Romantic Island [로맨틱 아일랜드]

 

Starring:
Lee Seon-gyoon (이선균), Lee Soo-kyeong (이수경), Lee Min-ki (이민기), Yoo Jin (유진), Lee Moon-sik (이문식)
Directed by:
Kang Cheol-woo (강철우)
Written by:
Lee Jeong-sub (이정섭)
Genre:
romance, comedy
Year:
2008
Country:
South Korea
Language:
Korean
Runtime:
105 mins
Media:
DVD, VCD, VHS
Rating:
9

 

Synopsis

Soo-jin, an office clerk, is now more comfortable to make coffees for
people than working as a manager. Jae-hyuk, a CEO of venture capital,
hit life is not unstable because of the international telephone call
from Manila. Jung-hwan graduated from a big-name school but does not
have a job for the last five years. He maintains his daily life by
doing a part time job at the convenience store Ga-young, a singing
star, is already exhausted because of full schedule. Everybody thinks
that star, Ga-young will have happy life but now she is tired of it.
Everyone rushes out of the plane and scatter to different places
according to their schedules. However, their destinies begin to tangle
and entangle again like Alice in Wonderland, who chased the rabbit with
the wall clock. The fantastic experiences are everywhere in the
beautiful recreation resorts in Philippine. Now they will face the
greatest reversal of the situation at the dream island ‘Boracay’….

Review


”A deceptively charming, warm, and heartfelt story about different people and their stories about falling in love.”
 
Korea does these type of movies better than anyone else in the world.  Usually they are wrought with satire and cliches however, “Romantic Island” manages to create a movie that is romantic yet realistic, and hints of a deeper lesson to walk away with. The entire cast did an amazing job of accurately showing the emotions and feelings for their characters that could have come across as cheesy in the hands of the wrong actor.  While Park Joong-sik (played by Lee Moon-sik) had a rather morbid humor laced in his story, nonetheless it all ended well.
 
While the storyline followed a rather predictiable arc of introduction, middle, conflict, and happy conclusion, it managed to create and invoke strong feelings in me by showing the raw emotions and troubles that people can face.  The deeper lesson here is that if you try to run away from your problems, your problems will inevitably follow you. I think it was the delightful combination of sweet (romance) and bitter (conflict, break up, parting) ultimately created a well rounded movie experience for me. The quality of the acting, and the variety of the different character’s stories as well as a great musical score (OST), amazing film locations, tops off what is one of the better romantic comedies of late.

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