The Wonder Years (열세살, 수아) written and directed by Kim Hee Jung (김희정) (2007)
28 August 2007I was excited to see this first film from female director Kim Hee Jung, but I was pretty disappointed by the film, with only the very ending giving any pulse into this dragged out tail, that feels longer than it’s 95 minute run time. There is just nothing new here, and the performance of the lead Lee Se Young is shows so little emotion, that you are dyeing for the moments when she smiles, because otherwise she is just giving nothing. Yes I get that the life of a teenager can be heard, but there is nothing new, or even really interesting here. This film is pretty much a miss for me and I can’t recommend it.
Lee Se-yeong (이세영) plays Soo-Ah a difficult teenager, who is completely introverted, and not dealing well with her life at all, be it in school or at home. We slowly learn more about here life. She barely reacts to the world around her, and treats her mother (Choo Sang-mi (추상미)) badly, though her mother is so busy with her restaurant she doesn’t even bother to go to her daughter’s graduation. Soo-AH only showing life when she dreams of the pop singer Kim Yoon-ah (김윤아)ì), lead singer of Jaurim whom she believes is her real mother. Her father died 2 years before, and she doesn’t like that the local junk yard (Choi Myeong-su (최명수)])owner is always hanging out there talking with her mother. Soo Ah also has trouble making friends.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
Soo Ah tries to make friends with one girl she knew from her class last year, but the girl blows her off, and she ends up making friends with her great looking class president, but she she is so introverted, she screws things up there, because she knew a guy that the class president was keen on, and never told her.
Meanwhile Soo Ah’s mother has lost her restaurant and house, because an unscrupulous woman from the neighborhood has stolen all the money from the lending club, leaving them with nothing, so they have had to move into a single room at the scrap yard.
Soo Ah is doesn’t want to go to school her ex-best friend, so she starts hanging out with the first girl, who is a bit of a hoodlum, and even gets in trouble with the police.
Well things get too bad Soo Ah decides to run away to Seoul and find her supposed real mother, but she can’t get into the concert, and only into the fan club line, by Kim Yu Na, doesn’t even look at her. Her mother meanwhile finally finds her, and brings her home, and Soo Ah starts to grow up. And the scrap yard owner has revamped her a bus to run her snack shop in, and they can start to make money, and Soo Ah starts to warm up to him, and her mother. And at the party for the opening of the store, we find out that the mother sings very well, and in fact her father called her Kim Yu Na, so the actual singer had nothing to do with the daughter.
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Chu Sang Mi is good, but the overall film just isn’t too impressive, and always feels distanced. I know Soo Ah is supposed to be introverted, but I never felt pulled into her head or her world, in fact she was just too bratty.
Not very impressive.
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