
Story pace was done nicely, a nice blend of fast and slow moments, mostly scenes were comedic and cute, but it also offers some drama somewhere in the middle. The story line might offer you no surprises however it does give us that zing in some parts of the film.
We recommend this movie to those who love romantic comedies, best to watch this with popcorn. We don't know if this is shown in streaming services but you can watch a low definition version in YouTube. Simply click on the thumbnail below to watch it for free.
While I was still feeling the after effects of Goblin (aka Guardian: The Lonely and Great God) and our reluctance to watch the new The King: The Eternal Monarch (with Lee Min Ho) we happened to come across this movie by Kim Go-Eun. She stars in both Korean dramas and how lucky we are in finding this film.
She is both Hong-ee and Seol-hee here but the movie starts with her as Hong-ee, the daughter of Poong-cheon, one of the three great swordsmen who fights for the oppressed and the poor during the Goryeo era. The other swordsmen were Seol-rang and Deok-gi. The led an uprising that ended badly for them as Deok-gi betrayed both Poong-cheon and Seol-rang when he switched sides. Poong-cheon eventually died here, and Seol-rang escaped with Poong-cheon's daughter Hong-ee. Deok-gi then changes his name to Yoo-baek.
To remain incognito, Seol-rang changed her name as well to Wallso and tries to teach Hong-ee the way of the sword. She learned very well however she wasn't that much interested in sword fighting as she did not yet know how his father died. Seol-rang's and Hong-ee's presence was not know to now Yoo-baek until Hong-ee participated in a sword match and Yoo-baek recognized her fighting style. He was curious of her master so he pursued her, but she escaped.
Seol-rang aka Wallso, knows that their secret was might as well be known, she proceeds to tell Hong-ee that night how his father, Poong-cheon died. She also told her that it was her and Deok-gi (now Yoo-baek) are her enemies now.
Seol-rang then banishes Hong-ee and now begins her path of vengeance.
Along the way, there were twists and turns and eventually Deok-Gi's prophecy of Hong-ee coming back from the past and Poong-cheon's death will be avenged.
We were surprised as to how this story was well written for a Korean movie. Story telling was great and the production was almost comparable already to a Hollywood production. There were minimal character development in the beginning, but hey, this is a Korean movie, so all these were explained in a lot of flash backs.
There were a number of these flash backs that we lost count, and sometimes we got lost honestly. With the characters changing identities it took us a while to adjust and we understood the story when we were able to catch up.
The revenge story plot and twists are however not original as we have seen these scenarios happen in another movie (which we can't remember). Even so, it was our first time to see it in a korean film, so maybe we can count it as original as well? Original or not, we did not see it coming, the twists. So kudos to the production for keeping us in our toes.
The story is rich with colorful characters which maybe they can expound, but they didn't, or they didn't have to. The story revolves only with 3 major characters, yet we find it entertaining and we love the fight scenes. When they fly through the air, we almost forget this is a korean movie, the jumps and flying were reminiscent of the Kung Fu movies we are used to. Some were over the top, but thankfully it wasn't that much of total disregard of the laws of physics.
Kim Go-Eun's performance here we were surprised. We can still picture her from the Goblin as someone who's helpless and meek. Here she was fighting and great with her martial arts skills. It took a while for us to be accustomed to her flying and jumping and slashing all over the screen. She did great here although we still have doubts if she really did some of the stunts hereself. Acting wise, she was great here. Did you know that she won a number of awards in Korea? She always win an award since 2012 till 2017 (except for 2014 - our research can only cover until 2017 so we don't know any awards won 2018 to present).
Another actor we liked here was Lee Byun-Hun who played the general Yoo-baek. This guy is also a multi-awarded actor and he has a separate webpage solely for this purpose. We saw already in movies like Iris: the Movie, Red 2 (with Bruce Willis), GI Joe franchise as Storm Shadow, and the Magnificent Seven (with Denzel Washington). He has a commanding presence here that one can't discount. Performance wise he is heavy and we can really feel his character here. Such a treat to see him on screen.
