If This C-Novel Was a K-Drama: "Full Marks Hidden Marriage: Pick Up a Son, Get a Free Husband"
What would girls pick, or more importantly, what makes a girl's pick different from that of a boy? Well, the movies we pick are governed by emotion and not action. We prefer cherry blossoms to kicks and smashes. We prefer hugs and kisses to tracking down goons. We need a hot guy (come on, don't tell me it's just me who swoons at the sight of six packs and sexy abs?), a pretty and innocent girl and a beautiful love story. A story that glues our eyes to the screen, which makes us sob to our pillow and don't we all love a happy ending at the end of all the hardships? A story that makes us relate and feel the joy and pain of the characters. A chemistry that chains you to your chair and makes you cross your fingers. In short what girls need is sugar and spice and everything nice!
I've done a lot of thinking and concluded to sharing with you three of my favorites from Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese cinema that made me laugh and cry at the same time. Hope you like it.
1) Always aka Only You
Now, this movie is the perfect mixture of pain and happiness and has the rarely found combination of brilliant chemistry and excellent storyline. A man with a dark and hideous past takes up the part time job only to fall in love with a kind hearted woman. To make the audience cringe with pain, the girl is blind. Slowly and steadily, the man finds himself protecting and caring for the girl as the girl herself opens up to the stranger and allows him to strike the chords of her heart. What follows is a turnaround of events where the man is forced to embrace his long abandoned passion of boxing which leads to unleashing of his dark past, and only to discover that her newfound love has been entangled in his past. Will they find their happiness or will the hardships of life force the two lovers apart?
As I mentioned about about the chemistry, who better to play the pained badass boxer than So Ji Sub, and supporting him, we find Han Hyo Joo playing the blind girl which I must add is one of the best roles she has ever played. I doubt if any other actor/actress would have been able to play this role better than these two.
This movie makes you cringe with pain as you watch the two lovers fighting for their love. But, you also find some sweet moments that make you believe in true love and makes you wish you too had someone like So Ji Sub who risks it all for you. The roles have been carried out so well that you can see pain and angst drip from the faces of the actors. A perfect movie to watch on a Sunday cuddled up in your bed with a cup of coffee and a few tissues.
2) Kimi Ni Todoke
Don't we all have this one person in our classroom who is treated as an outcast and mocked? Maybe because she isn't pretty or is anti-social? I did. However, what matters in the end is not how the world looks at her but how you choose to look at her. Do you have the courage to look past the stupid dogmas and stand up for what you believe? Because, this movie is all about that. There is friendship and love which transports you back to your school day. You can find yourself a part of the movie--either you're the popular girl, the outcast, the rumor creator or miss nobody, you are somewhere in the story. This is the best part of it.
Haruma and Mikako form the lead pair, but what's more beautiful about this movie is the friendship between the girls who stand by each other through thick and thin. Mikako is called "sadoko" of the class, mainly because of the resemblance she bears to the ghost of the movie, Ring. Haruma, a new student looks past the rumors of her being cursed extends a hand of friendship and slowly this friendship looms into love. Though my favorite part will always be the trio--Sawako, Yano and Yoshida--who display bonding and friendship in a way that you start longing for your friends.
I love this movie for its simplicity. There are no unbelievable twists and turns or villains or evil step parents. It's a believable story of another teenager as she battles through her high school days.
Go for this movie if you wish to revel in your high school days, because one thing that I can assure is that it definitely will ring a smile on your face.
3) Secret
Chou Jay and Kwai Lun Mei star in a supernatural love story. Most people have to fight parents, love rivals, thugs or fate games to unite, but these two had to fight the inevitable--TIME. As the story starts you find yourself trapped in beautiful piano melodies and two students who mysteriously meet and the mystery continues. And it all goes back to a piano melody. There are sweet moments, misunderstandings and secrets, that are beyond human comprehension, but what suffices is the most pure of human emotions--love.
For me, love stories out to have a happy ending. I'm not asking to believe that fairytale love exists, because movies are scripted and written by humans. In reality, love can be painful and life can be tiresome. Just like the movies I've chosen, God has written a happy ending for all of us. It may take long, but he is the best scriptwriter and each and everyone's life is a beautiful story written by him. Hope we all can enjoy it!! ☺
