My Dear Enemy 멋진 하루 (Meotjin haru) [2008] • South Korea

This film belongs to Jung-woo Ha. He is engaging and funny playing one of those guys who can spin even the worst of interactions into something that makes him seem likable. Seen in isolation, his character's charms might seem to not add up but the film manages to paint a convincing portrait of a guy you just can't say no to.

Do-yeon Jeon, in heavy eye make-up, pretty much pouts her way through the film playing an old girlfriend of his who wants to collect some money he owes her. She tracks him down and demands he repay her by day's end. She knows him well enough to know that promises of repaying her later will never be kept. He's vulnerable and in the dog-house but he's still in charge of things as he sets out to borrow money from a series of other old girlfriends and lovers in order to repay her. She follows him around while he does it. It's an interesting scenario which produces many storied and funny moments.

With lesser actors this film probably wouldn't work. It's a Yoon-ki Lee film—which means it's low-key, slice of life, simple story stuff. Don't expect high drama or excitement. What you'll get are two fine performances and, in typical Lee fashion, two characters who reveal themselves to one another not through mutual interaction but by observing the subtle interactions they have with other people.

★★★★

Director: Yoon-ki Lee
Starring: Do-yeon Jeon, Jung-woo Ha, Il-hwa Choi, Ju-bong Gi, Hyo-ju Han

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Secret Sunshine (Milyang) [2007] • South Korea

This film stars two of the best, and two of my favorite, Korean actors: Do-yeon Jeon and Kang-ho Song, and is written and directed by Chang-dong Lee, of Oasis fame.

The plot in a nutshell: Jeon's character moves with her son Jun to Miryang, the town where her recently killed husband was born. As she tries to start her new life another tragic event turns her world upside down. She looks for comfort in god and religiousness, and then turns a critical eye towards it.

The scene where Jeon's character goes to the prison to forgive the man who committed the most heinous of crimes against her is one of the strongest and smartest statements on religious belief I've seen.

It's a long, slow paced film, but the performances are extraordinary. Do-yeon Jeon won best actress at Cannes for her performance.

★★★★★

The Harmonium in My Memory (Nae maeumui punggeum) aka Organ of My Heart (1999) • South Korea

I love Do-yeon Jeon and what I love about her is that she always appears completely genuine in performance. In this film, however, her every move is riddled with acting. It's hardly her fault as she is given the mighty task of portraying a fifth-grade girl. What is that? Ten years old? Eleven? Her character could be seventeen for all I know, given the poverty and functional illiteracy of her community, but she's still a fifth-grader. All the self-conscious insecurities and pouting of a girl that age—not to mention a girl that age whose day to day life is overwhelmed by a mad crush on her new twenty-one year old school teacher—all the mannerisms are forced. But enough about that. No use crying over spilled milk, or, thank god in this case, unrequited love.

The Harmonium in My Memory is a sweet little nostalgia film set in rural South Korea sometime after the war around 1960, give or take, centering on the teachers and students at a community school. Many of the students can't afford basic school supplies, are often rowdy in class and prove to be quite a handful for the rookie teacher played wonderfully by Byung-hun Lee (A Bittersweet Life; Joint Security Area). It's the youthful idealism of Lee's character who wants to treat the students with respect and tolerance set against the older teachers' old-school values of beating and discipline that serves as the film's basic theme. The other likeable character in the film, played by Mi-yeon Lee, is another young teacher who takes her students outside to make noise and run off steam, much to the chagrin of her elders. She's Lee's love interest, and she and he share a passion for music, providing for many a musical moment in The Harmonium in My Memory. "Don't Break The Heart That Loves You", sung by Connie Francis, captures the torchy milieu of these characters perfectly—perhaps a little too easily.

The Harmonium in My Memory isn't a bad film, but expectations are extremely high for Do-yeon Jeon, and she disappoints; all the characters in the film are cliché; the use of dramatic music seems like a shortcut to emotions the characters aren't capable of making us feel; and the ending is manipulative, tacked on to make us get happy about a film that left us empty.

And what's the deal with kids bringing stool samples to class?

★★★

The Contact (Cheob-sok) 1997 • South Korea

This is the feature film debut of actress Do-yeon Jeon who went on to win best actress by unanimous decision for her role in Secret Sunshine at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. If you are a fan of her work you should definitely see The Contact. It's not a great film but her performance in it makes it more than worthwhile.

The Contact is the story of two people, each involved in their own forlorn love triangles, who meet on the Internet and slowly build a friendship acting as advice-givers to one another. They share the same space onscreen several times without knowing it because neither one knows what the other looks like. Comparisons have been made to You've Got Mail which came out a year after The Contact, but beyond the, uh ... internet connection, there's not much else in common. You've Got Mail was a romantic comedy, which suited the actors starring in it, while this film sports a somber quality, more suited to the actors starring in it. Do-yeon Jeon has a wistful glamor about her that comes from the inside, and Suk-kyu Han, who plays the male lead, has a "woe is me" air about him that is not the least bit amusing and comes off as a little introspectively self-important.

There is about three minutes of (in)-action just before the end of this film in which you will hate Han's character for the decision he seems to be making and the effect it has on Jeon's character. If there were a little more plot substance to account for his inaction, well ... there'd be a little more plot substance.

It's substance that this film lacks in the overall, especially in Han's character. He's a radio show producer who is always being reprimanded for inserting 20 minute songs into the playlists. He receives an anonymous package one day that contains a Velvet Underground album which becomes the link between our protagonists. Han is convinced his long lost love sent it to him but doesn't know why. He plays "Pale Blue Eyes" from the album and receives a request via the internet the following night for the same song, and that's how he connects with Jeon.

Han contacts the person, Jeon, who made the request, hoping it is his old flame or someone who knows her and made the request on her behalf. Jeon lies and says she knows the person Han is looking for. As that little fiction plays out, so do the characters' back stories.

Han's long lost love broke up with him many years ago and fell for his best friend, an army buddy. When the army buddy is killed in an accident, Han thinks the girl will come running back to him, (now that the competition is dead!) but Han is somehow implicated in the cause of the accident and a tangled web is weaved. Han also deals with internal office politics complicated by a beautiful woman who becomes his main writer for the radio show and an emotional distraction.

Jeon, on the other hand, marches forward emotionlessly after her unrequited true love falls for her best friend and roommate instead of her. While Jeon's love triangle plays out a little more interestingly than Han's, it's the emotionlessness of her character, which isn't cold and unkind, but sympathetic and sad, manifested in her inability to cry, that we come to focus on. In a train wreck of plot development, Jeon is driving her car the night Han first plays "Pale Blue Eyes." She witnesses a terrible accident, but it is the song, not the tragedy, that almost makes her cry. Hence her request to hear the song again. She wants to cry.

The Korean film's plot was made more complicated to this viewer, as train tickets, movie stubs, and other written materials are passed around without translation. Even without a good story or all the facts to go on, I was swept away by Jeon's portrayal of a woman who wants to find love but must discover first what it might look like. She's a tremendously skilled and nuanced actress. I recommend this film to anyone looking for a night of romance rental theater or a romantic character-study.

★★★★