Mar
10
2007
Project Makeover
Posted by luna6 Leave a Comment
Movie : Project Makeover aka Go Go Sister / Eonni-ga ganda / 언니가 간다
Release Date : January 4, 2007
Country : South Korea
Director : Kim Chang-Rae
Starring: So-young Ko, Lee Beom-Su
Runtime : 112 Minutes
Editor Rating : 5.5
Users Rating: 7.67 
(3 votes)
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Plot Synopsis : Plot Synopsis : Jeong-Ju is 30 years old, works in the fashion industry, but only as a low-level assistant, who just can’t seem to get things right. One day she runs into an old high school friend, Tae-Hoon, that had a huge crush on her. Unfortunately, back in high school says she blew him off, thinking he was just too square. As her luck goes, he is now a successful CEO of a tech company. This makes her decision seem even worse, because the guy that Jeong-Ju loved in high school, Joe Hani, was the rebellious type that loved to sing. He also had a thing with the ladies, and soon left Jeong-Ju after they became intimate. She has never gotten over the rejection.
Now, while she lays down in bed and ponders about her life, a magical program appears on her laptop. The program allows her to go back in time and she soon decides to go back to her high school days. She goes to her to old high school and sees herself as a young, wide-eyed, high school student. The adult Jeong-Ju pretends to be “Alice,” a distant cousin from America, that is visiting the teenage Jeung-Ju and her family. Alice is determined to get the young Jeong-Ju interested in Tae-Hoon (the future CEO) and forget about Joe Hani (the womanizer that would ultimately leave her).
Movie Reviews : What would you change about your life if you could go back in time? Faster than you can say “Back To The Future,” Jeung-Ju, the main character in Project Makeover, decides to alter her past history, by persuading her younger teenage self to pick Tae-Hoon (the future CEO) rather than Joe Hani (a guy that would leave her for someone else).
The time traveling element to Project Makeover was fun and did not take itself too seriously. In fact, the movie doesn’t even try to explain the origins of the time traveling software that takes Jeung-Ju back in time. Although the movie will make you smile, the comedy element is not up to the level of something that will have you laughing out loud. The movie is purposefully cute and cheesy (but not overbearing with it), hoping to strike a chord with the nostalgic thirty or something audience that wishes to revisit their teenage days. The story itself starts off as light hearted comedy and gets more interesting when Jeung-Ju goes back in time. The movie did get bogged down when the film turned serious and you knew it would turn serious (this is a K comedy after all). But fortunately the overly melodramatic & disconcerting scenes with Jeong-Ju’s mother was brief. If they would have left out those scenes completely, I would have enjoyed the movie even more.
Praise should go out to the people responsible for casting So-young Ko as the adult Jeong-Ju and An Jo as the teenage Jeong-Ju. They really did look like a younger and older version of each other and performed their parts wonderfully. Although the actors that played the younger and older versions of Tae-hoon and Joe Hani did not resemble each other, their performances were solid nevertheless. I did recognize the guy that played the younger version of Tae-Hoon from the wacky movie known as “Dasepo Naughty Girls.” Speaking of “Project Makeover,” you will see Ji-young Ok in this movie as well (she played the best friend of the adult Jeong-Ju). Ji-young Ok always stands out in my mind because of her performance in “Take Care Of My Cat” as the artistic young girl that lived with her poor grandparents. What was surprising about her appearance in the Project Makeover was the fact that she looked nothing like she did only a few years ago. If it wasn’t for her unique voice (husky with a unique intonation of words) I would have never known it was the same girl in Take Care of My Cat.
With the fun light-weight feel of “Project Makeover,” I was impressed with the intelligent manner in which the film resolved its main dilemma – changing your past to make a better future. Even with all the wisdom that the adult Jeung-Ju possessed about her younger self, Jeung-Ju’s heart ultimately governed her actions. Somewhat as a testament to the strong convictions of teenage love, as well as a testament to the short-sightedness of teenage wisdom, the movie showed that nothing can replace experience as a teacher of wisdom.
If you enjoy Korean romance/comedies and crave one that is fun and never takes itself too serious (except for a few scenes with the mother) then by all means check out Project Makeover. For the folks that thought “Seducing Mr. Perfect” was good, you may have just found your next Citizen Kane.
Some questions to ponder about this film:
“Would Jeong-Ju have been interested in Tae-Hoon if he wasn’t the CEO of Hi-Tech?”
“The younger Jeung-Ju used a basic 386/486 computer, with a dial up modem to log into a text based Bulletin Board system on her Dos or Windows 3.1 computer, yet never says anything to her aunt Alice when she pulls out her 15″ Sony Vaio laptop with Windows XP … back in in the year 1994?”
“How did Joe Hani never remember those lyrics that was given to him by the adult Jeong-Ju?”
Cast:
So-young Ko – Na Jung-ju / Alice
An Jo – Na Jung-ju
Beom-su Lee – Oh Tae-hoon
Geon Yu – Oh Tae-hoonJung-mun Lee – Jo Hani
Dal-su Oh – Jung-ju’s father
Ji-young Ok – Jin Seon-mi
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2007 Movie Reviews, Korean Movies, Movie Reviews, Movies |