An overlooked antidote to formulaic Korean Rom-Coms showcasing the talents of Gong Hyo-jin…
Meet Mi-sook (Gong Hyo-jin, Love Fiction, Memento Mori) – one of life’s losers. Surly, moody and cursed with a skin complaint that gives her an orange hue, she teaches Russian at her alma mater, though remains as unpopular as a Teacher as she ever was as a student. She carries a torch for her married colleague Mr Seo (Lee Jong-hyuk, Once Upon a Time in High School) that reaches back to when he was her Teacher. Mr Seo is having an affair with Mi-sook’s direct career rival Yoo-ri (Hwang Woo-seul-hye, White: The Melody of the Curse). Mi-sook teams up with Seo’s student daughter Jong-hee (Seo Woo, Paju) to try and break the couple up – though obviously Jong-hee wants to keep her parents together, whilst Mi-sook obviously has more selfish motivations.
Now, if you have watched a few Korean Romantic comedies, you’ll know they can be a touch formulaic. You’ll have a couple of impossibly attractive people that spend most of their movies running time moving from an initial dislike via some quirkiness and comic situations, leading to the eventual near-chaste kiss with the promise of some happy-ever-after conclusion some time after you’ve left the cinema or popped the DVD back on the shelf. Crush and Blush takes this conceit and throws it away. It’s a comedy of the blackest variety.
Take our central protagonist, Mi-sook. She’s frankly unattractive inside and out, stooping to manipulation and cat-fishing to get what she wants. She abuses the trust of young Jong-hee in a way unbecoming of any adult, let alone a Teacher. Mr Seo is hardly a catch, making it remarkable that three women (including his wife) are chasing after him to some degree. Even the innocent Yoo-ti harbours some rather strong sexual desires that are in contrast to her innocent demeanour.
Usually I find films with bad people doing bad things to each other somewhat tiresome. However, it all works superbly well because of the central performance of Gong Hyo-jin. She’s always great in anything, but here she plays up her unconventional beauty, and even though her character does quite terrible things, she gives Mi-sook such a vulnerable central core that for some reason you can’t help but to root for her.
The humour is fairly dark, and touches on subject such as manipulating people on the internet that were not such obvious targets back in 2008. Sadly the subtitles in my version of the film didn’t carry all the jokes, but there are plenty of laughs to entertain. It is also a treat for those of you that like directorial cameos – Park Chan-wook (who also produced the film) makes a fleeting appearance, Bong Joon-ho has a noticeable walk-on, and Bang Eun-jin (Perfect Number, Way Back Home) puts in a strong performance as Seo’s wife.
Crush and Blush is a bit of an overlooked and forgotten gem. It did reasonable business back in 2008, but is probably remembered most for Gong’s performance. Fortunately it is getting some renewed attention due to director Lee Kyoung-mi’s second feature film The Truth Beneath garnering some significant attention. It is pretty raw, and loses some momentum in the final act, but as an antidote to routine Korean Rom-Coms it is a bitter medicine that is well worth taking.