Finding Mr. Destiny (aka Looking For Mr. Kim Jong Wook) (2010)

Seo Ji Woo is a disheveled theater director who can't seem to forget her first love, a man she can barely remember.  Her father, whose lifelong priority is to see Ji Woo get married, drags her by the ear (figuratively) into the office of a company that specializes in tracking down first loves.  The man who runs this company, Han Gi Joon, is a fastidious man whose number one focus in life is cleanliness and order.  After some cajoling from her father, Ji Woo finally agrees to let Gi Joon try and find her first love.  There's only one problem: she can only remember his name.  Kim Jong Wook.  Throughout the process, Ji Woo insists Gi Joon should not continue with the search, as she really is not interested in finding her first love.  But being who he is, Gi Joon in turn insists that he must complete the task, since she is his first client and it is important that he finish what he was hired to do.

I love this movie.  I know I say something like this every week, but who cares?  I have a lot of movies I love.  There are a few problems with this movie, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  First, let's see the cast.

• Im Soo Jung as Seo Ji Woo
• Gong Yoo as Han Gi Joon
• Lee Chung Ah as Seo Ji Hye (Ji Woo's sister)
• Chun Ho Jin as Colonel Seo Dae Ryung (Ji Woo's father)

All right, I know I've done this before, and it is mildly annoying, but it's my review, so I'll do it if I feel it's necessary.  I'm sure it's pretty obvious that there are far more than four actors in this movie; however, for the sake of the review and the fact that most of the remaining side characters are either comic relief or barely in the movie to begin with, I'm only going to talk about the two leads (which will get a little complicated in a minute, but you'll see that when we get there) and two particular side characters.

The first of the two leads I'm going to call out is Seo Ji Woo, played by Im Soo Jung.  This woman is a pretty good actress, in my opinion.  Seo Ji Woo is kind of a difficult character to play.  She lives a high stress life working with difficult people and dealing with flak from many different sides.  There are scenes when Ji Woo must be tough without being abrasive, but still she is the main focus of the romance in this movie, so she needs to be subtle as well.  Soo Jung is great at both sides of this coin, but particularly in pulling off the subtle part.  The romance in this movie isn't overly sappy at all, and I think we have Soo Jung to thank in part for that.  Great performance overall.

Now the next lead I want to discuss (I'll try to keep the fangirling to a minimum) is Han Gi Joon, played by Gong Yoo.  This is another one of those actors that I've decided that I must watch everything he's been in.  Not only is he a fantastic actor, but he's very good-looking as well (as he should be).  As to this particular character, he's playing a very goofy and dorky character who over-prepares for everything and is totally obsessed with order and cleanliness.  That coupled with the natural charm he embodies practically everywhere makes for a wonderfully adorkable character.

This leads me to the complicated piece of things I was alluding to earlier.  Gong Yoo actually plays two characters in this movie, which was (I believe) a very smart and clever move on the part of the director (and whoever else had a hand in that decision).  He plays the Kim Jong Wook character in Ji Woo's flashbacks, which tell the story of how she met and fell for him originally ten years earlier (this isn't really a spoiler; the fact that Gong Yoo plays Kim Jong Wook in Ji Woo's flashbacks really has nothing to do with how the plot plays out; I just think it's worth mentioning...that and Gong Yoo looks pretty good with a mustache).

The only other characters that I shall mention at all are Ji Woo's sister, Seo Ji Hye, and father, Colonel Seo Dae Ryung, played by Lee Chung Ah and Chun Ho Jin respectively.  I mention them because Ji Woo's father is the driving force of this movie to a large extent, and because Ji Hye is wonderful comic relief when the tension gets too high in the story.  The acting from both of these two was at least believable and I give them credit for breathing life into these two rather interesting characters.

Now, on to the writing.  The writing in this movie is good in one sense, and not so good in another.  I'll explain.  The dialogue is great.  It doesn't feel campy or overly deliberate (as some films like this one have been before) and when the characters speak it really feels like they mean what they're saying (in other words, they sound like real people...for the most part).  The romance is also well written.  There is a lot of subtlety in this story and I like that (I think I'm not the only one).  The slow and subtle (yes, I like that word) process of change that the characters go through throughout the movie is quite well paced and well planned out.  The other thing that I think is well written is the comedy aspect of this movie.  The moments of comedic goofiness that pop up from time to time don't feel forced or thrown in your face (too much; there are a couple that could've been planned better).  For the most part the goofy moments are placed in just the right spots to make the audience lighten up a little (I mean, after all, this ain't a sad movie...for once).

