[K-Movie Night] Miss Granny

by Dramaddictally

Welcome to K-Movie Night — a once-a-month feature where we microwave some popcorn, put on a face mask, and get cozy with a Korean movie from yesteryear. With so many films finally streaming (with subs!), now is the time to get caught up on all those movies we missed featuring our favorite drama actors.

Each month, we’ll pick a flick, write a review, and meet you back here to discuss whether or not it’s worth a watch. Super simple. All you have to do is kick up your feet and join us in the comments!

 
MOVIE REVIEW

With the K-drama remake of Miss Granny slated to premiere before the year’s end, it seemed high time to check out the film that all the fuss was about. Back in 2014, it cleaned up at national and international awards shows and festivals, taking home wins for best actress, screenplay, music, and production. And a decade after its release, the movie is still one of Korea’s biggest box office hits of all time.

With a time-slip, fantasy premise and an all-around stellar cast, it’s not hard to see the appeal. To be honest, I’ll watch anything where Na Moon-hee appears, but Miss Granny boasts Shim Eun-kyung in the lead, as well as the likes of Sung Dong-il, Park In-hwan, Kim Seul-gi, and the cutie-pie face of Jinyoung (who will star in the new drama remake, btw). Why I waited so long to watch this one is a mystery — but it’s a misstep that needed to be corrected.

I’ll just lay down all my cards right away: I loved it. I know I’m hard to please when it comes to overhyped movies, and I often feel disappointed, but this one lives up to the buzz. Comedy, drama, romance, music — it hits all the right notes at all the right moments and made me wish I had seen it in a theater to experience the highs and lows alongside a gaggle of other moviegoers. Alas, I watched it alone — but that didn’t stop it from sending my mood toward the moon. In short, it’s one for the rewatch pile and I highly recommend it.

We start off with an introduction to OH MAL-SOON (Na Moon-hee) who’s feisty and fighting, even in her 70s. She works at a coffee shop, rides a motorcycle, mouths off to literally everyone, and spends most of her time hanging out with her lifelong friend (Park In-hwan), who’s always had a major crush on her. And Na Moon-hee is just perfect for this attitude-ridden role.

We learn quickly that Mal-soon was once a pretty young thing who planned to avoid getting old by offing herself before she turned thirty. However, she got married and had a baby, and when her husband died young, she had to stay alive to care for her son. Now, her university professor son, HYUN-CHUL (Sung Dong-il), is her pride and joy, and she doesn’t regret how she’s lived.

That is, until Hyun-chul has to choose between his mother and his wife. Since Mal-soon lives with her son’s family — and she’s not the nicest mother-in-law — when Hyun-chul’s wife passes out from stress, the decision is made to send halmeoni to a nursing home.

Mal-soon gets depressed and feels a sense of betrayal as we find out some questionable things she did to survive when Hyun-chul was a sickly baby and she was on her own. While it may seem unethical, she stands by her past actions because her son is successful and he “takes good care” of her. Or, at least, he did.

The movie does a good job complicating the characters enough to elicit real compassion here. And it’s easy to understand Mal-soon’s desperation as a young mother, as well as her sense of defeat in the present situation. But it’s also easy to feel for Hyun-chul, whose mother suffered so much for him, that he can’t ever really repay the debt no matter what he does.

Before she’s asked to move out of the house, Mal-soon goes to the Forever Young Portrait Studio to get a funeral photo taken of herself. The photographer says he’ll make her look fifty years younger, and when she comes out of the studio, she is. In the flash of a camera, she’s gone from roughly seventy to twenty — and it takes her no time to decide to take advantage of it.

She gives herself a makeover with new clothes and a new cut, but she also needs a new name. She settles on Audrey, after Audrey Hepburn, but it doesn’t roll off the tongue too easy, so it becomes OH DOO-RI (Shim Eun-kyung), lol.

And from there, she’s living out all the dreams she had when she was young, mostly without even trying. Mal-soon always wanted to be a singer, and so, Doo-ri gets on a local stage and sings an old-and-sweet sounding ballad. It’s melancholic and beautiful and by the time she’s done everyone is on their feet clapping and cheering.

In the audience is Mal-soon’s grandson, JI-HA (Jin-young), who wants this enchanting woman to be in his band. At the moment, the band sings heavy metal, but Doo-ri convinces them to perform cute and sweet tunes, using her cute and sweet personality. The music is upbeat and fun and it’s hard not to smile ear to ear as she sings and bounces around the stage.

It doesn’t take long for her winning personality and lovely voice to land them on TV, and in an especially moving scene, Doo-ri sings a ballad that has the whole crowd in tears as she thinks back on her life. We see her losing her husband and raising her son while working backbreaking jobs, which raises the stakes when Doo-ri catches the eye of the TV show’s producer (Lee Jin-wook), giving her a possible second chance at love.

While the movie brings both laughs and tears, most of the humor is supposed to come from the fact that Doo-ri keeps acting like a 70-year-old lady while in a young body. The thing is, I find this character too adorable to fully buy it. She’s forthright. And the funniest moments happen when she’s being honest about herself, rather than telling people what to do.

The conundrum of course is whether or not Doo-ri will have to change back to Mal-soon. She’s got a new love interest, a new career, and a new lease on life, but I found myself not at all preoccupied with what was to come — I was having too fantastic of time watching this woman live her life moment to moment. And that’s the sign of a truly great character. Whether Doo-ri or Mal-soon, she’s amazing in both her iterations, and both actresses embody the same lively persona.

At the same time, there’s an undercurrent of death approaching and the movie’s main message appears to be that life is hard but there are good times in the midst of it. There’s love (both familial and romantic) that can be simultaneously beautiful and tragic, whether it’s reciprocated or not. Weighed together, the film’s highs and lows are constructed and paced perfectly, making the time go so quickly that I almost wished it wouldn’t end.

Watch it for the musical performances, the stream of feel-good moments, and the female lead. Plus, the end features a fabulous cameo that had me smiling and kicking my feet. The whole vibe left me on such an uplifted note that I now count this among my favorite K-movies. I came out lighthearted and feeling alive — just like the unforgettable heroine at the film’s center.

Join us in November for the next K-Movie Night and let’s make a party of it! We’ll be watching Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 (2019) and posting the review during the last week of the month.

Want to participate in the comments when it posts? You’ve got 3 weeks to watch! Rather wait for the review before you decide to stream it? We’ve got you covered.

 
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