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The movie is set several centuries back, during the Joseon Era. An elderly widow drinks alcohol by herself and laments about the lack of men in her village. She then tosses her shoe at a wooden statute and knocks off its phallic symbol like wooden nose. When the elderly lady picks up the fallen wooden nose, thunder suddenly erupts, smoke appears and then a throng of well endowed men appear ready to take the women then and there.
The nose gets passed around the village, becoming an increasing nuisance to the villagers. The village wise man then decides to place the wooden nose in a old wine bottle and bury for good in the forest.
Shortly afterwards we are then introduced to Byeon Gang-soe (Tae-gyu Bong), the meek village rice cake seller. Byeon is a morbid fellow, mainly due to his miniature private part which has become the source of many punchlines among the village ladies. Byeon’s life then takes a drastic turn, when the village wise man tries to help Byeon by informing him of the wine buried in the forest. The wise men stresses to Byeon to only take a sip of the potent concoction, but by the time those words come out, Byeon is long gone. After finding the buried wine, Byeon proceeds to gulp down the entire wine bottle. The tale of the Legendary Libido truly begins.
While the first half of “A Tale of Legendary of Libido” promises a fun sex-filled comedy (think Forbidden Quest meets Sex is Zero), once the premise behind the movie is revealed, the movie quickly falls apart. Whatever excitement the movie has built up in the first half, whithers away in the tiring second half. A continual dose of repetitious jokes centered around the same idea: little guy with no endurance suddenly gets his mojo times 10x, is virtually all that is offered for a plot. In theory this singular idea could offer fun, but in reality, the movie turns out a bit like the Gong Show minus any amusing performances.
Tae-gu Bong plays his character strictly in a sullen manner, which works in the first half, but with the lame second half script, becomes a further drag on an dry movie. Veteran actor Oh Dal-su is also (mis)cast as the rugged macho brother of Byeon. About the only performer able to muster any interest would be Su-kyeong Jeon as the always lustful bar owner (she at least belted a cool song on more than one occasion). Costume looked OK when done in a straightforward manner, but often looked ludicrous when tailored to arouse. Script feels like a complete hack job, running with the same joke for most of its runtime and then suddenly introducing a love triangle angle for no real good reason.
I’m sure there’s going to be another funny sex-comedy coming out of Korea soon and Tae-gyu Bong will make another funny comedy, but “A Tale of Legendary of Libido” just isn’t that movie. A lame script, repetitious jokes, and uninspiring acting is about all that “A Tale of Legendary of Libido” has to offer. There is more skin shown than your average commercial Korean comedy, but nothing to get excited about (it could probably squeak out a PG-13 rating in the U.S.). It turns out that the latest tale of the legendary libido is in actuality just a limp comedy needing to get itself up. |
