Clocking in at almost two hours that you never want to end, My Little Bride is just what Korean romantic comedy needs at a time of trite formula and My Sassy Girl rip-offs. As the second biggest domestic film of 2004, it proves itself with an offbeat story and change of pace from your average genre pic. Kim Ho-joon crafts an infectious debut that knows what we want, gives it to us for nearly the entire running time, and zips through the required melodrama at breakneck speed because of a strong script that effectively blends the comedy and drama through the first two acts.
College wannabe playboy Park Sang-min returns home to meet his childhood friend Boeun, now a fifteen-year-old girl in high school, who’s also been called home for an important family matter. Apparently, Boeun and Sang-min’s grandfathers met during the war and made a pact to have their children marry. However, they both had sons, so the pact was passed down to the next generation.
On his deathbed, Boeun’s grandfather gets the two families to agree, and springs it on Sang-min and Boeun. Out of guilt and loyalty, they get married, but between Boeun’s high-school life and Sang-min’s not-so-surprising new job as a teacher, they’ve somehow got to figure out how to live with each other.
While it may seem like a taboo to match a college student up with a fifteen-year-old girl, especially when the guy initially comes across as a borderline pervert, the naivety and sweetness of the relationship becomes one of the more endearing qualities of the film. Kim Rae-won and Moon Geun-young have that perfect compatibility and chemistry that eases us in from believing them childhood friends to something more. Both actors give splendid performances—particularly Moon Geun-young, who plays a girl struggling to protect her reputation and start a relationship with her longtime crush, while also conceding to her filial responsibilities.
Even the side characters, from Boeun’s concerned mother, to all the high school girls smitten by Sang-min’s good looks, flow in and out of the script naturally. There are running gags abound, including a teacher who keeps punching Sang-min when he talks to Bouen’s friends because she suspects him a pervert.
The perfectly paced and structured script, courtesy of Yu Sun-il, is the foundation for this film. Instead of taking the two acts for comedy, last act for teary, reflective, ‘sit in front of a window on a rainy day’ melodrama route, he finds a way to simply follow the lives of these two characters, inserting bits of everything—comedy, drama, conflicts, cute moments— without ever letting up.
Put simply, My Little Bride is a surprising jolt to the genre, staying away from the cookie-cutter formula with a highly enjoyable alternative. There are no clumsy plot turns near the end where the characters have to break up and reunite for contrived reasons. The writing is constantly, even up to the last moments, feeding us information and back-story on our characters and tying it into the plot. Kim finds a way to still maintain that light, comfortable romantic comedy tone, but make his characters very real and intimate, so their drama and comedy are all the more affecting and magical.
Reviewed by Tarun