There are a couple of things that definitely could have been done better though.  For one thing, there are a few moments when something important happens and it's definitely not explained as much or as clearly as it should be.  There are times when the audience is left to assume too much, and that can lead to confusion and a required rewatching of the movie to understand what really happened (mind you, since I do love this movie, I didn't mind watching it again...and again...and again).  I do believe there is a time and a place when leaving certain pieces of information up to the audience to figure out is a good thing, but there is a line that must not be crossed, and this movie crossed it.  On a side note, there's also a scene right at the beginning of the movie that I still haven't figured out what its significance is...and I've seen this movie nine or ten times.

The other less important thing that could've been done a little better is the pacing.  This movie is S L O W.  It takes a good third of the movie to really get the story going, and once it is going it really takes its time.  The plot points are spaced out REALLY far, at least until the final quarter of the movie.  I think with all the subtlety in this movie, it was probably a good idea to keep the story slow for the sake of not making things feel rushed, but this is a two-hour movie, and I think it could easily have been cut down to an hour and a half (that's just me...I know nothing about film technique).

As far as warnings go, I don't think there's anything really of note in this movie that would make anybody uncomfortable.  There's no sex (surprising for a Korean movie, I know) and there's no swearing that I remember.  All in all, it's pretty G-rated.

On the flipside, this movie is kind of just a really well-made romance comedy.  It's a chick flick, basically.  But I don't mean that in a bad way.  Even with all the subtlety in the story and all of the depth of character that is achieved so well in this movie, it's a chick flick.  It's a feel-good movie.  However, if I had to settle on something of a message, it would be that making peace with the past and moving on is a crucial part of life and that if you never complete anything in your life you will never truly live.

Overall, as I've already said, I love this movie.  This movie is in my top five favorite Asian movies of all time.  Despite the fact that it does have a few problems, the story is really unique and well told, and the characters are really interesting and totally likable (in some cases lovable).  With all that being said, make sure you understand that this is, in all honesty, a chick flick.  If you are not the kind of person that enjoys a good rom-com or the occasional very girly movie, you probably won't enjoy this as much as I did and still do.  But hey, not everyone likes the same things.  If they did, the world would be boring.  So with that, I say go check out this movie.  It's really worth watching, if only for the eye-candy involved (Gong Yoo!!).

Down with Love (2010)

A/N: So here's how this is gonna work.  When I do a review of a drama, I will evaluate it on a number of criteria that I deem important to the success of a story.  These criteria will include: actors/acting quality; story quality; content of particular note (again, depending on the drama); and my overall rating of the drama.  Rest assured I will never straight up spoil a drama.  I know how annoying spoilers are and I know how much I want to strangle people that insist on spoiling things for me.  That being said, let's dive right in.

Xiang Yu Ping is a big shot lawyer with a seemingly wonderful life: he's got a great job running his own law firm and he almost never loses a case.  His only problem seems to be his kids - or rather, his brother's kids, Yu Fei and Yu Ting.  They are troublemakers, so much so that nearly every nanny Yu Ping has ever hired has either quit or been sent to the hospital - and those that survive the kids always seem to fall in love with Yu Ping.  Finally, after running out of nannies he can hire, Yu Ping asks his secretary, a hardworking exceedingly money-conscious woman named Yang Duo, to find him a nanny that can both survive the kids and not fall in love with him.  After much deliberation Yang Duo ropes her sister, the goofy simple-minded Yang Guo, into taking the job.  Yu Ping agrees only after the false assertion has been made that there's no way Yang Guo could fall for him: she's a lesbian!

The acting in this drama is absolutely wonderful.  First off, you've got the main cast:

• Jerry Yan as Xiang Yu Ping
• Ella Chen as Yang Guo
• Michael Zhang as Qi Ke Zhong (Yu Ping's best friend)
• Chen Zi Han as Ding Hui Fan (Yu Ping's girlfriend of seven years)

And the more major supporting cast:

• Kelly Huang as Yang Duo
• Ji Xin Ling as Xiang Yu Fei
• Xiao Xiao Bin as Xiang Yu Ting
• Amanda Chou as Xu Yan Ling (Yang Guo's best friend)

All of these people did a fantastic job playing their roles for the most part.  Jerry Yan did an excellent job of making Yu Ping come off as heartless in the beginning, but as he softens toward Yang Guo, Jerry comes across with just enough awkwardness and goofiness to make the character lovable.  On a side note, it is so funny watching Jerry Yan, who can be so very intimidating (and downright sexy) at times, getting nervous and having to psych himself up just to call Yang Guo and ask her to go with him to the airport (that really happens, no joke; it's hilarious).

