Windstruck

The film stars Jun Ji-hyun as Officer Yeo Kyung-jin, an ambitious young female police officer serving on the Seoul police department. One day while chasing a purse snatcher, she accidentally captures Go Myung-woo (played by Jang Hyuk), a physics teacher at an all-girls school, who was actually trying to catch the thief. Later, Myung-woo discovers the stolen purse, but just as he picks it up, Kyung-jin spots him and tries to arrest him again. Kyung-jin is then given the job of escorting Myung-woo through a dangerous district, only to be distracted when she tries to break up a meeting between Russian Mafia and Korean gangsters. With Myung-woo handcuffed to her, Kyung-jin almost single-handedly brings down the two rival gangs (although she is helped when she accidentally causes the groups to start shooting at each other).

The first half of the film, told from Myung-woo's point of view, details the couple's growing attraction and love for each other, which climaxes with a trip to the countryside where Myung-woo tells Kyung-jin that if he were ever to die, he wanted to come back to earth as the wind. Soon after, he is almost killed in a freak automobile accident, but Kyung-jin saves his life.

The film takes a turn into the fantasy genre in its second half after Myung-woo is accidentally shot and killed by another officer (although the situation is such that Kyung-jin thinks that it was her shot that killed him) as Kyung-jin chases after a criminal. Kyung-jin falls into a suicidal depression over his death and attempts to kill herself several times, almost succeeding when she throws herself off a building, only to be saved when a giant balloon floats under her. Soon after, she experiences visitations from Myung-woo, who appears as the wind, sending her messages and, at one point, he even appears in her dreams in order to give her the will to live after she is nearly shot to death by a criminal.

Ultimately the film follows a similar path set out by the American film Ghost with Myung-woo and Kyung-jin communicating and sharing one final gesture of love before he moves on to the afterlife. Myung-woo said that he will whisper, when she hears him whisper in the wind, she will meet someone with a soul like him. Myung-woo told Kyung-jin that he will always be beside her inside a book with a photo left by Myung-woo in the restaurant before he rushed to meet Kyung-jin who was chasing the insane criminal.

In the first half of the film, Myung-woo told that his only memory of high school was his high school trip. The book and the photo is found and returned to Kyung-jin in the police station. The photo showed that on Myung-woo's trip, Kyung-jin was nearby. This proved Myung-woo's "I'm always beside you" was true to Kyung-jin. Kyung-jin rushed out to locate the finder of the book, ultimately ending up in the train station, where she is saved by Cha Tae-hyun's character (credited as The Guy). Myung-woo whispered that The Guy is the one with the soul like him. Kyung-jin whispers that "he is always beside her."

My Little Bride

My Little Bride is such a sweet, little film that gets the credit for my present addiction towards Kdramas. It was a huge hit and is one of the most watched movies by the Non-Korean audience. I love it and it fills me with exuberance every time I watch it!!

Kim Rae Won is a wannabe playboy, fresh out from college and Moon Geun Young is still in high school. Both of them are best friends since childhood. They are forced to get married due to family pressure and then starts their journey towards dealing with this new relation between them and realizing the love they always had but were oblivious towards it. Also, our heroine hides this thing from her school mates, which make the things more interesting for us. And yeah, she even has a crush on one of the boys there.

The movie is cute beyond words and the age gap between the leads never looks weird and of course it’s not very large. Together, Kim Rae Won and Moon Geun Young set off such sparks, that the strength of their chemistry alone is enough to make you love this film. The movie is full of many romantic and cute moments. All the characters make you feel warm. I cannot say much about the music, but I liked the song that is played in the end credits. Marriage of convenience is one of my darling topics and this film shows it beautifully. The day to day life of the persons, who never treated each other romantically but now live under the same roof, is filmed with much detailing and good pace. The movie binds you with its simple charm, its immensely likeable characters, and the intrinsic humor in the writing. The direction is really good.

My Little Bride has a lot of heart and the emotional part is attached with the script naturally and effectively. You feel with the characters.

Kim Rae Won is amazing in this role, perfectly balancing the immature, childlike behavior and the mature husband part. He is the kind of actor, the more you see him, the more you like him. He has a lot of warmth attached to his acting. Moon Geun Young is brilliant in this role, showing the cuteness and dilemma of getting married so early. They both share an adorable camaraderie. Rest of the supporting cast perfectly compliments the leads.

It’s a movie that wins you with its sweet, heartwarmng moments that will surely bring a smile to your face. I felt disappointed when the film ended as I wanted it to go on forever….

A Moment to Remember

*Attention! Spoilers*
Kim Su-jin (Son Ye-jin), a gorgeous, young woman is stood up by her lover (Baek Jong-hak), who was supposed to pick her up at the station. Heartbroken and tired, she walks into a random convenience store, buys a coke and decides to walk home. A couple seconds after she leaves the store, she realizes that she forgot her coke inside the store. At the door she meets a handsome, rugged young man (Jung Woo-sung) holding a coke in his hand. She just assumes it’s hers. He opens the can. She takes the soda from him, chugs it down her throat and burps in his face: It’s the beginning of a beautiful love story.

