Rating: * * *
It’s been quite a while since I thoroughly enjoyed a mushy Korean movie. Such melodramatic movies don’t really rate high on my list, but it doesn’t harm me in any way to enjoy them once in a while, and just act silly. However, despite being a little mushy, the movie was mature in many a department.
Hyeong-man (Sung-kee Ahn) is in his 50s, has never been in love, and is still single. He just doesn’t click that way, perhaps because he’s busy trying to make his ends meet. To help that cause, he runs a small photo studio out of a stuffy room, with a couple of employees to help out. He just makes enough to support himself with bare minimum and pay his employees their wages. One day, out of the blue, an old friend calls him up in his dying moments and asks him a favor. This particular friend has swindled every close friend he had, including Hyeong-man, and feels the need to contact them only in his desperate moments. Despite being furious at the audacity of this dying friend, Hyeong-man visits him, only to be imposed by another burden. The dying friend asks him to be the caretaker of the daughter he’s going to leave behind. The financial rut that the daughter’s father had dug himself into, hasn’t spared the daughter either. Thanks to her father’s whirlwind of debts, she’s left to her own devices to avoid his creditors, including the owner of the shack of a house she lives in. But her cunning father has another friend convinced to help her financially, until she graduates. This miserable father certainly does his best in amassing favors for his daughter before finally buying the farm. Hyeong-man is left with no choice but to shoulder the burden, which he carries out a tad hesitantly at first. Sporadically stopping by at her place, helping her out with defunct home appliances (since he’s good with machine) among other minor things. However, one thing he’s unaware of is that the daughter, Nam-eun (Ha-na Lee), has her heart set on this old geezer. She finds him different and hence attractive. She just adores everything he does, which for her is a class apart from all the bozos she’s been around with. She looks for silly reasons just to be around him; going as far as offering to do his laundry. Hyeong-man remains clueless, albeit intentionally, and keeps her at an arm’s length for the obvious age factor. But the love-bug eventually bites our Heyong-man, coupled with the relentless persuasion by Name-eun, he lets go of all his inhibitions and societal objections that may arise, and takes the plunge. Thereafter, it’s a sweet and unusual series of dates between the two leads. It’s universal that love, regardless of how simple it is, is never a smooth ride. This pair, too, come across some unforeseen hurdles, leading to the inevitable friction. It’s got more to do with the poles-apart perspective each one harbours about life. The ending, to me, was a bit fuzzy. Maybe, the director wanted the viewer to interpret it in their own desirable way. So, regardless, I’d still say that the ending was sort of a downer for me.
The movie doesn’t have a labyrinthine plot, or any other complexity that a love story would or should need. Simply put, when two people come together in love, enough complications are already on their way, and the same happens in the movie. Hyeong-man, with his weathered demeanor and a safe, one-pronged approach to life is in contrast to the upbeat and take-your-chances image of Nam-eun. They both are right in their own way, but when you try to mix these two, there’s bound to be volatility. The movie delves on these nuances and its associated ramifications, which might put everything awry if not kept in check. The movie is worth watching simply for the awkward, yet amazing chemistry between its leads. The emotionally hopeless, stable and struggling Heyon-man is someone that every aged fellow would recognize with. How he abhors and fears change, despite trying it just to humor Nam-eun. Despite being Nam-eun’s lover, he can’t help giving out suggestions to Nam-eun just like a typical father would. Name-eun on the other hand, despite adopting a contradictory approach to life, tries her best to adjust to Heyon-man’s ways, and tries equally hard to help Heyon-man realize that he needn’t limit himself to one particular thing, irrespective of how good he is at it. She wants him to push his envelopes and take a chance, but Heyon-man doesn’t share the emotion, because he thinks people at his age are beyond change. Both the actors rendering these two characters are pitch-perfect in their respective roles. Sung-kee plays it low key, and delivers handsomely with his controlled expressions and maturity that a person of his age would possess. Ha-na, with her sober and sulky beauty, needed for the movie, made me want more of her. She does undergo an outlook transformation when her love’s requited, and we get to see her spirited, blossoming self. I’m always partial towards Korean female actors, and I’m going to do the same here. I adored Ha-na and everything she had a hand in, in this movie. Watching these cute Korean ladies perform just takes my breath away. The director (Yeon-Shick Shin) handled all the delicate moments ably and with the right amount of innocence to it. He had a strong grip throughout and hardly did he falter; barring maybe the unclear ending.
The movie is a triumph due to its small, yet professional cast and those small, tender moments scattered throughout the movie. Such movies always do depend on the quality of the small details that go into making them. A conversation, a fight, a bus ride with one’s lover, being intimate on phone among other daily activities, that are normally ignored, are what makes these movies a little gem not to be missed. If one would overlook the hackneyed tools the movie ends up using in its final reel, the movie is definitely worth a watch. Add to that the charm the movie overflows with when its two leads are on screen, one would have sufficient reasons to enjoy the movie.
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