My Little Bride

My Little Bride (어린 신부 eorin sinbu) revolves around the arranged marriage between a college playboy and a 15-year-old highschooler.

Synopsis: I really can't be bothered in writing up a synopsis on this I'll post Wiki's version of it.

"Boeun (Moon Geun young) is an ordinary high school girl who worries about grades and has a crush on her school's baseball team ace, named Jungwoo. One day, Boeun's grandfather orders her to marry Sangmin (Kim Rae Won). When they were young, during the Korean War, Boeun's and Sangmin's grandfathers had promised that they would become in-laws. Despite the grandchildren's opposition, they are forced to marry because of the strong influence of Boeun's grandfather. Boeun's undercover married life begins: She pretends that she doesn't have a husband and starts dating Jungwoo. Boeun believes that she can manage both men and live a double life. Everything goes smoothly until Sangmin visits Boeun's school as a student teacher."

Casts: Moon Geun Young as Suh Boeun, Kim Rae Won as Park Sang Min

Review: Easily said, it's not the best movie on arranged marriage that I have seen. Although there's potential into making this even better. For starters the last part of the movie is utterly rushed and uncohesive and the characters' relationships aren't explained properly. I really really think the script has a potential as a drama series rather than a 2-hour movie. Other than that the leading casts are great and the story, again, has a great feel and potential it just wasn't executed properly.

Ratings: 2.5/5 stars

He Was Cool

I thought I heard a manga or maybe a novel of the same name so I thought I'll check this one out. Also known as 그 놈은 멋있었다 (Geunomeun meoshiteotda) or The Cool Guy.

Synopsis: Based on a novel written by Guiyeoni. Han Ye-Won is a normal high school student who is sweet and rather clumsy, overall a normal girl. One day she offended Ji Eun-Sung from the vocational school and a known big-time bully. Trying to get away from Eun-Sung and his subordinates catching her in front of her school Ye-Won escaped by climbing and jumping over the school fence. But to her horror when she crash landed she accidentally kissed Ji Eun-Sung. Eun-Sung demanded her to marry him because he has never been kissed and marrying him would be a payback. So Ye-Won was forced to become Eun-Sung's girlfriend. The story eventually became a love triangle with Hyo-Bin who likes Eun-Sung and Hyo-Bin's big brother Han-Sung liking Ye-Won. Will love develop between Ye-Won and Eun-Sung or will they drift apart?

Casts: Jung Da-Bin as Ye-Won, Song Seong-Hun as Ji Eun-Sung, Lee Ki Woo as Kim Han-Sung

Review: Unlike your normal high-school tell-tale love stories this story has an immense amount of violence. I mean, A LOT. Not to mention that some of the fight scenes are pretty intense to watch with lots of blood pouring left, right and center, it was somewhat convincing too. I will not say that I didn't particularly like this movie, although I have a bit of a problem with the editing of the movie. To put it bluntly the first half of the movie seems to flow but when it comes to the second half the movie starts to rush a bit. What actually holds the movie together to flow cohesively seems to be the directions of this movie with lots of consistent cinematography. The characters are quite convincing with Song Seong-Hun being the most convincing, as for Jung Da-Bin's character she seems to reflect back toward her character in the drama she starred in, My 19 Year Old Sister in Law. There are some profound and belly-aching moments especially during one particular scene where I have to constantly stop the movie for a bit until I calmed down. Nonetheless, it wasn't a very light-hearted kind of movie mainly due to the violence, but it is a pretty good teen movie to watch if you ever feel that you want to watch an entertaining piece of drama with violence, tears, humour and drama fixed into a 2-hour long feature.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Post Script: This movie has a fair share of good-looking guys in it with Song Seong-Hun being in the lead :) He looks so innocent but when you see his character fighting and splatting blood everywhere you do take a second guessing.

Marrying the Mafia

I watched this movie based on a relative's recommendation, I think our sense of what's good may be a bit different (not in a bad kind of way).

