The moral of the story? Getting plastic surgery is great! But really, it’s a great romantic-comedy. I put it up there with My Sassy Girl. The story is pretty simple; it’s about an overweight girl who wishes she was thinner in order to get the guy she wants. Finally, she decides to get plastic surgery after which she lives a totally different life posing as a different girl while trying to get the man she loved and hiding her previous identity.
There’s a lot to the plot, but there’s enough comedy to even it out. I haven’t found anyone that doesn’t like this movie so if you haven’t seen it, get it.
Music video from the movie: 김아중 (Kim Ah-Joong) – Ave Maria
Is the video broken? Please comment so I can find a new copy. Thanks!
Culture Notes
Lots of Koreans cough up around $2000-4000 in order to get “double eyelid” surgery. Americans don’t have a concept of double- or single-eyelids (which is what most Koreans have). Some of my friends have done that surgery. Personally, I don’t see a big difference and wouldn’t care if someone got it or not.
Here is what the general Korean eye looks before and after the surgery:
Is the video broken? Please comment so I can find a new copy. Thanks!
This song is SO catchy. I find myself humming it a lot between classes. The music video is really long (almost half is just pre-show stuff) but well put together. Props to JYP for getting a major part in the video.
Culture Notes
Korean humor includes a lot of poop jokes. Although you will find that in some American media (like Dumb and Dumber) there isn’t much in the mainstream. In Korea you’ll find poop humor in anything from kids shows to music videos to movies. Koreans are much more natural with bodily functions. Their logic is that everyone has to do it so why be wierd about it? It did take me a while to get adjusted to it, I was never a big bathroom-joke kind of guy.
클래식 is by far my favorite Korean romance movie. It combines the traditional dramatic forbidden love story with a modern tale of love and happiness finally found. If you like tear jerkers, this one’s for you. The flowing dialog, beautiful cinematography and music, and deep character development all contribute to potentially the best film out of Korea.
Sometimes I think I’m a hopeless romantic…
Music Video
Cultural Notes
1. Arranged marriages were and are still fairly common in Korea, though they are a little different than what Americans think they are. Instead of the parents finalizing the decision, usually the parents continually choose new suitors while the daughters/sons can choose from the people their parents put them with.
2. More poop humor, you have to love it. I think I kind fine some in every movie. Along with seeing guys look through poop to find some beetles and later collecting bags of their OWN poop, you get to see the infamous 똥침 (literally translated as poop-needle). I have only received this once thankfully. Korean kids love to walk behind people, put their hands together making a ‘needle’ with their two index fingers, and punch you in the butt as hard as you can. I’m not looking forward to this at all.
3. Korea is a very patriarchal and age-respective society. Not to say America doesn’t have some of the same traits, but it is much more engrained in the Korean culture. There’s a special character in Korean that means dedication to your elders (효) which most Koreans believe is much more important than personal thought / freedom. Thus you see more families living with their parents, less departure from parental beliefs, etc. I won’t say what happened, but you see a very sad turn in the plot due to this particular trait.
Language Notes
A girl asks a guy to say these tongue twisters before he runs away (go here for more):
간장공장 공장장은 장 공장장이고 된장공장 공장장은 강 공장장이다.
“The manager of the soy sauce factory is Manager Jang and the manager of the soy paste factory is Manager Gang.”
원스 어폰 어 타임 is an adventure story set in the Japan-occupied Korea. There’s a diamond which the Japanese army is trying to take out of Korea while the Korean Independence Army struggles to keep it in their country, preserving the precious part of Korean history.
I really enjoyed the movie; it shows the dedication of the Koreans to keep their culture alive. It has some great humor thrown in between the many action sequences. The ending is awesome; the main bad guy gets some ironic justice. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone wanting to see an adventure flick along the lines of Indiana Jones.
Trailer
Culture Notes
1. Japan treated Koreans pretty bad (all countries are guilty of this though, even Korea). Japan tried to eradicate the Korean history, language and culture. You can see this theme throughout the movie (one sign says ‘Koreans and dogs not allowed’, multiple times people talk about Koreans who work for Japan being lower than the Japanese, etc.). Because of that, you do see some hostility towards Japan from Koreans that has passed on to the younger generation. In the end of the movie, the same sign from the beginning says ‘Japanese and dogs not allowed’. Once they actually meet each other the prejudice goes away fairly fast.
2. Yes, like 20% of Koreans have the last name, 이. So how can they tell who is close to their family? In addition to their last name, they usually know the town which their family originated from. That way they can tell who is really part of their family and who is not. If two people meet who have the same last name they will often ask what city their name is from.
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