OH HAPPY DAY! (2003) Directed and written by Yun Hang-ryeol.
Wrongheaded, often irritating 'comedy' purports to send up the the ubiquitous, vertically oriented Korean class structure, then ultimately plays by the rules as yet another 'constructed romance' movie in which the goal for any girl who knows what she wants is to want a rich, educated pretty boy. Except in this case the gal, by all rights and no thanks to smart screen writing, SHOULD be a secondary character who ultimately gets dumped in favour of leading lady Jang Na-ra, who spends nearly the entire movie looking and acting EXACTLY like Rachel Dratch on Saturday Night Live (and I mean that in the meanest possible way) as a voice actress making life miserable for the shallow Club Med executing (Pak Jeong-chol) who denied her homely friend a spot on a singles group holiday. That he actually begins to fall for her, to the point of ultimately dumping his successful girlfriend - who is never once painted as a bad person, just a bit superficial - is either this film's most clever bit of dark satire or the most egregiously stupid moment in an ill-conceived screenplay. I'm leaning toward the latter. Korean cultural and cinematic traditions are sometimes cleverly held up for ridicule - Jang's mother takes physical discipline to room-trashing levels of excess, while Jang's mid-film collapse beside a blood-filled toilet turns out to be a bad case of hemorrhoids - but in the end, the parents know best when it comes to forcing people together based on status, and a staggeringly contrived scheme is hatched to drive home the point, culminating in - of all things - a big musical number featuring the ENTIRE cast! The film is ultimately hobbled early on by relentlessly overblown performances that mistake volume and force for wit - Jang's scrunchy-faced eye popping grows tiresome very very quickly. We do however, get the following standard Korean ingredients: K-pop, tears, snowfall, and head slapping, the latter mild enough to rate this a 2 on the Korean Cranial Abuse Scale.
The picture, however, also rates a 2, largely for the usual glossy tech specs.
Wrongheaded, often irritating 'comedy' purports to send up the the ubiquitous, vertically oriented Korean class structure, then ultimately plays by the rules as yet another 'constructed romance' movie in which the goal for any girl who knows what she wants is to want a rich, educated pretty boy. Except in this case the gal, by all rights and no thanks to smart screen writing, SHOULD be a secondary character who ultimately gets dumped in favour of leading lady Jang Na-ra, who spends nearly the entire movie looking and acting EXACTLY like Rachel Dratch on Saturday Night Live (and I mean that in the meanest possible way) as a voice actress making life miserable for the shallow Club Med executing (Pak Jeong-chol) who denied her homely friend a spot on a singles group holiday. That he actually begins to fall for her, to the point of ultimately dumping his successful girlfriend - who is never once painted as a bad person, just a bit superficial - is either this film's most clever bit of dark satire or the most egregiously stupid moment in an ill-conceived screenplay. I'm leaning toward the latter. Korean cultural and cinematic traditions are sometimes cleverly held up for ridicule - Jang's mother takes physical discipline to room-trashing levels of excess, while Jang's mid-film collapse beside a blood-filled toilet turns out to be a bad case of hemorrhoids - but in the end, the parents know best when it comes to forcing people together based on status, and a staggeringly contrived scheme is hatched to drive home the point, culminating in - of all things - a big musical number featuring the ENTIRE cast! The film is ultimately hobbled early on by relentlessly overblown performances that mistake volume and force for wit - Jang's scrunchy-faced eye popping grows tiresome very very quickly. We do however, get the following standard Korean ingredients: K-pop, tears, snowfall, and head slapping, the latter mild enough to rate this a 2 on the Korean Cranial Abuse Scale.
The picture, however, also rates a 2, largely for the usual glossy tech specs.