As to the story telling, the pacing was nicely executed. Great use of scenes slowing down, then speeding up, taking us for a joy ride and we were entertained. We thought the fighting was the gravy here, but we were wrong. The drama was the heavy hitters here or gravy, and the fighting were the side dishes.
Streaming on YouTube is the Filipino dubbed full movie and if you want to watch it. click on the thumbnail below.
Finally we get to see a film by that lovable star in the tv series "Princess Hours" and "Coffee Prince", Yoon Eun-Hye. She plays Han Min-joo, the class captain who's a boxer and tough mannered lady in school. The story though is not about her, its about the legend, Seven cutter, who's a tough guy known to be unbeaten in fights in different schools. That legend is Jung Han-soo played by Ahn Jae-Mo.
Movie starts out with Han-soo tranferring to the school where Han Min-joo is. The name of Han-soo is quite a legend so when the students learned about his arrival, everybody was scared of him. He was given an icy welcome and the tough guys in that school gave him a hard time at first. It turned out that Han-soo dislikes confrontation and tries his best to be peaceful. However his actions sometimes were misconstrued and the students believes he is that tough guy, Seven Cutter.
Being a teenager in high school, Han-soo gets into a situation with Min-joo and she challenges him to a fight. Being a pacifist of sorts, he escapes the fight by telling Min-joo that he loves her and she believed him. All the while he really likes Lee Yoon-ah (played by Han Da-min) the school crush, with a diva like attitude. They became an item while Han-soo still likes Yoon-ah.
When Min-joo found out that he likes Yoon-ah, she broke up with him. In her disgust, she wandered off and was kidnapped by some thugs whom Han-soo defeated early on, using her as bait. This time also Han-soo realizes he loves Min-joo and went after her. He defeats the bad guys and both are together again.
If you like highschool comedies, that are composed of comedy skits, punchlines and slapstick, then this movie is for you. There are a lot of those here and I wondered how I was to sit down and watch this in its entirety. The plot should have been simple but its not, as it had a lot of twists and turns.
At first we believed that there were two Han-soo's. Because the lead character tells everyone that he was not that legendary "seven cutter". He acts like a coward and abhors fighting, uses his wits and words to get out of confrontation, and even runs away. So we believed it then that he was not that legend to begin with. Then there was a situation wherein he divulges his secret to Min-joo but we don't believe him as we thought we was just making stories to impress her. It turned out that he was great in fighting and that he is the legendary Seven Cutter.
Let us be clear that the reason we wanted to watch this was because of Yoon Eun-Hye. We love her in Princess Hours and Coffee Prince thus the fascination for The Legend of the Seven Cutter'. Her cuteness with the TV series however runs thin when it came with this movie. What you see in her on TV is what you can see here. So her acting will not be surprisingly new. I can't blame her as all the titles mentioned here were done in 2006 and 2007. We will surely find a movie around the 2011 onwards era to find out if she developed more in the acting department.
The movie is not about her however, its about Jung Han-soo played by Ahn Jae-Mo. Judging from his filmography, this movie is second to his last done. His last movie made was in 2006 as per wikipedia. All performances after 2006 were all on TV. His acting here was a bit quirky but effective. He was the reason why we thought there were two characters in the movie. It may or may not be intentional on his part but his portrayal of his character led us to believe of two different Han-Soos. Or maybe it was the script?
The script is not original for us, the idea of one student who escapes his past, starts anew in another school, is not new to us. In as much as he tries to be a new person, eventually his past catches up on him as his adversary was able to track him and forces him for a rematch and possibly get revenge. The script offers less on this story line but offers more of comedy situations. There were a lot of skits that prey on youth shenanigans that we find amusing for most parts. This situations are distractions that momentarily we are thrown off from the story.
