Kung Fu Cult Cinema

Story: Choi Eun-Soo is a young attractive teacher on her latest job at a new high school. Things start off perfect for Eun-Soo until she meets a rebellious teen, Han Young-Hee, who proves too much to handle. When push comes to shove, Eun-Soo demands a parent-teacher conference at once. However, unbeknownst to Ms. Eun-Soo, it seems Han Young-Hee’s father is Han Min-Wook, known to everyone else as the president of South Korea! And so the love-hate relationship of the two begin as the people’s president takes on his most challenging campaign yet—winning the heart of a beautiful teacher.

Review: I’ve seen better. I have. I mean, it’s no lie that I’m the same guy who wept through films like Failan and Fly Me To Polaris. Heck, I even cry at all the endings of Smallville. Shut up, I know you guys hurt inside, too. The fact of the matter is, Romantic President is a so-so movie that tries and tries to become something it simply cannot—an original film.

Almost too close of a rehash of a 1995 American film, The American President, my initial thought was to find differences that worked better. Yet I could never seem to find that one piece that made it even slightly on par with its American counterpart. In all ways is the older American movie better, funnier, and more original in its attempt. Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say, me being the Asian film enthusiast that I am.

In all superior romantic comedies, the leads must have that bonding chemistry that leaps from the screen like beautiful aerial fireworks. To start the film off with that type of explosion only makes the audience crave for more. Think of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan films. The two erupt with this invisible magnetism that bewilders even the most unromantic of the unromantics. Sure, both aren’t Hollywood’s hottest looking actors, but that on screen magic has made them Hollywood’s hottest on screen tandem. If only this concept was taken seriously in the Romantic President, I’d be sold at what I was watching the last one and a half hours.

People may see it differently, of course, since the character Choi Eun-Soo (Choi Ji-Woo) was extremely cute and lovable as the teacher. She may have been the only bright part of the whole movie. Eye candies are great guys, but there are times when even the tastiest of eye candies gets a bit sour when there is nothing else on the screen to fixate your eyes on. Despite her stunning looks and her charismatic attitude, Choi Ji-Woo could not save the film from its “just okay” plot. There are portions of the movie in which I would have loved to see flourish. The daughter of the president was quite intriguing for me. Not that she looked hot or anything, but she definitely brought a sense of maturity and she did a damn fine job playing a spoiled bitch. The budding relationship of the teacher and the student should have been the focal point of the story and then build from that. It just left a gaping hole when the plot strayed away from the daughter and just focused on the president and the teacher.

Believe it or not, I did like the overall soundtrack to this film. With a mixture of great ballads and an oldies feel that rival the purest of American romantic comedies, the musical score was a great surprise. It’s magical how just a beat of a drum or a blow of a trumpet could change my overall feel of the film. I’m a sucker for a good old fashioned musical, you know?

Trite and a bit sappy, I can’t say much more for a film I truly wanted to be blockbuster romantic comedy. It had all the right ingredients on paper, good actors, good concept plot wise, and a very good musical score. However, the one thing that caused its demise was the fact that the chemistry of the characters never could quite take flight.