Synopsis: Dae-Suh woke up one morning to find a girl he had never seen in his life sleeping right next to him, half-naked. To make matters worse none of them know why or how they went on sleep on the same bed with no clothes on. Just to think that's not bad enough Dae-Suh finds out later on that Jin-Kyung (the girl) actually comes from a mafia family who insists Dae-Suh marry Jin-Kyung just because they literally slept together. So how are they going to sort this out?

Casts: Jung Joon-Ho as Park Dae-Suh, Kim Jung-Eun as Jin-Kyung

Review: I don't really know where to start, I don't particularly like how they plot the whole movie, it's cluttered, rushed, and not revealed properly. The movie feels choppy and at times it leaves the viewers guessing as to how each character seems to know what others didn't, the movie seems to favour getting through the story without any bullshits (ehrm). The directions are pretty bad too with many shots not too thought out properly, the characterisations along with the plot doesn't help either because you felt like you're reading into a pile of notes. There are some profound moments within the movie but they didn't save the movie. I didn't particularly hate the movie but I just think that it can be better with such an interesting story too. At times I believe it would've been better if they did it as a mini-series instead of a 2-hour movie. Anyway don't let my review discourage you from viewing it.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Duelist

Also known as 형사 (Hyeong-sa), produced in 2005, and the Korean word actually translated to The Detective but the posters seem to contain the English word already. It was borrowed off a friend (and she said she needs it back soon but I kinda doubt her understanding of soon now). I wasn't too interested in viewing it until tonight when I decided to sit down, take a rest and watch something.

Synopsis: The story is very simple really, the woman is a member of the police whereas the guy is an outlaw. The story begins with the woman, named Nam Soon, and members of the police tailing a group of counter-feiters of money in the act of transaction with another person, but before they could act a man in mask who they presumes is a performer, stops the transaction by killing the counter-feiters, strikes the horse cart, made the counter-feited money scatters on the ground and runs away. But unable to capture the man the investigation continues. And soon Nam Soon and the man (only known as Sad Eyes) meets again and a certain bond develops. But in the end it's really a complicated love story really. Anyway that's all I could afford to say for more information I suggest you go and check out the Wiki's version of the synopsis.

Casts: Kang Dong-Won as Sad Eyes, Ha Ji-Won as Nam Soon, Ahn Seong-Gi as Detective Ahn

Review: As soon as I laid eyes on Kang Dong Won's character's face I melted. For real! I giggled like a little girl so much thank god I was watching it in my own room. But besides that very unreliable review I have to say I quite like the cinematic approach the director, Lee Myeong-se, took with the movie. Like the review in Wiki said it was very impressionistic with "extensive use of slow motion, freeze frames, multiple images, and varying perspectives." The story isn't laid out too well but the weaponry choreography should be taken notice of in this movie. It was choreographed beautifully, I personally like the choreograph of the sword dance by Sad Eyes in front of the Defence Minister and the fight scene between Nam Soon and Sad Eyes. With that aside the film is often not too melodramatic or even violent (so don't expect any sword fighting or extreme violence) there's a bit of quirk, humor and wit; the film is certainly not a reflection of that period in Korea's history it feels more like a modern espionage set in periodical time. I thoroughly enjoy the cinematography of this movie and don't expect too much violence or even much of a story, I think the most important element in this movie is the direction and the overall feeling of the movie, it almost feels like watching a moving painting for me, it was very inspirational I must say.

Ratings: 3/5 stars

Post Script: Maan everytime they did a close-up shot of Kang Dong-Won I seriously melted *sigh* if only I can put that shot in here, I couldn't take a screenshot because it won't let me so I guess you just have to watch the movie yourself. And by all that I meant Kang Dong-Won is sexy in this movie XD oh yeah...

