Topping the Korean box office upon its release, Love So Divine pretends to push the romantic comedy a step further by delving into a relationship between a student studying to become a priest and your typical sassy girl who hasn’t been baptized. While the viewer is not really going to be on the edge of his seat, conflicted as much as its main characters about the film’s eventual outcome, Love So Divine is still a load of standard fare fun, pushed to a more ‘forbidden’ limit with a nearly celibate male character.
Kyu-sik is a seminary student, who one day falls during a church service, dropping a precious, pope-blessed relic. As punishment, he and his comic relief friend Seon-dal are sent away to a small church in rural Korea to work in a sort of ‘priest limbo’ until they get their act together. Upon his arrival, Kyu-sik ends up in an awkward position with a groggy Bong-hee, a pretty girl who just flew in from America to visit her uncle—the priest of the rural church.
However, Bong-hee’s true reason for coming is to see her beloved boyfriend, but things don’t go terribly smoothly and she is stuck in the church without a way home. Of course, all while she and Kyu-sik are slowly testing each other’s nerves.
Hate soon amounts to affection and the film gradually moves from playfully mean situations to the cute fuzzy ones banking on Kwon Sang-woo’s and Ha Ji-won’s endearing chemistry. Their characters are both slightly altered from the stereotypes, resulting in stronger romantic leads. Ha Ji-won tones down her wildly expressive and saccharine mugging to go for a sassier, crueler, sexier girl in direct contrast to Kwon’s Kyu-sik, but she smoothly transitions the character to compliment her partner well as the relationship grows more intimate.
Kwon Sang-woo also refreshingly plays a male character without any sort of annoying qualities or mental deficiencies, but he is still given his own problems, unlike Lee Byung-hun’s subversion of the male lead in Everybody Has Secrets. This becomes the film’s one unique element, and it’s nice to see the male as the show-stealer, playing an intelligent, appealing character struggling with problems deeper than simply avoiding awkward, suggestive situations. Kwon relentlessly plays a cool character throughout the film and despite some contrivances and a couple illogical decisions, Kyu-sik still is a character to appreciate.
The best thing about Love So Divine is the film is virtually devoid of cringe worthy elements, save for a random outbreak of a pop number in a church choir that’s likely to rub some viewers the wrong way. Everything else is thoroughly entertaining with subtle comedy that never pushes too hard, and often brings a smile to your face with its character moments. Sure, the religious themes and questions about life loves and devotions are mere filler, but with a poster like that, who was honestly expecting anything else?
Reviewed by Tarun
