A Moment to Remember

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

I like watching DVDs on lazy Saturday mornings, when my eyes are still half-open and my stomach growling for some much-needed coffee. I never realized it was a habit I acquired even when I was still living in Manila. I remember watching quite a number of asian films on vcds or dvds, while still in bed and enjoying the comforts of air-conditioning in my room.

A few Saturdays ago (back in the pre-Cable TV days), I popped in the “AMomentToRemember” DVD. Thanks to Uchi who sent it!

Initially, I didn’t really have a strong desire to watch this movie, which I initially dismissed as another two-hanky, weepy chick flick churned out by Korean film companies. And when I asked AY, one of my co-workers, about “A Moment to Remember,” she told me she fell asleep at the theater when it was shown.

Then, I saw posters of this guy at Giordano with JeonJi-hyun and JangDong-geun. Who is this hot K-actor and why haven’t I seen him before?

Turns out, it was JungWoo-sung, who starred in A Moment to Remember with pretty SonYe-jin.

The film starts off slowly, with Kim Soo-jin (SonYe-jin) being stood up by her married boyfriend at the train station. Dazed and depressed, she has a strange, embarrassing encounter with a scruffy (but hunky JungWoo-sung) guy, wherein she mistakenly assumes the guy “stole” her Coke.

So, she drags herself back to her parents’ house where she is not exactly welcomed. After all, in Korea, when you get caught with a married person (even if it happens all the time), you can face jail time.

She tried to get over her depression, and tries to heal her relationship with her parents, and start working again for her company (where she caused the scandal with the married boss).

She meets the guy again, ChoiChol-soo (JungWoo-sung), who turns up to be her father’s foreman and a budding architect. He’s rude, ill-tempered, dirty, brooding and soooo manly, it’s hard not to see why sparks don’t fly.

Sometimes, the movie tries too hard that it feels contrived. Like the scene where Cholsoo rescues Soojin’s bag from a snatcher, by hitting the motorcycle-riding thief with his car door, and just like a knight in shining armor right?

Of course, there are the usual obstacles, like her Dad doesn’t want her to marry a construction guy; or the married guy coming back to Soojin or Cholsoo’s money-grubbing mom. Usual soap opera fare.

Then, just when everything is perfect, comes the clincher—she’s got Alzheimer’s disease at age 27! Okay, so you can now guess the rest of the movie.

Sometimes, it seems like it’s a shortened version of a drama series. It felt like The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks at times.

As you can guess, this movie (at least the director’s cut) is quite long, a little over two hours.
I haven’t decided whether I loved the movie or just liked it. Maybe I liked it because of JWS, who is such a dream guy—hunky, manly, sensitive, scruffy, sweet… sigh. Maybe I didn’t like it so much because it was too long.

If you're looking for a love story to make you cry, not to mention starring a guy to make you swoon... this is it.

In the end, I was right about one thing—it is a two-hanky movie.