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This is where Suk-Young, played by Byung-hun Lee (JSA/A Bittersweet Life), met Jung-In. Jung-In led a difficult life mainly due to her parents defecting to North Korea. She carried that burden with her everywhere she went in the village and tried to please her neighbors as much as possible, to compensate for her parents actions. Suk-Young first noticed Jung-In when she was forced to sing in front of his college friends. He then saw her the next day, reading an adult novel to the older illiterate townspeople, all the while re-wording the more risque passages on the fly. Shortly afterwards they would fall in love.
One of the big problems I found with this film was the choice to have Byung-Hun Lee play himself as a younger college age student. He was obviously in his mid to late 30’s and it was difficult to believe, during the countryside scenes, that he was someone in his early 20’s. This was even more exaggerated because the girl that he was chasing was really in her early 20s. Often, Byung-Hun Lee tried to overcompensate for the age difference by using exaggerated child like mannerisms. During these scenes, I found his character to resemble more of a middle aged man afflicted with autism (can you say Rain Man?), rather than a typical college age kid.
The film felt slow and languished for the first 2/3rd of the film, simply focusing on a relationship that lacked any type of spark. There wasn’t anything particular interesting about Suk-Young and Jung-In’s relationship, beyond watching Byung-hun Lee unintentionally spoof the Rain Man. Fortunately, the movie did pick up big time when Suk-Young took Jung-In back to Seoul. They both got swept away by the police during a student demonstration and are given a Guantanamo Bay style interrogation by the Korean police. Suk-Young is forced into the very difficult decision of turning his back on Jung-In (because of her parent’s defection to North Korea) or ruin his chances for an academic career. These scenes were very good and both main actors were very good here. It’s just too bad the film didn’t start off with these scenes and show their initial courtship in a flashback segment of 10 minutes or so.
P.S. The soundtrack for this movie is awesome. Worth checking out way more than the movie.
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