My Sassy Girl

Or otherwise called 엽기적인 그녀 in Korean literally meaning That Bizarre Girl. I have been wanting to watch this movie for sometime but never had the chance to due to my forgetfulness. So in the 2 days that my brain stopped functioning I decided to labour all my will into watching Kdramas for the entire 2 days or I will go insane from the neverend work piling up. Besides from the useless rant I can only say I regretted not watching this movie earlier considering it was released in 2001.

Synopsis: The story is often told in first person by Gyeon Woo, a pathetic college student. It tells the story of the relationship (often violent but funny as!) between Gyeon Woo and the Girl (her name is never revealed throughout the movie). It tells the story into 2 parts of the movie. I guess the only way to describe the movie is to actually just watch it because most of the part consisted of how the met, and how their relationship developed through, often, strange occurences.

Casts: Chae Tae-Hyun, Jun Ji-Hyun

Review: I love this movie! The interaction between the characters are honest and the Girl is just well... cool! I just thought they have one of the most unusual relationship I have ever seen. But the movie is not all about humour and comedy of a relationship but also trying to go through different types of hurdles such as family and uncertainties. Overall, I think this was a great movie and I enjoyed it tremendously, it has a very honest sense of humour and the selfishness of the Girl really doesn't seem so bad but rather funny. I would definitely recommend this. But there was a bit of editorial problems that maybe might have occured just on my version of the movie but understandable regardless.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Additional Information: I never knew this but apparently it was inspired by a true story written on the net by a guy. And also they will be making a western remake of the movie (of which I don't think would succeed as much as the Korean one maybe because of cultural differences but who knows...). Also for more info I found several infos on Wiki so check it out if you want to.

The King and The Clown

One of the best movie I have ever seen. I may not be Korean nor speak the language but the effort that has been poured into the movie is just amazing. The casts are brilliant! It was rather controversial when it was premiered in Korea for its hint into homosexuality, but nonetheless it went on to become box office hit with 1/4 of the population went on into watching it (courtesy: seoulstyle.com)

Synopsis: taken from seoulstyle.com because I'm not particularly familiar with the historical periods of Korea,

"The King and the Clown takes place in the Joseon Dynasty, like so many other generic Korean dramas, but the plot has a very original spin. The story centers on a band of impoverished traveling entertainers. The two main characters Jang-Saeng and Gong-il are lovers. The fact that they are both men should be shocking to Koreans, but Gong-il played by actor Lee Jun-ki is looks so much like a girl; you almost want to believe that he’s female. It’s obvious the two have an amazing bond as they really look out for each other. They decide to go to Hanyang (now Seoul) where they can put on a bigger and better show. There, they find other talented minstrels to join their act.

In order to draw a crowd and make more money, Jang-Seang, the default leader of the troupe, decides to stage a show mocking the King and his favorite concubine Nok-Su. One of the King’s officials gets wind of the show and has the troupe arrested for treason. The official agrees to let them perform for the King with the agreement that if the King enjoys the show, their lives are spared. In fact, the true motive the official has in taking the troupe to the palace is to expose the corruption plaguing the King’s regime.

Enter the tyrannical King who is brilliantly played by actor Jung Jin-Young (This character is based on a real-life king). The king becomes psychologically marred as a result of a childhood trauma when his mother was forced to commit suicide by the royal family. As a grown man, he exhibits the unstable caprices of a spoiled and profoundly wounded boy. However, after seeing the clowns perform, instead of being insulted, the King is so amused that he decides to invite the troupe to become court jesters in the palace. In fact, is seems as if the king himself is a frustrated theater actor who unfortunately just happened to be born into a royal bloodline. Eventually, the King becomes enamored with Gong-il’s talent and androgynous beauty, and this infuriates Jang-Saeng, Nok-su and the ministers."

