My Dear Enemy

Meotjin haru

South Korea

2008

123 Min

Color

2.35:1

Korean

Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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SCR Park Eun-yeong, Azuko Taira

CAST Jeon Do-yeon, Ha Jung-woo, Choi Il-hwa, Oh Ji-eun, Kim Young-min, Kim Joo-ryeong

Lee Yoon-Ki’s (This Charming Girl) deadpan comedy trails a pair of former lovers—he’s a charismatic romantic and she’s a no-nonsense realist—who bump into each other one year down the road. Hee-su wants back a hunk of cash she lent him, but perpetually penniless Byung-woon is unable to settle his debt. Refusing to leave Hee-su in the lurch, he carts her around Seoul on a day-long urban road trip to borrow small amounts from various acquaintances. As both day and debt are whittled down, the pair fall back into old patterns, rehash unsettled gripes, and slowly come to see each other in a new light.

Based on the short novel by Taira Azuko, My Dear Enemy is an exercise in subtle comedy, anchored by the delightful chemistry of the pitch-perfect lead performers. Jeon Do-youn, as the sensible, even-tempered Hee-su counterbalances the hysterical mother of a murdered child she played in Secret Sunshine, for which she was named best actress at Cannes in 2007. Ha Jung-woon, too, is winning as the compulsively likeable, if unfailingly inept Byung-woon (a role also in stark opposition to his previous outing as the serial killer antagonist in Hong-jin Na’s The Chaser). During their day of piecemeal debt collection, they slowly unfold their characters’ nuanced relationship. Truly this is a romance for a recession age. —Tribeca Film Festival

Lee Yoon-ki

His first feature, (2004), starring [KIM Ji-su], won wide acclaim in the international film festival circuit, starting with taking the New Currents Award at [Pusan International Film Festival]. With a short filmography of only four features, Lee nonetheless has firmly built a world of filmmaking that can be called uniquely his own. His ability to depict characters’ innermost emotions and inter-workings in a stylish manner in storylines that seem all so mundane on the surface has won him praises from a wide-ranging audiences both in Korea and overseas. His films have been invited for special screening at numerous film festivals in France, Spain, and other countries. Actresses who worked in lead roles of Lee’s films, such as [KIM Ji-su], [BAE Jong-ok], and [JEON Do-youn], have been praised for the most delicate and stable acting performances of all their movie roles. —Koreanfilm.or.kr

msmichel

12Apr11

Total non-starter from Lee. A woman follows an ex boyfriend for a day to recover a debt he's owed her for a year. The problem is he needs to borrow the money from assorted people to pay her. The makings of a romantic comedy that just never comes together. Jeon Do-youn quite good but never enough to make up for the tedium of this picture. Feels everyone one of its 125 min.