As the opening scene illustrates, Young-sae was one of the best dancers in Korea. He dances beautifully with his love and protégée Se-young in a ballroom dance competition, until his rival Hyun-soo signals to two other dancers to “accidentally” knock Young-sae over and “mess” up his leg. Se-young later leaves him and goes to dance with Hyun-soo while Young-sae spends his time a depressed wreck living in his messy apartment, his passion for dance gone.
Two years pass until Young-sae’s friend forces an illegal Chinese immigrant upon him as his new partner. The girl is supposed to be Jang Chang-min, a girl with some dance experience, but her inexperienced nineteen-year-old sister comes in her place. After some reluctance, Young-sae decides to teach her dancing from scratch in the three months before the annual dance competition and his dramatic comeback.
Addicted director Park Yeong-hoon returns with more formulaic upbeat romance in Innocent Steps as the inevitable happens and the two begin to fall for each other. Again, despite Moon Geun-young’s ridiculously young physical appearance, her cuteness shines just as it did in My Little Bride—it becomes impossible to imagine any other actress in these roles. The age difference quickly moves to the back of our mind when the chemistry between her and Park Geon-hyeong works its wonders on the dance floor and off. Even certain uninspired, trite scenes stemming from a “let’s fake our marriage to avoid deportation” subplot are rendered humorous and awkward simply from their performances.
The film’s main appeal is in the typical first hour when the two meet, struggle to deal with their circumstances, vigorously practice their dancing and gradually form an irresistible bond. Fans of Shall We Dance and Dirty Dancing may enjoy the neat little montages and the charming “love while you dance” approach to the film. Most romantic comedy fans, even if we know exactly how this plays out, will still be highly entertained.
But as we truly grow connected to the characters, the film takes an oddly dark drop in its final third. Sure, every romantic comedy needs its inevitable third-act down time in preparation for the proclamations of love in the climax, but Innocent Steps takes a severe misstep in another tonally different direction.
The first half of the film works its way up to this supposed climactic dance finale, but there are major character problems that are not resolved with a satisfying or correct pay-off. The writer of Innocent Steps simply must have had the worst day in the history of the world to pen this plot turn, and the rest of the cast and crew must have forgotten to read the script.
While a lot is forgivable for the fun early scenes, Innocent Steps simply proves why so many of these genre filmmakers tend to stick to what’s safe. If they deviate from the formula, they really have to get it right, otherwise they will lose their audience to crippling depression.
Reviewed by Tarun
