Oct

15

2006

My Piano / For Horowitz

Posted by luna6

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Movie Review : My Piano / For Horowitz / Horobicheu-reul wihayeo / 호로비츠를 위하여
Year : 2006
Country : South Korea
Director : Kwon Hyeong-Jin
Starring: Uhm Jung-Hwa (Ji-Su), Park Yong-Woo, Shin Eui-Jae (Gyung-Min)
Runtime : 108 Minutes
Rating : 5.0
Users Rating: 8.67 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars (6 votes)

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Plot Synopsis : Ji-Su has never attained her goal of becoming a world renown pianoist. Unlike some of her classmates that went on to study abroad and come back to teach at prestigious universities, Ji-Su has become somewhat of a disappointment in the eyes of her family and herself.

Now that she is over 30 years old and still single, her goals have become more practical. Although she has not given up on her dreams of becoming a famous pianoist, right now she has changed her focus to becoming a more self sufficient individual. Ji-Su has moved to a smaller town to open up the “Vienna Piano Studio” (a neighborhood shop to teach kids how to play the piano) . Although the studio is far from the stage of a famous concert hall or famous university, she is able to indulge in music and make a modest amount of money.

As soon as she starts to put up flyers for her Piano Studio a young boy named Gyung-Min and known around the neighborhood as ameance, tears down all of her flyers. When Ji-Su starts to get a steady group of students coming to her studio, Gyung-Min comes into the studio and terrorizes the other children until they stop coming. Ji-Su finally having enough of Gyung-Min’s antics, takes to his home, only to discover that he lives with a poor grandmother that is as unreceptive towards her as Gyung-Min. When Ji-Su reprimands the grandmother for not supervising her grandchild, the grandmother challanges her to see if she can do better and Ji-Su surprisingly accepts.

When she does accept to take care of Gyung-Min, Ji-Su soon discovers that Gyung-Min has perfect pitch hearing and has the raw talents to become a great pianoist. She also realizes that if he does become renown as a pianoist, this would likely catapult her to being a renown music instructor. She decides to sign up Gyung-Min for a musical competition and becomes intent on having him win the competition.

Although the competition does not end up as expected, soon Ji-Su and Gyung-Min have greater problems. Gyung-Min’s only relative, his grandmother, is now terminally ill with stomach cancer and Ji-Su has to decide what is in Gyung-Min’s best interest, along with what her own feelings towards Gyung-Min.

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Movie Review : My Piano is the fictional tale of a troubled child, that has an amazing (musical) gift, and is taught by someone who is, initially, relunctant to do so. Yes, there have been quite a few films dealing with a similar storyline and there is nothing in My Piano to make it stand out from those others. With that stated, I should say that My Piano is not a terrible film and even has some genuinely touching moments.

The best thing My Piano has going for it, is the relationship between Ji-Su and Gyung-Min. Both characters have very difficult personalities and the manner in which they bond seemed genuine. Credit goes to Uhm Jung-Hwa (Singles, Marriage Is A Crazy Thing, My Lovely Week) for playing Ji-Su, with her multiple levels of personal issues. One of her biggest personal problems, would have been her resentment towards her parents for not being able to provide the means for her to study ovearseas. Now that her prized pupil, Gyung-Min, has that oppurtunity, she has to make the very difficult choice between her desire to continue her almost motherly relationship with Gyung-Min or send him overseas to be tutored by someone more accomplished. He absolutely wants to stay with her. Her neighbor, that owned the pizza restaurant, played by Park Yong-wu (My Scary Girl), was also very good, providing a welcome comic relief to the general slow pacing of the film. His signature “Ah ha ha” laugh in that dingy deep voice became to be quite charming and one could not help rooting for him in his attempt to gain the affection of Ji-Su. Gyung-Min, the child prodigy, was played by Shin Eui-Jae. He was picked for this role because of his real life piano playing talents is quite the child prodigy on keyboards.

The biggest problem with My Piano would be that the film has a very familiar script, with nothing in the way of surprises to break the predictable path of the movie. *Spoiler Alert* The ending of the film was purely bittersweet to me. I was disappointed in the way the film resolved the relationship between the piano teacher and her child prodigy. The question of whats more important for the child; A.) having the proper environment to fully develop their talents or B.) having the proper environment to fully develop their psyche…was answered in a less than satisfactory manner. Sure, the piano teacher was a single female, barely able to make ends meet, and bitter that she never had the oppurtunity to study abroad, but it just seemed to be the wrong decision to send her student away. Even though the final scene showed a grown up Gyung-Min, coming back to Korea to perform a concert, in which he thanked his teacher for supporting him as a child, I thought to myself that he must have carried some heavy psychological scars from the days when his teacher forced him to go away. The message of the film seemed to be, “if you have a child prodigy, regardless of his psychological needs, send him overseas to a prestigious school and he will become successful.”

buy My Piano/For Horowitz from YesAsia.com

Cast:
Jeong-hwa Eom - Kim Ji-su
Yong-woo Park
Eui-Jae Shin - Kyung-min

Hyeon-jeong Ahn - Classic mom
Ah-reum Cha - Ji-su in middle school
Seon-ja Choi
Yun-ah Choi - Second girl
Yun-seon Choi - So-yeong
Hyo-jin Goh - First Anchorperson
Tae-ho Goh - Bo-ram
Shin-hui Hwang - Shin-hui
Seon Jang
In-gi Jeong - Ji-su’s brother
Su-hyeon Jeong - Sixth performer
Su-min Jeong - Su-min
Yu-ri Jeon - Teacher Kim
Myeong-seon Jin - Yu-shik’s mom
Hyeon-gi Jo - Foreign Professor’s adopted son
Mi-ae Jo - Eun-sa
Seok-hyeon Jo - Video room Mr. Park
Hyeon-ju Kang - Teacher Park
Su-jin Kang - Ye-ri
Bo-ra Kim - Min-hui
Eun-yeong Kim - Eun-yeong
Hie-jeong Kim - Major student’s mom
Ho-yeon Kim - Boram’s mom
Hyeon-yeong Kim - Ye-ri’s mom
Jeong-weon Kim - Adolescent Kyeong-min
Jong-min Kim - Taekweondo Mr. Kim
Seung-hyeon Lee - Yu-shik
Ui-seon Lee - Laundromat Mr. Lee
Yeong-hie Lee - Su-ji’s mom
Myeong-geon Mun - Ji-su’s nephew
Hyo-chang Park - Hyo-chang
Yeong-seo Park - Pizza place employee
Yaroslav Pugach - Foreign Professor
Ji-ah Seo - Mi-ra
Ji-hye Shin - Classic Radio DJ
Yeong-wook Shin - Ji-su’s father
Ee-jae Sin - Gyung-min
Ji-sun Woo - Second Anchorperson
Ggot-nim Yang - Ji-su’s sister-in-law
Ye-Ri Yun


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2006 Movie Reviews, Korean Movies, Movie Reviews, Movies |

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