This is movie is a feel good movie, and with a bowl of popcorn will offer momentary entertainment. It won't offer you fine dining but will do offer fast food instead. Good to watch if you don't have anything else on your movie night, or if you haven't paid yet your Netflix or Amazon Prime account. Click on the thumbnail below and watch it on YouTube.
Our heroine or bad ass is Eun-Jin (played by Eun-Kyung Shin) grew up in the Korean Mafia and is a top tier person in the organization so to speak. She's an untouchable and hard core gangster yet she has a weakness up her sleeve. She had a sick sister whom she found recently after being separated during their days in the orphanage.
Her dying wish is to see Eun-Jin get married. A tough act since Eun-Jin grew up emotionless and a gangster. She tried dating but nothing fruitful came out of it until she meets a guy who protected her, his name was Kang Soo-Il.
An average joe who also had no luck with marriage. Being an honest and decent man, Eun-Jin dated him and eventually got married to him in the shortest amount of time so that her sister can bear witness. Her sister's next wish? That she got pregnant and be a mom. Another tall order but she loved her sister so she went on and made a baby. She got pregnant and told her sister just before she died.
Before she could tell Soo-il that she's pregnant, she had a miscarriage during a fight with a rival gang and was carried to the hospital. There Soo-Il was informed by the hospital staff that she had a miscarriage and in a fit of rage, he stormed up to the gang's place and doused the gang with gasoline. He was about to set fire to the place when he was restrained. It was dumb luck that a gang member accidentally sets fire the gasoline.
The place burned down, taking with it some of the gang members. Soo-Il then became a legend as well in the Korean Mafia and now he fights along with his wife Eun-Jin.
The movie started off with both feet running. We saw how awesome our female lead as she defeats an army of bad guys. All's well in the action department when suddenly it shifted to a little bit of drama and into comedy. A fish out water scenario here as we see a mafia hardliner, who acts like a tomboy, then suddenly finds herself needing a husband. This stretched far longer as she was thrown into marriage as well.
She was still bossy even in marriage much to the confusion of her husband, who wasn't aware that she married a gangster. We are taken in a roller coaster ride in emotions midway as we were stuck in the dilemma, would we like more action? more drama with her dying sister? more comedy scenes with her and her husband?
This ride was a bit jumpy and although the actors were great, for a very confusing story telling style. Eun-Kyung Shin was believable as that gangster Cha Eun-Jin and we felt her love for sister which we liked. She delivered the right performance during her action and drama scenes, but somehow we wanted more in the comedy parts. We think that the comedy part was taken by one of her gangster minions but almost, almost they were funny but not quite. The comedy big hitter should have been carried by his husband, Park Sang-Myun however we think his lines were weak so as to create that desired effect. His performance, body language and face were already there, but the lines were not that strong enough to elicit that needed comedy feel, if they really wanted to.
For an asian action film, this can hold up on its own, and a little bit of drama helps. Actors did their best and they really pushed the movie a bit higher even if the script was decently written.
Currently being shown (standard definition) on YouTube. Simply click on the thumbnail below.
What happens when a nerdy engineering student meets a girl? Nothing right? They are not known to be adept in looking for girls much less getting one. This is how our nerd Hwi-So (played by Ji Il-Joo) spends his days at the campus. Hanging out with his student buddies, just focusing on their gadgets. In comes Hye-Jin (played by Lee Elijah) a wheelchair bonded archer who had a defective motorized wheelchair. He fixed the chair, being an engineering whiz, and she being just a girl.
Story revolves around the two both of whom are carrying emotional baggages that they thought would be blocking their relationship. In the end however they learned to push through with the same for the sake of their love.
If you noticed we made a short plot synopsis of the film. The reason? The movie is plain and simple. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they like each other, they don't tell they love each other, they just want to be with each other, still they don't tell they love each other, parent of the girl doesn't like the boy, the boy leaves girl, girl cries, boy realizes he loves her, boy goes to the girl, girl appreciates and gets that national team member in archery.
