
Sadly, there are a shortage of Korean films foreigners can catch in Seoul theaters. Unless you’re fluent in Korean, which as of yet I’m frustratingly not, at most there are one or two with English subtitles and once you’ve seen them then you’re stuck waiting at least a month for the next round to come through. Thank goodness for DVDs where, most of the time, English subtitles are standard. So this week I’ve opted to review a film that was hyped in theaters earlier this year and is currently out on DVD. That film is MY BLACK MINI DRESS – 마이 브랙 미니 드레스. Starring popular drama actress/singer, Yoon Eun-Hye, this film was highly anticipated this past spring before its release but after watching it I feel it fell way short of expectations.
The movie centers around four best friends and their lives after college. Each one of them lived pampered lives and now they are faced with the realities of the real world. Yoon Eun-Hye plays Yoo-Min, a writer who struggles to commit to anything in her life other than shopping. Park Han-Byeol, playing Hye-Ji, is a spoiled rich party girl who never planned to work until she fell into the life of an up and coming Hallyu star. Cha Ye-Ryeon and Yoo In-Na round out the quartet by showing the lives of a struggling actress and a woman dealing with her parent’s recent divorce and a move to the U.S.. All four of them are trying to force themselves to let go of the easy times of the past and current struggles and welcome change and the future. At least I think that’s what they are trying to do.
The film was directed by Heo In-Moo who, to date, has only three feature films under his belt all of which were written by him. While I haven’t seen his other works I do hope they were better executed than this one. I know this is a film about four different people and so the stories are going to go in different directions but you would think there would be one thing that glues the different stories together. Maybe even the black mini dress that only made a brief non-noteworthy appearance. Nope. All of the stories go awry and all attempts of culmination lead the film three completely un-linkable endings. I couldn’t wait for it to be over and when I thought it was I frustratingly realized that it wasn’t. There were some funny moments but nothing makes up for the film as a whole. The next time you’re thinking of renting a DVD and you see this on the shelf, take my word for it and pass it by.