Brief Story Line
Retired professional Kim Ki-ho (Choi Min-sik - Exhuma, Big Bad TV series etc) who was also a widow, started to feel lack of meaningful activity in his life. So when he saw the advertisement for a position of Senior Intern in a successful fashion startup company named Woo22, Ki-ho decided to give a try. To his luck, Ki-ho was accepted and placed under supervision of Choi Min-ah (Ryu Hye-young - Reply 1988 TV series, The Mayor etc) who reported directly to company's CEO and founder Lee Seon-woo (Han So-hee - Project Y, My Name mini series etc). Though a bit reluctant at first, Seon-woo accepted the advice from her partner/VP Young-hwan (Kim Jun-han - Revolver, Mad Concrete Dreams TV series etc) to just let Ki-ho be working without proper assignment.
Due to his age, Ki-ho was having trouble to adjust life in a totally different kind of workplace and having to deal with people a lot younger than him. Things got complicated with the Company growing so big so fast that affected the performance of Seon-woo in the eyes of the investors and also her private life with her husband Kang Min-wook (Kang Tae-oh - Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Moon River TV series etc).
So how would Ki-ho deal with his internship and what would happen to Seon-woo? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
My wife and I were aware that this movie was a South Korean remake of that popular 2015 Hollywood film of the same title starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. Since it was quite long ago, both of us already forgotten the movie's detail and only remembered the main plot. With limited knowledge of the story, it was actually a good thing for us as it gave the feeling of watching it for the first time. Now to me the early part of the movie where it showed how Ki-ho managed to become Intern in Seon-woo's company and his adjustment to life there somehow felt a bit slow. Subsequently though, the story felt more interesting with a little bit of office politics, problems in the Company and Ki-ho's starting to show his experience was still worth something.
Throughout the movie, it was pleasing to see Ki-ho develop into someone whose wisdom was highly regarded by people at the office and his growing positive influence on Seon-woo. There were also plenty of humor which was fun and made audience laughed a bit, although it was more like a comedy from situation (that accidental message thing was surprisingly chaotic and quite hilarious). However, do not expect this movie to be full of those comedic moments. So if I have to categorize, this one is more like a drama with comedy rather than comedy drama. But the thing I like the most would be the chemistry between Choi Min-sik and Han So-hee which grew out of respect. I think it was not pale in comparison with De Niro and Hathaway in the original movie written and directed by Nancy Meyers.
Now this remake was written and directed by Kim Do-young (The Monologue, Once We Were Us etc). After I saw this, I purposely read again the detailed plot of the original film and I have to say that almost everything was similar except for certain parts like Seon-woo's family and few of the staff's issues. Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were some support cast in here like Park Ye-ni (Following, Bloodhounds TV series etc) as one of the senior employee Yoo-jin, Yoon Sang-jeong (S**ting Stars TV series etc) and Kim Yo-han (Streaming, A Killer Paradox mini series etc) as other interns Yun-hee & Ju-seong respectively, Kim Geum-soon (Sleep, Squid Game season 2 & 3 etc) as cafetaria owner Hui-suk, Han Ji-eun (Rampant, Study Group TV series etc) as Woo22 ambassador Ru-da and several others in minor capacity. I think they did good job in portraying their characters.
Btw I was quite surprised when I found out that it has long duration of 2 hours and 12 minutes which could be viewed as good or bad depending on the audience. There was a brief mid end credit scene in the movie but it did not have any post end credit scene. Overall this was an interesting drama comedy in a workplace with some adult matters. It is not as light as I thought would be, but it was pretty entertaining and fun. It has a good enough closure on the major issues and a satisfying ending, although that final scene before credits were shown somehow felt rather random as it did not have proper context. So if you are interested in watching the remake of that popular 2015 movie in a completely different environment and culture of South Korea, then you are welcome to give it a try. I think you would find this to be pretty enjoyable like my wife and I did.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment