Perfect Match, A (aka: Romantic Comedy)

Rating: 7/10
Year: 2002
Genre: Comedy
Director: Mo Ji-Eun
Cast: Shin Eun-Kyung, Jung Jun-Ho,Gong Hyung-Jin, Kim Yeo-Jin

A Perfect Match features a top cast by teaming up Shin Eun-Kyung, the super star of My Wife is Gangster, and Jung Jun-Ho, one of the hottest and most prolific actors recently. As the alternative title of this film - Romantic Comedy suggests, this is a typical light-hearted romantic comedy directed by a new female director Mo Ji-Eun.

The story isn't innovative at all. Hyo-Jin (Shin Eun-Kyung) is a couple manager who specializes in matching up couples, while she fails to find a date herself. One day, she comes across a weird customer called Hyun-Soo (Jung Jun-Ho) and some form of attachment gradually forms between the two of them... With this typical plotline, it seems that even the director is not interested in reexamining the genre itself, she is rather more concerned about the minor details. As a matter of fact, the fragmented events are more engaging than the major love plot, there are quite a number of remarkable scenes that are unforgettable. For instance, scenes like the discussion of Hollywood celebrities, boring pill taking moment and chit chatting with the bald guy are all funny and witty. The mood of the several love scenes also hit right at the point.

Although the plotline is not a breakthrough, there are still some notable observations that is worth discussing. Perhaps it is because the director is a woman, the story is told almost entirely from a female point of view, almost 90% of the plot is assigned to Shin Eun-Kyung, the lead actress, most of the events are about her or centered around her; in related to that, the character of Jung Jun-Ho is actually more like a supporting actor than the male lead. We only get to know about this guy through the eyes of Hyo-Jin. What we know is what Hyo-Jin knows, therefore, where he lives and works is totally unknown to us, as Hyo-Jin doesn't know too. What is nice about this plot structure is that, we become Hyo-Jin and we experience her love journey in a much more intimate way as if we are going through our own little love adventure! Moreover, the heavy emphasis on female characters also matches the recent trend of Korean cinema in which the female is always the focus of the movie.

Shin Eun-Kyung has successfully converted herself from the tough gang boss in My Wife is Gangster to the vulnerable young woman in this film. Comparatively speaking, to me, her role as Hyo-Jin is way more attractive and feminine than the gang boss. Jung Jun-Ho as the generous engineer is very charming as well. Since he always carries a warm smile on his face, it is no wonder why Hyo-Jin will fall for him. A small surprise is the cameo of Park Sang-Myun in the beginning of the film, in which it makes a little joke on My Wife is Gangster in a harmless way.

A Perfect Match is a romantic comedy made by a woman for the women. If you are not female, it may not be easy for you to grasp the motives or actions of the female characters in the film. On the contrary, female viewers should be able to enjoy most of the jokes and really take the encounters of the characters to heart!

DVD (Korean version) - It is a 2 disc DVD set. Disc 1 is the feature presentation, while disc 2 contains all the special features including a series of short films made by the director of this film. The only problem is that, there is no subtitle for the special features and the DVD menu is in Korean. If you don't read Korean, you have to at least browse through each section once in order to figure out which is which.

Reviewed by: Kantorates