If
Rizzo were dying of cancer, surely Frenchie would reunite the Pink Ladies. Such is the position married and well-to-do
Im Na-mi finds herself in. Some members
of the girl gang are happy to get back together, but others are harder to find
in Kang Hyeong-chul’s monster hit Sunny (trailer here), which screens
tomorrow as part of the Korean Cultural Service’s free Korean Movie Night in
New York.
While
not exactly a life of quiet desperation, Im leads a sheltered existence that is
not wholly fulfilling. Since her husband
and daughter are too busy to visit her mother-in-law in the hospital, she upholds
their obligations. During one such
visit, she chances across the room of Ha Chun-hwa, the leader of the clique
dubbed “Sunny.” When Im’s family moved to Seoul from the countryside, Ha took
the shy teen under her wing. As we watch
in flashbacks, most of Sunny quickly fell in line, but not Jung Su-ji, the
moody prospective model.
When
not rumbling with other girl gangs, Sunny practiced their choreography. However, they were never able to perform their
big number, for reasons that will eventually be revealed. Hmm, anyone smell some unfinished business
here?
In
a Korean film, when a character is introduced with fatal illness in the first
act, it is a cinch there will be an emotional funeral coming down the
pike. This goes way beyond Chekhov’s
gun. Without a big weepy payoff,
audiences would want their money back.
Not to be spoilery, but Sunny delivers
the goods.
Yes,
this is a chick flick, but it is an admittedly well crafted film. Employing some surprisingly striking
transitions for each temporal shift, Sunny
is more visually stylish than it probably needed to be. In fact, Nam Na-yeoung won the best editing
honors at Daejong Film Awards for good reason.
As the narrative unfolds, it pulls you in, despite viewers’ macho or hipster
resistances.
Yoo
Ho-jeong plays grown-up Im with admirable restraint, never overplaying the
gilded cage empowerment card. Likewise, Shim
Eun-kyung is earnest and awkward as teenaged Im. Yet, both Jin Hee-kyung and Kang Sora really
outshine the ensemble as the ailing adult and fearless teenaged, Ha,
respectively. Although hardly a teen
herself, singer Min Hyo-rin has her moments as the high school ice queen, Jung. As for her adult counterpart, that is really
the question driving Sunny’s third
act.
