Directed by: Jang Jin Starring: Lee Na-young, Jung Jae-young Release Date: June 25th, 2004
Someone Special is without a doubt one of my all time favorite romantic comedy films. Writer director Jang Jin (Guns & Talks, Man On High Heels) is so good at turning genre conventions upside down with his witty writing and unconventional characters. At the time of its making, My Sassy Girl (2001) was considered the gold standard for romantic comedy and pretty much everything that followed seemed to try and recreate its successes using similar beats or that lopsided relationship dynamic that featured an overly dominant character.
In Someone Special, the female lead played by Lee Na-young (Howling) is introverted and quirky as she timidly displays her affection for the lead character Chil-su (Jung Jae-young), a hopeless romantic who although has been searching for love his entire life, ironically can’t see it when it literally appears right in front of him. Perhaps due to her unassuming attire of baggy clothes or other behavior quirks that go against the standard models of beauty defined by pop culture and luxury branding, Chil-su is clueless to her advances.
The male lead played by Jung Jae-young (Guns & Talks, AM 11:00) is also quite unusual. A professional baseball player by trade, Chil-su is often overflowing with emotion to the point that he’s blinded by his idealistic interpretation of true love. This odd pairing and sets the stage for this very special romance film.
Dong Chi-sung has longed to experience falling in love, but his hopeless romantic inclinations have overseen each of his budding relationships end abruptly or in failure. Having yet to experience even a first love, his desperation become dashed yet again when his latest girlfriend dumps him. To make matters worse, he becomes diagnosed with a terminal illness that estimates he has only three months of life left to live. As he ponders the dreadful thought of dying without ever having loved, he drinks himself to sleep at a local bar. Upon awaking, he learns that the beautiful yet shy bartender had carried him in a box to the hotel. Surprised, confused, and emotionally wrecked from the recent news regarding his life and love, he brushes her off to begin his final, lonely three months left on earth.
After mortgaging his house and content upon throwing his career as a professional baseball player away, he overhears the story of a woman who carried a man she liked to a hotel in a box over the radio. Convinced the story was surely about him, he goes back to the bar to see what exactly the woman has on her mind. While the woman seems to know an awful lot about Chi-sung, including that his house is exactly 39 steps away from hers, he knows practically nothing about her. But as Chi-sung begins to open his heart this unusually friendly neighbor, his rigid views on the meaning of love begin to evolve.
Someone Special pokes fun at genre tropes while simultaneously finding a way to ingeniously embrace them in a way that feels fresh. When Chi-sung (Jung Jae-young) makes fun of a ridiculously over the top romantic movie they saw in theaters, those same conventions later seamlessly become part of his own story. Illness, heartbreak, and even high-stakes sports drama are all neatly packed within the film’s 107 minute runtime that blows by before you know it. And taking a presumably heavy story about a man trying to come to terms with dying before ever having experienced true love, director Jang Jin does what he does best and turns expectations on their head. While there are moments of sincere drama, the overall result in Someone Special is more often amusing and even quite cute at times.
Someone Special sees its lead character Chi-sung searching high and low for the meaning of love only to realize it’s been right in front of him the whole time. Chi-sung runs into bank robbers and house thieves whom he ends up lecturing them into submission while he preaches the importance of living well. He also asks them if they’ve ever comprehended the meaning of love, and their simple answers of “love is just love,” or “meet a girl, ask her her name, and then start loving her” are met with sighs of disgust by Chi-sung who is unable to understand those willing to throw away their lives for quick rewards while he has no choice but to die. The comic irony of Someone Special is that while these characters’ actions are incomprehensible to Chi-sung, he later realizes they actually understand love in a more complete and simple way.
Some viewers may find slight frustration in Chi-sung’s inability to see the girl for who she is for so long. This guy who’s supposedly been desperate for love for so long can’t get it into his head that this girl likes him despite all the signs. But Someone Special is all about him having that wrong mindset which blinds him from seeing the obvious. Even so, the playful writing and unique characters at its heart should make for more than enough to see past this shortcoming. To top it all off, Someone Special comes loaded with a great OST that features powerful ballads that help round it out as the complete romantic comedy package.
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