I recently saw a Korean movie "My wife got married" which somehow suggests a scenerio for a happy ending in Jo Hyun-Jae's "Sunshine".
The movie title is a paradox in itself. "My wife" is the woman a man is married to. How can his wife "get married"? Well, she does (in the movie.) Son Ye-Jin plays an attractive young woman In-Ah, perfectly normal on the outside, but harbouring abnormal desires in her heart. She is a free spirit and a great football (soccer) fan, and she evaluates her relationships with men in football terms.
The very average-looking actor Kim Joo-Hyuk who plays her boyfriend Deok-Hoon looks familiar, but I'm not able to place him until halfway through the movie. Kim Joo-Hyuk is the lead actor in "Lovers in Prague". Having been spoilt by our Mr. Jo, I find actors with small eyes unappealing. But what I find it hard to stomach is this man (and a policeman at that) crying like a baby to his lover (whom he thinks he is about to lose): "I can't live without you!" (more than once!) Come on, men don't cry. (unless you can cry as beautifully as Andrea.)
To go back to "My wife got maried", the Son Ye-Jin character In-Ah is not ready to settle down, but she agrees to marry Kim after he agrees not to interfere with her "night" life. (She goes out "drinking" every night, sometimes not returning home till the wee hours.) And then her work takes her somewhere else, so that she can only return home on weekends. You can guess what happens next, right? She meets somebody else? Right! She wants a divorce? Wrong! She wants to marry this other man WITHOUT divorcing her husband. She wants to be married to TWO men! She says in some African tribes women have multiple mates. Her husband says in anguish (and I pity Kim here, but not in "Lovers in Prague"): "Why do you have to tell me? Why don't you just have an affair behind my back?" Her answer: "I don't want to lie to you."
She does marry the other man who is played by Joo Sang-Wook (the 5th man, the rich guy, in "3 Dads/1 Mom".) And then she has a baby girl -- who's the father? Echoes of "3 Dads/1 Mom". And the baby has a first birthday party (actually two birthday parties, with each Dad and family) -- nowhere near as moving as that of Ha Seon in "3 Dads/1 Mom". There's a big row, and mother and daughter disappear (again echoes of "3 Dads/1 Mom".) The ending is a fantasy reunion of all four of them -- mother, daughter, and the two fathers -- caught up in football mania in Spain (watching Real Madrid, I think.)
This reminds me of the ending of "Sunshine" -- Yeon Woo, Eun Sup, Min Ho, and Yeon Woo's younger sister frolicking on the beach -- one big happy family. If it works for "My wife got married", why not for "Sunshine"? Threesome seems to be the latest craze in Korean movies. The female protagonist in "The Naked Kitchen" also wants BOTH her husband and her lover. (Please see our 6/19/09 post "Random Thoughts".)
The ending of "Sunshine" casts a shadow over a drama that is otherwise light and airy. Yeon Woo cannot marry Eun Sup because his father kills her father (even though it transpires he's not the real murderer.) She cannot reject Min Ho because she does not want to hurt him. Notice love doesn't enter the equation: she loves Eun Sup but not Min Ho (not the way a woman loves a man anyway.) So "Sunshine" has an open ending -- the drama deliberately avoids solving this problem of the eternal triangle. I have one solution, though: let Eun Sup pair up with Yeon Woo's kid sister who has said when she grows up, she'll marry him. She knows a good man when she sees one. She's quite precocious; she'll be a grown woman in no time.
Korean TV dramas are usually very conservative and demure where relationships between the sexes are concerned. But Korean movies can be pretty avant-garde in both theme (as in these two movies mentioned here) and execution -- there are quite a few steamy sex scenes in "My wife got married."
Son Ye-Jin won several awards for her performance in this movie:
2009 45th Baeksang Arts Awards: Best Leading Actress
2008 29th Blue Dragon Film Awards:
1. Best Leading Actress
2. Most Popular Actress
3. Best On-screen Couple (with Kim Joo-Hyuk)
Her 2003 movie "The Classic" is one of my favourite Korean movies. She is the actress that I would like to star in JHJ's comeback drama in late 2010 (after his discharge from the army.) Even though she is also in "Great Ambition" (Dae Mang), I don't remember JHJ and her in any scene together. I think they will make a great couple and generate good chemistry.
actually, JHJ and SYJ were in a scene together in Daemang. it was when JHJ was told that his father the King is dead. the kind merchant informed JHJ that CP's grandmother released an order telling the CP to return to the palace because he is suspected of poisoning his own father and SYJ's character analyzed the bad situation the CP is in. in the end telling the CP that if he returns to the palace the citizens might end up mourning the death of not just the King but the CP as well. the CP reacted to that scenario and SYJ's character apologized to the CP.
ReplyDeleteSYJ is my #1 fave korean actress (#2 is the lead actress in My Name is Kim Sam Soon). i started liking her when i saw her in Daemang. She is a better actress than the lead actress Lee Yo Won. and in fact while watching Daemang i even entertained the notion that the CP will fall in love with SYJ's character because they had chemistry even if they appeared together in that one scene only. SYJ has an impish precociousness to her acting in Daemang that was a complete match to the sometimes-somber-sometimes-innocent-sometimes-precocious demeanor of our JHJ as CP in Daemang.
i also would like our JHJ acting opposite SYJ in a future project. i believe SYJ is working on a project right now (i am not sure if it is a movie or a tv drama) with go soo.
Thanks, prissymom, for the correction. I have to watch "Great Ambition" again (using FF function, of course -- the parts without JHJ are so tortuous.) SYJ is my second favourite Korean actress; my #1 is too old for JHJ now.
ReplyDeletethe scene where JHJ and SYJ appeared together was in ep. 48, right before the scene where the CP cried while confiding to the male lead (Jan Hyuk) the loneliness and fear that he had to suffer from childhood because of his royal title. the reason i remember this episode so distinctly is because i loved that particular scene of our JHJ as the lonely prince. another scene in Daemang that really touched my heart was when the CP was talking to the wall. that scene showed how very, very lonely it can be at the top.
ReplyDeleteI agree. JHJ and SYJ match very well.
ReplyDeleteNever knew any other Korean actresses except for JHJ leading ladies as I only started to watched Korean drama this year. But after reading this article maybe SYJ is a perfect match to JHJ. Their tandem would be awesome since both are very good talented actors.
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