Love in the big city (Didosiwe SarangbibSouth Korea/2024). address: Lee Eun Hee. Script: Kim Na Deul, based on the novel by Sang Young Park. filming: Kim Hyung Joo. edition: Kim Sun Min and Lee Hyun Mi. ejaculate: Kim Joo-eun, Noh Sang-hyun, Jang Hye-jin, Kwak Dong-yeon. eligible: Suitable for people over 13 years old. distributor: Great movies. period: 118 minutes. Our opinion: normal.
Korean cinema has achieved remarkable growth on the international scene in recent decades. She established herself as a major cinematographer with an Academy Award for Best Picture win ParasitesBy Bong Joon Ho. Korean public policies to encourage the audiovisual industry have given rise to a market that produces auteur films, which are usually programmed at the world’s most important festivals, and commercial films and series, known as K-dramas, which have become a phenomenon, with fans around the world.
Love in the big citydirected by Lee Eun-heebelongs to the category of films targeting a wider audience, although it passed through some festivals, and shares characteristics with Korean dramas. Based on the novel by Sang Young Park, which was a bestseller, even outside Korea, This platonic love story, It contains spices of the type of melodrama that occupies a central place in Korean audio-visual novels.
This feature is very controversial, as far as the public is concerned. Melodrama in Love in the big city It comes close to the TV seriesor rather in this case, to Korean dramas. Millions of fans around the world who enjoy this series will be able to find it Love in the big city A film close to what they enjoy most. For those who prefer other types of narratives and aesthetics, the film’s tone may be difficult to digest.
The general idea of the film is attractive: to tell a love story, following some steps typical of the romantic drama or romantic comedy genre, but applied to depicting the development of an intense friendship (with “intense” being the word that should be emphasized), rather than a couple.
With a first scene that foretells marriage later in the plot, the film immediately turns into a love story flashback, In which he reveals how they met Jae Hee and Hyung Soo, In their time as college students. She grew up in France and has a brash demeanor that is as charismatic as it is threatening to her fellow students; He is more shy and keeps his homosexuality secret. The two quickly become friends, going out as often as they can at night and getting drunk. The collusion between them grows, as they face various conflicts, internal and external.
Jae-hee’s unhappy husbands stigmatize her as an “easy girl”; Hyung-soo’s frustrated attempts to encourage himself to live his romantic relationships openly and establish a more transparent relationship with his mother; The career aspirations of both; Everything goes hand in hand as the friendship they share develops, which can be as toxic at times as it is a true lifesaver at other times.
Neither the dramatic or comic situations that the two friends go through nor the way they are acted have much originality. The way society’s prejudices towards the heroes are presented is schematic, with clear situations being used to differentiate these different conflicts that Jae Hee and Hyung Soo face.
Love in the big city It is professionally made and has a sleek aesthetic, as it should be in a product of these qualities. But the emotion is forced by the situations that the characters go through. In many scenes, resorting to shouting matches, which, when repeated, is a test of patience. There are some more honest moments, but they lose weight with resources like slow motion, which is meant to highlight the emotionality of the story.