Don't get the wrong idea that we didn't like the movie. In as much as there we loopholes the size of blackholes, we like the film. We are just hopeless romantics and they (Ji Il-Joo and Lee Elijah) simply looked good together. Even without speaking their lines, their smiles alone give us goosebumps and we can feel that they liked each other. Other characters were stereotyped but we liked them just the same.
Don't look for a meaty content and story telling as this is not that kind of a film. Back stories were (maybe) not that important to the plot anyway and we think it could have been omitted. What's important is how the two leads look good together.
Plot is easy to follow, not much twist, many feel good moments, in fact maybe too much, but still we like to see both of them together on screen. The film is also light so not much heavy lifting in the field of drama, but they do have some sad moments. Its like them trying to win you over with laughter, sadness, anger perhaps, and thank God there were no signing. So we will recommend this film on your romcom night. Its not Sleepless in Seattle nor You've got Mail, but it will drive you almost there.
Lucky for you its available on YouTube for free!!!!
What would you do if you have a spy girl such as this? Would you report her to the Police? This movie is a fish out of water comedy with a few action scenes mixed in. Featuring the lovable Gong Yoo (of Coffee Prince fame) playing our lead character here Choi Go-bong with the beautiful Kim Jung-hwa as our enigmatic and charming Park Hyo-jin in the title role as a North Korean spy.
The movie revolves around the down his luck on lovelife Choi Go-bong. He enlisted the help of his friends who have a website with uploaded profiles of single ladies. He wants to hook up with one so that he has a girlfriend (who would pretend to be one) in his reunion with his friends. Still unlucky, he went with his friends without one. On his way home drunk, he was saved by a lady in a yellow raincoat and he fell in love with her. And just like that, she went away without him knowing who she was.
A few days later she saw her again, this time she's working at a popular burger chain restaurant and a lot of guys were there to ogle at her. Calling her the new angel. Our hero Choi was dumbfounded and got love struck. Wherever he went, he could see her, Park Hyo-jin. He is obviously smitten so much so he went as far as stalking her at the place where she worked and have taken pictures of her. Those pictures he uploaded to his friend's website to go along the other ladies profiles. Those pictures made Hyo-jin more famous that it was distracting her from her real mission - which was to track down a North Korean operative who have gone rouge. She being one herself, she tries to blend in South Korea by working in that burger chain. Seeing that she was becoming well known as "spy girl" on said website, she asks our Go-bong to delete her profile. He agreed to do so if she would have a few "dates" with him.
Dates she did all the while she was still tracking her target. She apprehended her target and in one of their last dates, she hastily left him without saying goodbye. She later felt that she loved him also that she went with Go-bong to his enlistment in the South Korean army. Unknown to Go-bong, Hyo-jin likewise would go back to North Korea. In the last scene we see Go-bong stationed on duty in one of the outposts and slept for a moment. Once finished while inside his barracks he finds a lipstick mark on his cheek. He presumes it was from Hyo-jin.
This is a quirky romance comedy that touches the right recesses of your heart. Who won't fall for the handsome looks of Gong Yoo and the cute smile of Kim Hyun-hwa? They look together although her character as a North Korean agent is devoid of love on her face, but still her actions speak otherwise. Gong Yoo on the other hand is truly shown here as falling head over heels for our female lead and creates a lot of situations that either romantic or silly. The film delves on character development on the first half thus you will relate to them easily towards the end. The continuity here is a bit confusing as the editing of the story line jumps ahead, then goes back and mushes everything around. Thank god for the wonderful acting of both, we can still track the story even with a number of side stories circling around the two.
Although they are split apart in the end, one with the North the other with the South, we can just wish that they do have a happy ending. Maybe in the sequel? As of this writing there is no sequel so we are still keeping our hopes up.
Currently being shown in YouTube so its free to watch!!!
