★ 5 / 10
You know, at the very least, for what
jesse o
You know, at the very least, for what comes across as a fairly straightforward and goofy South Korean rom-com, this doesn't end exactly the way one would've…
You know, at the very least, for what comes across as a fairly straightforward and goofy South Korean rom-com, this doesn't end exactly the way one would've imagined. And that's not necessarily a good thing, at least in this case. While I do appreciate the film, at the very least, attempting to be a little more ambitious with its story and its approach to it, the fact of the matter is that the 'twist' leads to the film becoming far more generic than it actually was during the rom-com parts of it. I'll just come right out and say it, so if you don't want SPOILERS then just don't read the review, because it's impossible to review this movie without discussing this, at least for me,. I'll say, if I remember at least, when the spoilers end. Our main character, Eun, has had bad luck with her past 6 relationships. So when she meets her seventh boyfriend, the one focused on in this flick, things seem perfect at first. He's a little clumsy at first, but, eventually, they start falling in love. Eventually Eun discovers a text message that leads her to believe that another boyfriend is cheating on her. This leads her on a journey to find out the truth behind this text message, bringing her cop best friend and her marine brother along to help. This is where the film is at its best. Sometimes when I say that in these South Korean rom-coms, it's more of a 'well, it's better than the alternative', which is the melodrama that you often find in them. But I'm being completely honest here, I found the entire mystery as to what this guy was up to, whether he's cheating or not, to be legitimately entertaining. And I found it entertaining because it is completely unlike every rom-com I've seen from South Korea, at least some of the more mainstream ones, in that it embraces a complete absurdist tone. Like it's so fucking goofy, like legit goofy, and not how these movies normally play out, where it's more cutesy and not particularly effective. There were some scenes in this that actually made me laugh. So, yea, I would say that I was definitely surprised by its approach. Not that I had a preconceived idea of what I was gonna get, but when you've seen as many of these films as I have, they all, unless they're actually really fucking good, start to blend together. You can't tell them apart. And this is, in some small part, what I wanted from the genre. Someone to just do something different than the norm. And I'm not saying this is like Cabin in the Woods for South Korean rom-coms, but it's still something different, and enjoyable, than what we normally get. So I applaud that. The problem comes in when Eun finally finds out that her new boyfriend is, actually, a serial killer. There's not a problem with that in and of itself, it's the complete and utter tonal shift that just destroys the movie. And, really, it's not even that. It's the fact that the 'horror/suspense' elements of the film are so goddamn generic. Because the tonal shift can be explained away by saying that there are married couples that have been together for decades and, say, the husband ends up being the serial killer. Richard 'The Iceman' Kuklinski kept his criminal lifestyle from his family for years. But, to that, I say that Audition, a horror masterpiece from Takashi Miike, was framed exactly like this movie. Maybe not necessarily a rom-com, but it was romance story for the most part and horror for its third act and yet the horror wasn't completely tonally opposite to the rest of the film. Because they may not have explicitly said so, but there was clearly something off that you knew was gonna keep building up and building up until it all, figuratively, exploded. This movie isn't like that, I mean the poster, I saw this on Amazon, does kind of give it away though, but I figured it was meant to be more comedic. But, again, that's not even necessarily the problem. Like I mentioned earlier, when Eun is kidnapped by her boyfriend and kept hostage at his house/torture chamber/whatever, it just becomes every suspense movie you've ever seen. She's held hostage, she has to escape his clutches by fighting back and be saved by her friend and brother. It's, honestly, really fucking boring. It detracts more than it actually benefits. They were trying to be Audition without actually understanding what made it so great. I'm not saying that they were inspired by Audition, but that's how it came across to me. In spite of all the good faith it built up with its embrace of absurdity, it throws all that away in the third act. This is still an average movie, at best, but it really should've been so much better than it actually was. This ends up being more of a disappointment than anything else. I'd recommend watching it until Eun finds out that her fiancee is a serial killer. Shut it off after that or just prior to that, you'll know the point since they showed it at the beginning before coming back to it later. You'll be disappointed if you stick around after that point, trust me.
Read full review
80%
AUDIENCE
6.3/10
188
