“Virgin Snow” is a movie that I had high hopes for. The pairing of Japanese actress Aoi Miyazaki (Nana) and South Korean actor Jun-Ki Lee (The King and The Clown) was obviously the main drawing card for the film. The movie also takes place in picturesque Kyoto and Seoul. That was enough right there to get me seriously intrigued by the film. There was also no doubt that the movie would be a romantic film in the “pure love” genre.

virginsnow-main.jpgSo a few minutes into the movie I knew “Virgin Snow” wouldn’t be a classic and thought to myself, “OK, just lower your expectations and enjoy the movie for what it is.” Jun-Ki Lee, plays Kim Min, a South Korean high school student that moved with his dad to Kyoto (his dad is a pottery maker). Kim Min rides his bicycle around Kyoto and crashes his bike in front of a Buddhist temple. He limps over to a nearby water fountain to clean his wounds, when Nanae (Aoi Miyzaki) walks by. Their eyes meet, sparks start to fly and we have the beginnings of “Virgin Snow.”

When Kim Min enrolls at the local high school, Nanae just so happens to attend the same school. It seems fate is already working its magic. Kim Min does everything he can to charm Nanae and it works.

They do encounter the expected language barriers, but with a little bit of Japanese, a little bit of Korean, some broken English and a whole lot of hand gestures they seem to understand each other just fine. They become close enough that they make a pact to meet in Seoul on the first day of snowfall to walk along a mythical street. Unfortunately Nanae’s difficult home life derails their plans. After Nanae’s father passed away, her mom has been mired in depression and has taken to booze for solace. She eventually picks up a new man, who turns out to be a violent drunk.

Between the two popular main leads, Jun-ki Lee seemed to come up on the shorter end of the stick. From the beginning, he seemed too old to play a high school kid and all the excessive makeup that he wore couldn’t hide this fact. On the other hand, Aoi Miyzaki wasn’t required to do as much, just give a graceful smile most of the time, which she did in an appealing way. Unfortunately everything else about the movie was mired in ultra gooey sweet muck and it got thicker with each passing moment.

Like a tacky Christmas card, or a karaoke video, or a big glob of cotton candy, “Virgin Snow” attacks your senses from the beginning with pure sentimental sweetness. The story unfolds in a methodical paint by the numbers manner, with nothing but the bare minimum given in character development. There was never any doubt that Kim Min and Nanae would be together at the end of the movie, but the more intriguing question would be … “can you stay awake to see it happen?”