Casts: Lee Jun-ki, Kam Woo-seong, Jeong Jin-Young

Review: Brilliant! Without the slightest doubt one of my most favourite movie I have ever seen foreign or not! Considering that none of the lead actors are big name actors the movie is very impressive and the actors are just amazing to watch. Whether you are conservative or not towards the matter of homosexuality I think the movie does not hover around the theme too much but rather the storyline. It is a heartfelt movie full of emotions and an amazing plot that does not drag around. I love it without a doubt!

Rating: 5/5 stars

Additional Information: for more information or if you are interested in another review as well as additional information click at [link]

Seducing Mr. Perfect (aka Seducing Mr. Robin)

Do not ask me why there are two titles to the same movie. This was probably one of the very first movie debut for Daniel Henney, one of the most gorgeous Korean (half-Korean that is) man I have ever laid eyes on :)

Synopsis: Min-Joon is a believer of true love, whilst Robin Heiden believes it is a game of power. One fine day Min-Joon bumped her car onto Robin's. Robin insisted (through english) on getting compensations for the damage, assuming Robin knows no korean Min-Joon rude-mouthed to her horror the newly transferred manager of her company, who understands korean though have difficulties in speaking the language. Robin decided to make Min-Joon his assistant because of the incident and thus friendship develops, though at this point Min-Joon is still in love with her boyfriend and cannot let him go even when she saw him with another woman. Desperate to correct her 'faults' she decided to seek love advice from Robin. And I will stop there.

Casts: Uhm Jung-Hwa, Daniel Henney

Review: I cannot say this was one of the best movie I have ever seen, nor can I say it was too bad to be seen. Of course with the slightly cliched storyline doesn't help either to convince me to give it a good rating. I can only say that it is an OK movie. Daniel Henney didn't give out a bad performance he was rather believable as the suave, charming foreign manager, his voice just makes you swoon at times, he has such a rich baritone (if you understand what I mean, I'm not exactly music terminologically savvy). He also took part in an MV with Alex from Clazziquai, with a feature with Uhm Jung-Hwa. One thing that I love about this movie are the songs, it has a jazzy quality to them with great singers, I'd love to find the OST but unfortunately couldn't *sigh* o well maybe next time.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Below is the MV where Daniel sang Kissing Me.

200 Pounds Beauty

One of the most exhiliratingly funny at times and humiliatingly real movie. Truthfully I'm a sucker for all rags to riches themed storylines, but not on how a poor person suddenly become rich, just someone who is emotionally lost found their place to be. And this can be considered as one of those movies.

Synopsis: It's a Korean movie revolving around Kang Hanna, an (artifical-looking) obese young woman who has an amazing voice and found herself a job as a singer, in voice only. She became the singing voice of Ammy, a popular korean singer that found fame through Hanna's amazing voice. Hanna is an honest, warm-hearted although naive girl who fall in love with Ammy's (and consequently Hanna's) music producer, Sang-Jun, but one day she was humiliated by Ammy on Sang-Jun's birthday. (a part of the synopsis is stopped here due to my fear of spoiling the plot) And thus Hanna's determination to get a plastic surgery makeover. And thus the new person, Jenny was born. Through the makeover she learnt of what she gained and lost, she experienced inexpressible joy and indescribable pain. The movie follows one big-hearted girl's emotional journey through the fear, joy and pain of gaining a new physical body and yet her inability to lie to herself on who she truly is.

Casts: Kim Ah-Joong, Joo Jin-Mo

Review: As I have said up there *points up* I quite like this movie, I squirm with delight when Hanna was being Hanna and hide in embarassment when things started to go wrong for her. The light-heartedness of the movie came with modest humility through the casts, especially Kim Ah-Joong's performance, she was a delight to watch, and her singing voice was just amazing to listen to (check out her MV for Maria, notice the voice). Somehow I have a feeling I was cheated from the movie because I didn't recognise some scenes in the MV, they must've edited it or something. But besides that it is a feel good movie that you should watch when the rain's pouring outside with a warm hot cocoa sitting on a huge sofa :)

Rating: 4/5 stars

And below is the MV just for your convenience.



Enjoy!