A Moment to Remember (original title: 내 머리 속의 지우개, romanized: Nae Meorisogui Jiugae, which literally means: “Eraser in my head”) is a sappy South Korean melodrama, about a 27-year-old woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It’s an incredibly sad and tender story, that made me tear up quite a bit, to the point where I even had to pause it, because I couldn’t read the subtitles anymore. I rarely go for this type of films, but for some strange reason I was in the mood to watch this yesterday, knowing full and well that I would probably cry like a baby. The whole film is designed to make you weep, and guess what: It works.

The first act of the film is all about setting up the perfect romantic scenery: Girl meets boy, they fall in love, everything is perfect. In the second act you start to see how Su-jin’s condition starts to progressively get worse. The first stages of Alzheimer’s are played for laughs and make the character of Su-jin seem even cuter and more adorable than she already is, but then, as the disease gets worse it’s just one sad scene after the other. Why is it so sad though? Does the film work as a melodrama? What make this such an emotional roller coaster? What does the film have to say about memory loss? And why all the glaring product placement?

Son Ye-jin gives a solid performance as Kim Su-jin, the female lead of the film. It’s unlike any other performance I’ve seen in a Korean film, which kind of makes sense, because I haven’t seen any other Korean films about Alzheimer’s. From the start she is incredibly sweet, delicate and innocent, possibly a bit naive and definitely always with her head in the clouds. She’s rarely focussed, but she’s always spontaneous and kind and as a male viewer I have to say that I easily fell for her. Whether a girl like this exists or not is another question, but in the reality of the film she made perfect sense.

On the other hand you have Jung Woo-sung, playing the male protagonist: Choi Chul-soo. You could say he’s the polar opposite of Sun-jin. He’s kind of a brutish and violent man with a temper. He doesn’t care about his physical appearance that much, which makes their romance a sort of Beauty and the Beast story. Of course though, he has a good heart and all his rage and hate comes from a difficult childhood. He’s not as successful or rich as Su-jin, but he’s a smart, intelligent man. Chul-soo is ambitious and dreams of becoming an architect, so he’s also a bit of an artist. In short: The perfect man.

By establishing these archetypal (not to say cliché) characters, the film immediately sets up what you can expect from it. And if its premise wasn’t heartbreaking or devastating enough for you: The over-dramatic and melancholic soundtrack and score should do the trick. I wasn’t a fan of the Spanish-language music used, but I was happy to hear an Italian song. What I found interesting about A Moment to Remember is that while many scenes feel cliché a lot of the couple’s relationship “milestones” they could have played-up were actually only shown in passing (first kiss, marriage, first time etc.).

There might not be a whole lot going on visually in this film, aside from some annoying cinematography, where they basically painted a purple sky, but there’s one shot I truly loved. As a fan of extreme close-ups, there was one scene where the couple is lying on the floor in Chul-soo’s apartment. The whole screen is just filled with the actors’ faces and you can hear them breathing. I think it’s perfect, because it doesn’t only show how close the two are to each other, but it also brings us, the audience, closer to them and to what they’re feeling and experiencing.

As the film progresses and dwells deeper into the disease, I appreciated how it dealt with memory loss. Granted, it doesn’t show you anything ugly or truly problematic, aside from the young woman progressively forgetting everything. However some great drama comes from that, when she confuses her husband with her ex-lover. A truly devastating scene is when she calls him with her ex’s name and tells him that she loves him. The memory loss aspect is also used to make a comment on how we build everything on our memory (our persona and personality, our relationships etc.). What are we without our memory?

To quote the film: “When a memory is gone, so is the soul, they say”. There are more great lines like this one, that border on cheesiness, but are interesting, because they’re based on Korean folklore and wisdom. So maybe to a Korean viewer they’re horrid clichés, but to a rather inexpert European viewer, such as myself, they still hold some insights (if nothing else cultural ones). Another very Korean thing about this film was the product placement. You normally wouldn’t expect it in a drama, but from what I know Korean people are extremely brand aware and so it makes sense here. I just found it a bit “exotic”.

Towards the end the film gets a little too cocky and even attempts a happy ending, like a riding off into the sunset type of thing. For real. I couldn’t believe my eyes. That was a bit to much. I liked how they showed that Sun-jin remembers that one special moment when she meets Chul-soo. It was sweet, romantic and touching and everything they wanted it to be. It was perfect. I know you don’t want to leave your viewers with a sad image, but unfortunately, they don’t live happily ever after. It only gets worse. I appreciate the film for fully committing and embracing its melodramatic nature, but again, that was a bit too much.

All in all, I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed A Moment to Remember. I think if you like South Korean dramas, you’ll love this one. Also, and not that they’re my cup of tea, but I was reminded a bit of Nicholas Sparks‘ work, so if you enjoy his books (or the films they’ve made base on them), I’m pretty sure you’ll love this one. Other than that if you’re a bit like me, a little curious and want to see what a South Korean melodrama looks like: This is one of the most recommended and highly rated of its sub-genre. I certainly recommend checking out this film, just make sure you’re in the right mood for it.