Ella Chen also does a wonderful job of making Yang Guo that perfect mix of likable, goofy, heartwarming, and just the tiniest bit dense.  She's not stupid really; just a bit naive about certain things.  Though she can be a bit annoying at times, it's only very briefly that this happens and she always ends up coming back around to being completely lovable by the end of the episode.

Next, we have Michael Zhang.  Qi Ke Zhong is not a character I remember with fondness (because [spoilers]), but I do remember some things about his performance that really impressed me.  There are times in the drama where he has to come off as being despicable (again, because [spoilers]), yet we as the audience still can see that he's not really a bad guy.  He's just doing horrible things because he's in love with the wrong person and he's willing to do anything to please her.  There are times where we have to see that his conscience is twisting inside him and making him feel increasingly bad about what he's doing, and Michael Zhang does an excellent job at that.

Now we come to the person I do not look forward to discussing.  I hate, hate, HATE Hui Fan with everything in me.  She is the most annoying, clingy, desperate, emotionally dependent woman I have ever seen, in a drama or otherwise.  Still, there are some things I suppose I should mention.  The actress playing Miss I-Don't-Know-What-I-Want-But-Give-It-To-Me-Anyway is Chen Zi Han.  I don't know much about this actress, but I do know that she's good at portraying a character the audience loves to hate.  Yes, at times her performance seems pretty over-the-top, sometimes even approaching soap opera levels of dramatic-ness (that's NOT a good thing), but I really think that's pretty on par with what the character is supposed to be.  She's supposed to annoy the Dickens out of the audience - and she does just that.

There are a few other performances that merit some attention.  Most notable is Kelly Huang as Yang Duo, a woman who is so ridiculously concerned with saving money that she steals condiment packets from a corner market (I'm not kidding).  Kelly Huang does a wonderful job of making Yang Duo's character a very tough woman on the outside, but she has her vulnerable moments too.  The best part of that is it's not too hammy.  Next is Amanda Chou as Yan Ling, Yang Guo's slightly air-headed "romantically inclined" best friend.  Yan Ling can be rather annoying, but she is cute and she acts the part of best friend/shoulder-to-cry-on very well.  She does manage to get some pretty good comic relief lines throughout the drama as well.

But, of course, I can't write a review of this drama without mentioning the little devils themselves, Yu Fei and Yu Ting.  Yu Fei is played by Ji Xin Ling and I don't know how old she was in real life when she did this, but she's supposed to be around ten in this story and she definitely acts like a ten-year-old.  Take that for what you will.  Yu Ting on the other hand is the cutest thing on two legs.  He's played by child star Xiao Xiao Bin, who is the go-to kid for child roles in dramas.  Once again, I don't know for sure how old he was when he did this, but he's supposed to be four-ish in the drama and he does a pretty good job for being so young.  His role, aside from causing trouble, is mostly that of eliciting a whole chorus of "Awwwww"s from the audience.

But enough about that.  What about the writing?  In my opinion, this story was very well-written.  I don't claim to be the best judge of story quality in the world, but I do know a thing or two about good writing versus crappy writing, and this definitely falls under the former.  The pacing is really good except for a couple of minor issues that come up in later episodes.  The dialogue is well-written, bringing just the right amount of goofiness into the mix along with the heartwarming (or heart-wrenching, depending on the scene).

But by far what blows me away the most about the writing in this drama is the way the characters all figure together in what transpires throughout the story.  Believe you me, I have attempted time and time again to write something along this line of storytelling and I can tell you, it is SO much harder than it looks.  The fact that it all flows together so smoothly along with incorporating some trademark Taiwanese silliness into it all just amazes me.

Now comes the part where I warn you.  There is only one thing in this drama that I feel I must mention before I recommend this to people.  There is quite a lot of talk about homosexuality in this drama.  It's pretty well contained to the first half, but still, there is quite a bit of it.  Now, my personal opinion about this sort of thing has no bearing on the situation; therefore I shall not state my opinion.  I just feel I should state this right up front before the recommendations and closing comments (we're getting there, I promise).

On the upside, however, this drama does have a strong emphasis on family relationships, as well as being able to press through hardship and come out on the other side.  There's also a more subtle focus on being who you are and not changing because someone else says you should.  This story has a big heart behind it, and I definitely see that coming through the screen.

So, final comments.  I just have to say one thing: I love this drama so much.  I recommend it to just about anybody.  It's so cute and goofy; the characters are wonderfully written and well-played; the story is excellent; and above all, this story definitely has heart to it.  If any of that sounds like your cup of tea (heck, even if it doesn't), go watch this drama.  You won't be disappointed.