A Korean drama thriller that focuses on a crisis negotiator from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. Starring Son Ye-jin as Ha Chae-yoon the police negotiator and Hyun Bin as Min Tae-gu, the terrorist.
Story starts off with Chae-yoon negotiating for the release of two hostages when things got out of hand. This lead to the death of the hostages which devastated Chae-yoon so much that she submitted her resignation thereafter. While waiting for the request to process, she's been called in by the Police Commissioner to handle another hostage negotiation situation. Initially she wasn't briefed about this and was immediately tasked to talk to the terrorist Tae-gu. The latter earlier kidnapped two Koreans in Thailand and is holding them captive. Tae-gu was now spilling a conspiracy with Chae-yoon, about illegal arms deals, money laundering schemes and acts of bribery. Some officials tried to silence both until Tae-gu's lair was breached by the Korean special forces sent to Thailand that resulted to the bomb explosion killing everyone inside it.
Chae-yoon thought that Tae-gu and the hostages were dead however her great sense of observation suggests that Tae-gu wasn't in Thailand when the breach happened, in fact he was in Korea. This was later verified by pictures taken at the airport showing Tae-gu arriving days ahead of the negotiations. During this time Tae-gu went after the people who was responsible for the death of his sister. She was one of the hostages killed earlier in the film. Chae-yoon now knows why Tae-gu asked for her to start the negotiations. In the end, Tae-gu was killed by a team of soldiers and the conspiracy almost died with him until Chae-yoon revealed this to a proper court.
So what do we think of this movie? Many say its a good movie but somehow we had a hard time agreeing. The story is so muddled that we had a hard time following, understanding and believing some scenes in the movie. It's like a television series of 16 episodes then shrunk into one movie 114 minutes long. It should have been a fast and quick paced movie however everything is so slow.. you can stand up and go to the kitchen, prepare a snack and come back and you can still catch up with the story line. There were a lot of filler scenes we believe could have been cut to make it interesting.
First off, the lead Son Ye-jin's character of Ha Chae-yoon was supposed to be trained abroad to be a negotiator yet we always see her emotional and in most of the time crying. How can a a police negotiator send a trainee abroad and come back emotional? If she keeps on crying, how come she passed the training and given the authority to negotiate? When the hostages were killed while she was inside the premises, is this Korea's rule of engagement? Use the negotiator to distract the criminals to give enough time for the breaching team to enter? This disregard for the hostage's lives are a big question for us and she didn't even filed a report that this should never have happened unless Chae-yoon justifies it. Her character did handle the negotiations and it was all the terrorist Tae-gu getting the upperhand always. Hyun bin as terrorist was passable in performance as Min Tae-gu. Minus the outbursts in some scenes doesn't make sense, he was a lovable guy actually. Even if the other characters paint him as a terrorist, we somehow felt that he couldn't hurt the innocents. He showed us that the character had at least good moral values in spite of the kidnapping and the killing he made in the film.
All the other characters we just standing or scowling or shouting that I was now getting confused with their performances. I must admit it was distracting to see a lot of people just standing and watching as this drama unfolds. Might as well they should be sitting beside me. As we said the story line was muddled, actually its so simple. Lead gets confused in the beginning, resigns then gets back in active duty, to find out out that the terrorist is in fact was just asking for justice, and that the true bad guys were the higher ups or officers of the lead. Simple right? When you bring in another police member doing his own investigating and given a lot of screen time, a lot of officers giving a lot of screen time again just ordering to kill Tae-gu so that the conspiracy dies with him, that confused us or we felt the movie dragged. Maybe the plot is great, but I don't blame the actors for giving us this kind of a feeling. Its the story telling that made this movie unappealing for us. We do hope someone will do a reboot of this film as we like watching these kind of story plots. Maybe this should pattern the suspense and plot twists of The Negotiator starring Kevin Spacey and Samuel L Jackson. Maybe just maybe we can have a great film.
