Bilgi :Gwang-sik has never been particularly good at talking to women. While a university student, he fell hard for a woman named Yun-kyung (Lee Yo-won from Take Care of My Cat), but circumstances and his lack of nerve prevented him from ever getting close to her, despite the fact that she seemed to be interested in him. Years later Gwang-sik, who now has a small photography studio, runs into Yun-kyung again. But has anything really changed in him?
Gwang-sik has a younger brother, Gwang-tae. Gwang-tae experiences none of the problems that plague his brother. For him, picking up women is almost an unconscious habit. Getting them into bed is a piece of cake. Disposing of them afterwards is no less simple, excepting the times when they track him down and throw rocks through his window. One day, however, he meets a woman named Kyung-jae (fast-rising debut actress Kim Ah-joong) who is just a little too smart, too attractive, and too mature for him to handle. Suddenly, he feels just as confused about relationships as his brother Gwang-sik.
The first thing that struck me about When Romance Meets Destiny (Korean title: "Gwang-sik's Younger Brother Gwang-tae") was the image of the two men on the poster. Kim Joo-hyuk (Blue Swallow) and Bong Tae-gyu (A Good Lawyer's Wife) really do look like brothers. Or is it just the hairstyles?
Comedies that rely on character rather than slapstick or outlandish situations often last longer in the memory, and this film is no exception. The roles of Gwang-sik and Gwang-tae are both built from easily-recognizable types, but director/screenwriter Kim Hyun-seok (YMCA Baseball Team) has given them plenty of individuality and life. The fact that they are brothers makes them even more interesting. Actually, in some ways Kim has made the equivalent of a Korean family sitcom, similar to the legendary Soonpoong Clinic from a few years back, without the parents. It's a shrewd formula, because this is very much a young-generation film, yet we see the main characters within the context of a small family.
The film's strengths are some great dialogue, a few unexpected turns in the plot, and the bittersweet taste of its humor. More than anything, this film illustrates the power of good casting. While none of the actors qualify as a top star, each performer is so perfectly suited to his or her role, and the combination of roles are so interesting, that audiences were naturally intrigued (the film sold 2.4 million tickets).
If there was a disappointment to the movie, it was its somewhat limp ending. I'd like to give credit to the director for avoiding the conventional cop-out resolution that I was expecting in the back of mind. Yet at the same time, I couldn't help but feel much of the film's energy sapping away in the final reels, like a balloon slowly losing air. At the film's two-thirds mark I was in heaven, but by the time the ending credits rolled my feet were planted firmly back on the ground. |
