Despite every piece of marketing pointing to the contrary, Rules of Dating is an interestingly scripted, complicated romance-drama with a touch of laughs and tears. Park Hae-il plays Lee Yoo-rim— a 26-year-old full time high school teacher—with an earnest charm, despite his character being a borderline rapist. He is assigned as the trainer to soft-spoken student teacher Choi Hong (Kang Hye-jeong shining in her biggest role to date) and falls for her at first sight.
But this story is hardly romantic. Casually putting aside his six year relationship, Lee attempts to woo Hong with direct and convincing offers to sleep together, while she passively refuses under the pretense that she cannot imagine sleeping with a stranger she doesn’t love—oh, and of course the minor reason of having a fiancé. In any case, things happen between them, rumors are spread about and the relationship grows complicated and layered, while Hong remains tight-lipped about an experience in her past.
With his debut feature, Han Jae-rim takes some major risks, especially in a difficult first half, as he unsympathetically depicts Lee as a pushy, sex starved jerk and gives little explanation for the actions of the apparently victimized Hong. She clearly does not enjoy Lee’s advances, but she acts with a strange mix of unclear motivations that could possibly include a true interest in him, his position of power and her mysterious past. These initial stages are uncomfortable, awkward situations, but when the second half rolls around, the script shakes things up, fleshes out its characters and justifies a number of seemingly contradictory character choices.
Here, Han really turns the focus to his two characters above all else. He takes a risk by depicting the ugly sides of both leads and abandoning an obvious structure of typical plot-turns. As the film winds down and the atmosphere grows heavier, the satisfying, unexpected resolution ends the film on a very effective note by doing what’s right for its characters and sticking with it.
In effect, the misleading press photos and posters do seem to fit the film well thematically, by creating more of that particular brand of uncertainty that we feel as an audience during the entire film. We’re constantly asking ourselves questions: Is this film a typical romantic comedy or an atypical drama? Are we really supposed to like Lee Yoo-rim? Do we want this relationship to succeed? And by digging up all these problems first and then moving to solve them, Han Jae-rim makes the first half a rough, unenjoyable experience that is justified—perhaps after far too long for some viewers— only in the second half, all for the sake of a good story.
Reviewed by Tarun