Currently showing in YouTube so you can watch the whole movie at the link given below.
A cute love story between a 15 year old and an adult who got married in compliance of Bo-eun's old grandfather. Bo-eun (Moon Geun-young) got married to Sang-min (Kim Rae-won) although done properly, it wasn't announced as they deemed it was best for the young Bo-eun. So they tried their best to keep it a secret with only relative and close friends who knew of this.
Bo-eun still continued her high school studies pretending to be single and Sang-min with his art career. Bo-eun had a high school crush and unfortunately it blossomed after her marriage and went into dating with this famous student baseball player. She thought she can keep these two men in his life until Sang-min was assigned to be an intern teacher in Bo-eun's high school. All secrets are deemed to be divulged and divulged it did. In the end, Bo-eun broke off with her high school crush and realized that she was in love with Sang-min. The latter already loved her before their marriage so it was a happy ending when Bo-eun expressed her true feelings in front of the whole school.
This arranged marriage might not be common for us Filipinos but for some parts of the world, this age old practice still lingers in their society. The marriage arranged here is not something out of ordinary since this was a result of their grand parents' wishes. Both families knew each other, and best of all both husband and wife grew up together, albeit with an age gap. So plunging into this marriage is not something they are up against. They just felt weird though about the thought of them as a couple.
Moon Geun-young as Bo-eun is cute as ever. A naive and sweet teenager really becomes her. Too sweet maybe but thanks to the other characters like her best friend and her teacher who went after her husband. Her best friend provided the maturity she needed, reminding her to watch her actions as she is already married. Her teacher's antics trying to seduce his husband Sang-min was a joy to watch. Midway, her teacher found out her true relationship with Sang-min thus hell hath no fury like a scorned woman. She bent her frustration on our young Bo-eun. Although we felt it was unfair, we felt it was cute inspite of her petty vengeance.
Kim Rae-won as Sang-min actually had it easy with his character. All he had to do was smile and let his charm do the rest. He did the character very well and he didn't disappoint in the dramatics either. His moments with Bo-eun were filled with cute and lovable banter. We love him also during the time he was evading Bo-eum teacher's seduction. Also we love him while he was in front of Bo-euns school asking everyone not to judge her. His drama there was not top notch though but it was enough to bring forth our emotions on the scene, and we felt then her love for Bo-eun, even if he did it before Bo-eun's confession.
Take them both together we felt it was a feel good movie but maybe there some hits and misses here and there but the on screen presence really did hit its mark. They look good together and their chemistry from start leading to the end had positively increased our love for them.
We don't know if this is Amazon Prime or Netflix but we saw this one on YouTube of all places. Complete with english subtitles, you will surely watch it there. We included the link herein for your convenience so enjoy!!!!
This is an old korean film way back 2005 and honestly we watched this because of actress
Geun-young Moon. We liked her in "My Little Bride" so when we found this we got to see this.
Synopsis - A great mentor/dancer Na Young-Sae is shown in the first part of the film in a dance competition and was sabotaged by the other dancers (I don't know why - not mentioned in the film) maybe due to their competitive nature and eventually he got injured in the process. He lost and his injury took some time to heal. He stopped dancing (I think) and he plans to do a comeback and hires somebody to bring him a new partner. His manager brings him one from China (no other dancers in Korea maybe) in the form of Jang Chae-rin, whom they found out later was not the dancer they "smuggled". So that they can bring in Chae-rin, the manager gave her a fiancee visa of sorts and they should be "married" adding to the complications in the story. The story then proceeds to the part where Young-Sae tries to teach Chae-rin to dance. Imagine Young-Sae's predicament, trying to enlist Chae-rin in a dance competition with less than 4 months for preparation. And this is his comeback in the dance scene. Twists and turns come in and eventually the got their "fixed" marriage, Young-Sae was not able to compete but Chae-rin was able to. Chae-rin won and somehow along the way, she and Young Sae caught in a romantic dance in the end.
