Three Korean couples experience the usual ups and downs in Park Hyun-jin’s romantic comedy…
Korean director Park Hyun-jin (Lovers of Six Years) returns with Like for Likes, a contemporary romantic comedy written by Yoo Young-ah (Miracle in Cell No. 7), with a focus on the use of social media. The film boasts an impressive cast of big names, including Choi Ji-woo (Actresses), Lee Mi-yeon (A Company Man), Kim Joo-hyuk (The Servant), Yoo Ah-in (The Throne), Esom (Scarlet Innocence) and Kang Ha-neul (Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet) as a trio of couples going through the usual relationship ups and downs.
The lives of the three duos intertwine, linked together by the characters all having some connection with each other and with the film and television industry – Yoo Ah-in plays No Jin-woo, an arrogant young actor who made his name working on a hit series for screenwriter and producer Cho Kyung-ah (Lee Mi-yeon), with whom he had a one-night stand despite the difference in their ages. Having recently completed his military service and in high demand for his next role, No is shocked to find that Cho now has a young child, which he becomes convinced is his. Meanwhile, Cho’s assistant Jang Na-yeon (Esom) has romantic problems of her own, having fallen for a songwriter and composer called Lee Soo-ho (Kang Ha-neul), their courtship being complicated by his struggling to deal with a hearing problem. Jang frequents a local Japanese restaurant, whose owner Jung Sung-chan (Kim Joo-hyuk) finds himself single after being dumped by his fiancée, and ends up sharing an apartment with flight attendant Ham Joo-ran (Choi Ji-woo). Despite their initial animosity, the two soon become close friends, which threatens to develop into something more serious.
Korean romantic comedies tend to be a very generic bunch, rarely deviating from the accepted formula, and Like for Likes certainly doesn’t buck the trend, following the usual checklist from start to finish, right down to its extended airport-set finale. As its title suggests, the film’s only real innovation, if it could be called that, is its use of social media as a plot gimmick, which Park Hyun-jin milks for as much zeitgeist as possible, with plenty of messages and posts popping up on screen throughout. To be fair, though the film’s constant namedropping of Facebook is rather gratuitous, this works well enough, scribe Yoo Young-ah having at least attempted to write it properly into the script.
This aside, the film is in general marked chiefly by its super-niceness, with a complete absence of any kind of life-threatening drama or anything even remotely nasty or mean-spirited. There’s a bright and breezy feel throughout, and Like for Likes is nothing if not amiable, Park never taking thigs too seriously or having delusions of grandeur beyond giving genre fans exactly what they want. With it being clear to the viewer from early on that the three couples are all a good fit, the fun here mainly comes from seeing how long it takes the characters to realise this themselves, resulting in plenty of daft misunderstandings and comical wooing, most of which is surprisingly funny. The film also benefits from a well-constructed and fast-moving narrative, Yoo weaving together the three stories skilfully and efficiently, holding the interest despite a few moments of groan-inducing contrivance.
Ultimately it’s the cast who carry the film, the six leads all being on very charismatic form, making up for their characters’ lack of depth with likeability. All three of the main love stories and pairings engage, and though the film misses the chance to explore interesting topics such as age gaps, disability and later-life relationships, there’s a pleasing lack of sappy melodrama, with a few reasonably moving moments scattered throughout. Among the cast Choi Ji-woo and Lee Mi-yeon deliver the best performances, both being nominated for Most Popular Actress at the 52nd Baeksang Arts Awards, and the film wins points for providing the two with well-written characters that’re more substantial than the kind of female roles which often populate such fare.
Though Like for Likes isn’t really a film that’s likely to appeal to viewers outside the Korean romantic comedy crowd, it’s one of the better examples of the form of late, and certainly one of the sweetest-natured. Forgettable and the very definition of froth, it’s nevertheless a couple of hours of charming fun, with its all-star cast helping to lift things up several notches.