K-Movie Review: Tune in for Love

Hey guys, so I have been waiting for this movie to come out for quite some time as I have been a fan of Kim Go Eun's movie and I was super excited with her pairing with Jung Hae In after their appearance together as sunbae-hoobae in the hit TvN-drama Goblin. I finally managed to watch this movie over the weekends and decided to share a review with you guys, especially for those of you who are interested in watching this movie! 

*spoilers alert*

This melodrama romance movie tells the story about how two people, Mi-Soo (portrayed by Kim Go Eun) and Hyun-Woo (portrayed by Jung Hae In) met at different phrases of their life and how their relationship developed each time they met. 

Year 1994 

The movie started one morning in 1994 with high school student Mi-Soo opening up the bakery when Hyun-Woo, an ex-juvenile convict came into the bakery to ask for some soy-based drink. Mi-Soo is the daughter of the bakery and she works part-time at the bakery to help her older sister. Mi-Soo did not have any and she asked Hyun-Woo to go to the supermarket nearby. On the way out from the bakery, Hyun-Woo stopped his footsteps as he heard rookie radio DJ Yoo Yeol on the radio. It was his very first appearance on radio that morning. While Mi-Soo was a bit afraid of Hyun-Woo initially, she slowly warmed up to him after she found out that they were born in the same year- 1975. Hyun-Woo then somehow started working part-time at the bakery with Mi-Soo. Just when they were starting to get to know each other, Hyun-Woo's ex-schoolmates came to look for him at the bakery one day. As they were making a scene at the bakery, Mi-Soo's auntie asked them to leave the bakery and Hyun Woo left the bakery with his ex-schoolmates. 

Year 1997

The story then jumps to 1997 when they unexpectedly met each other again after Hyun-Woo left the bakery and never came back in 1994. Mi-Soo was starting her very first job the next day while Hyun-Woo was enlisting into the military the following day. Mi-Soo was reluctant at first but she decided to invite Hyun-Woo into her apartment for some beer and food. They talked about what happened during the years and Hyun-Woo told Mi-Soo that he got into a fight the night he left the bakery with his ex-school mates and his probation period got revoked and he was sent back to juvenile detention. While they did not promise to wait for each other, Mi-Soo created an email account for Hyun-Woo so that they could keep in touch while Hyun-Woo was in the military. After going their separate ways, Mi-Soo realised she had forgotten to give Hyun-Woo the password to access his email account. 

Year 2000

While Hyun-Woo was serving in the military, Mi-Soo had moved out from her apartment. However, Mi-Soo has been sending e-mails to the email account she created for Hyun-Woo although he does not have the password to access the account. One day, Hyun-Woo finally managed to figure the password out and he sent an email to Mi-Soo. Mi-Soo gave Hyun-Woo a call that afternoon and they decided to meet up after work. However, Hyun-Woo couldn't managed to meet Mi-Soo because the place he was working at got into some issues and he was taken to the police station together with the other workers. Mi-Soo, on the other hand was facing her own difficulties as the financial crisis struck Korea in 2000 and she wrote an email to Hyun-Woo explaining that she didn't think she was in a position to meet Hyun-Woo with her current situation and she hoped for them to meet again sometime in the future when better things were happening to them.

Year 2005 

Another 5 years have passed and they met unexpectedly in 2005 when Hyun-Woo's new office moved to the place above where Mi-Soo was working. Mi-Soo was now working as a writer at a small publishing company while Hyun-Woo found a job and he was now living in Mi-Soo's old apartment. This time, they were finally able to express their feelings for each other and resolve the misunderstanding they had during the lost years. They decided to bring their relationship to the next stage and they became a couple. Just when they were getting along just like every other couple in a normal relationship, Hyun-Woo's past came between them when Mi-Soo found out about what happened and she went to visit his friend's sister in the countryside.

When Mi-Soo told Hyun-Woo about it and that it was okay for him to forget about what happened in the past, Hyun-Woo got angry as he didn't want Mi-Soo to find out about his horrible past and he was angry that she did not trust him in the end. That night, Hyun-Woo got into a fist fight when he confronted his ex-schoolmate who told Mi-Soo about what happened to him in the past. When Hyun-Woo got back to his apartment, Mi-Soo had already left. Ever since that night, Hyun-Woo had been looking everywhere for Mi-Soo. When he finally found Mi-Soo after chasing after her, he finally told her that he loved her. However, Mi-Soo pushed him away and told him to stop running towards her because he would get hurt. That was the last time Mi-Soo and Hyun-Woo met each other.

Sometime later, Mi-Soo realised that she was still in love with Hyun-Woo after she heard the radio DJ mentioning her name, Kim Mi-Soo as one of the names somebody has been missing. Mi-Soo knew straight away that it was Hyun-Woo and she ran towards the radio station to look for Hyun-Woo. The movie ended with Mi-Soo finding Hyun-Woo, while Hyun-Woo capture this special moment using his camera.

Review

What I really liked about this movie is the overall theme and story about how two people kept meeting at different phrases of their life and still found each other in the end. This kind of reminds me of a Cecelia Ahern's novel'Where the Rainbow Ends' where the two main leads kept missing each other until they finally got together in the end after years of separations and failed marriages. I'm not usually a fan of movies set during the 1990s but this movie is definitely an exception. The chemistry between Kim Go Eun and Jung Hae In was amazing and their portray as Mi-Soo and Hyun-Woo was excellent! I enjoyed the ordinary yet heartwarming love story between the two leads and how their relationship blossomed from your puppy love to a mature relationship when they met years later. I think what made this movie popular in Korea was the fact that the story was during the era when Korea was developing in the 1990s and how they went through the financial crisis in 2000 which had affected countless of families in Korea. The story continued on to 2005 where it shows how Korea was slowing recovering from the bad times in 2000. The soundtrack in this movie gives you a nostalgia feel which makes you feel like you're back in the past with a combination of the 90's K-pop such as Fin.KL, Toy and 'Fix You' by Coldplay. The progress of this movie is like your typical Korean melodrama movie with a slow and steady flow, and a simple yet meaningful dialogues between the main leads. There weren't much character development given that the movie was set in the span of almost 10 years. But overall, the chemistry between the main leads and the story was satisfactory. I would definitely recommend this movie to those of you who are fans of melodrama K-movies! <3

xoxo

kdramayeowang