With
Song Joong-Ki soon discharged from
his army duty (expected sometime in May) and the ruckus about him possibly
being cast for the new
drama of Kim Eun-Sook (The Heirs, Secret Garden), I felt like writing few lines about his latest
movie before his enlistment : A Werewolf
Boy.
That
movie touched me in a way I can’t barely explain. I don’t know if it’s Song
Joong-Ki himself and his absurdly incredible acting or the atmosphere of the
whole thing but I’ve been sold. Completely. The cinematography of the movie is
breath taking and that’s certainly where the movie won points. It delivered
something stunning. Even if you’re not
bought by the story, the cinematography only will make you fall.
That
said, A Werewolf Boy’s story isn’t
the most original one you’ve ever seen but it surely is sweet and warm enough
to leave a mark. It managed to capture some ordinary moments and turned them
into something innocent and endearing without being cheesy.
We are in 1965, Kim Sun-yi (Park Bo-young), is a teenager going under a period of convalescence
after problems with her lungs. She moves from Seoul to the countryside with her
widowed mother and her little sister, Soon-Ja (Kim Hyang-Gi). The three live modestly and have to deal with
their narcissistic young landlord, Ji-tae (Yoo Yeon-Seok), the son of the business partner of Sun-yi's late
father, who has his eyes on Sun-yi for long. The latter is introverted and doesn’t
have any friends. But things change the day she discovers a boy in the yard.
The boy looks like a beast, is uneducated, doesn’t speak nor read. He isn’t able
to do a thing correctly, but beyond all expectations, Sun-yi’s mother (Jang Young-Nam),
decides to adopt him, assuming he’s an orphan of the war. The boy is then named
Chul-Soo. If the latter is a nuisance for Sun-yi in the beginning, the two
eventually grow close.
While teaching Chul-Soo how to write, to speak, to wear
clothes, to behave like a human, Sun-yi opens up her heart to a Chul-soo who
ends up falling in love with her. He discovers love next to the unique person
who ever shown affection to him. His loyalty towards her will eventually wake
all his bestial instincts. The consequences will be fatal: Chil-soo will become
the target of a jealous Ji-tae and the villagers.
The story starts in the contemporary time with the
old Kim Sun-yi. She’s called from South Korea about that house in the country.
Does she has to sell it or not? She’s quite not sure herself. Something
connected her to that property. Talk about something huge: a boy who was once
her closest friend. He seems to have leave her heart momentarily but that phone
call made everything resurfacing and she can’t run away from her souvenirs.
Sun-yi then leaves the US to South Korea. She need to check the house and
somehow she has to do that trip to her past. Along with her granddaughter
Eun-joo, Sun-yi spends the night in her old house. When she suddenly decides to
walk into the shed, she finds Chil-soo sitting there, waiting. I’m not sure she
was certain to find him. He hasn’t change, he still has the face of that young
boy. If he patiently waited for her more than 40 years, it’s because of that one
single thing Sun-Yi said before leaving: ‘Wait for me, I’ll come back’. He
waited. Loyalty. That’s
what it is folks!
We didn’t see Chi-soo becoming a best quite often in
the movie. It’s actually happened once at the end. That’s when his bestial
instincts will get freed. Him being a werewolf is only subtitle all through the
movie. It’s simple, if it’s wasn’t said from the get go, I wouldn’t have guess.
Because Chi-soo isn’t only a beast, it’s boy trying to be human, looking for
attention and affection even if he wasn’t precisely aware of that himself. At
least not until he met Sun-Yi.
That’s basically what I liked a lot about A Werewolf Boy. It’s not only the story
of a werewolf and a girl. It’s the story of two young people who at some point
of their existence, realized that it was ok to rely one each other, that it was
ok to open up to each other. It’s sweetly said, wonderfully imaged and Chi-soo
being a werewolf is an excellent pretext to film a naïve and beautiful relation.
I’m not sure of the kind of
end I was expecting for. Maybe my fleur-bleue
side wanted a happy and romantic ending but how could I possibly have that when
one the leads is a werewolf? In another galaxy maybe, but not this time around.
Anyway A Werewolf Boy stays a good
memory beside his classic couture and development. Great cast, great acting,
gorgeous cinematography, there’s nothing more I could have asked.
It’s still not
certain at this time if Song-Joon-Ki will play or not the lead in Descended From Sun (to be completely
frank, I don’t quite see his probable pairing with SongHye-Gyo with a lot of excitement. If it has to be, well I will still
give a try. I can’t possibly say no to Song Joong-Ki) but I rather see him in
something fresh and light, a rom-com why not. Fingers crossed for a double
episode of Running Man first, followed by a drama. One can dream right?
OR 