That somewhat sums up the whole story.
Now our view of this film. Its similar to all dance movies, wherein the guy is the mentor and the girl is the student. girl falls in love with the guy, guy won't fight for his love, girl moves away a bit, then guy chases the girl. Along the way bad guys show up and gives the story some spice. Typical dance movie.
Remember this is a korean movie and drama is tied with something else and twists aren't given a new take for the unwary viewer. This is why we like korean movies, they offer some surprises that sometimes will throw you off guard.
Bad guys here come in the form of rival dancers, his manager, and some immigration officers checking into their fake marriage. The latter we find a bit too much although they were the comedic relief to the otherwise boring acting of the other characters. The story was so predictable and slow that they added these scenes. If you ask us, they can do away with these comedy as they do not have an effect to the film at all.
Another surprise for us is the the way they introduced Chae-rin into the mix. We couldn't just accept the fact that they can't find one good dancer in Korea and they have to "smuggle" one from China. They have to spend a lot of money bringing Chae-rin only to find out that she switched with her dancer sister. Its a case of human smuggling and contract marriage and when the Manager found out the switch, domestic violence is added to the cases mentioned already. These are serious violations of human rights and this film decided to include it herein. Oh well, they just want us to feel sorry for Chae-rin. Then Young-Sae comes to the rescue. Two down with their luck individuals trying to make it big time I guess.
Next scene we see the couple toiling to teach and learn the dance steps for their competition and everything is smooth sailing then another twist comes in. The bad guys, the manager and the bad dancers come in and rough Young-Sae rough him up so bad that he was unfit to compete. Chae-rin is now forced to dance with another partner. She showed resistance at first then somehow the virgin left footed dancer became a world class dancer at the competition. Wow. The transformation happened in front of Young-Sae adding to the excitement to the viewer.
This was a very long and slow drama film that somehow we would have given a low rating and simply forgot about it. However, having said that, this film had its brightest moments as well.
This is a love story and we truly appreciated the romantic interludes between the two. They might not be physically involved except for the dancing part, but emotionally you can feel the sparks between the two.
We liked the scene when Young-Sae scolded Chae-rin for dancing stiff. He then asked Chae-rin if she loved him. Only people in love can offer their hearts and body to another. (I'm just paraphrasing here). After this short spiel, Chae-rin shows she's in love with Young-Sae and proceeds to dance gracefully.
The best romantic scene here is their interrogation scene at the marriage office. They were interviewed to see if they really are in love and their union wasn't arranged or fixed. Remember that all during the film, they didn't show physical involvement, only emotional sparks. So it was so great to see them, in separate rooms, and pouring their love for each other. This scene I can always watch over and over and simply skip the other parts of this film.
Another scene is during the competition. Chae-rin was reluctant to dance with another partner yet when she sees Young-Sae watching her, pretends she was dancing with him. She shows how great she is in dancing and Young-Sae is so proud of her.
Let me remind you that this is a korean film right? So a korean film also have something to make you feel good at the end. When Chae-rin was introduced in the film, she brought something from China, a larvae (?) of a firefly. You can't bring in produce, agricultural product, much less insects across the border yet here she is bringing one. This firefly is so important in the film that is why she brought it.
In the last scene, Chae-rin after winning the competition, has little love left for Korea (except for Young-Sae) plans to return to China. She decides to stopby Young-Sae for a farewell. She sees him limping, and sad and when they saw each other, yada yada yada, they proceed to hug. About the fireflies? They transformed. Here we see them fireflies flying hovering around the couple. That's how a korean movie should end.
There were a lot of unbelievable things happening in the movie but I liked it because of that scene in the marriage office. This is a love story and I can turn a blind eye to the other details as long as the couple's love transcends to the viewer like me. I'm a hopeless romantic and I like films like this. If only the other details were credible, I could have strongly suggested this to my friends.
