[K-Movie Night] Very Ordinary Couple

by Dramaddictally

Welcome to K-Movie Night — a once-a-month feature where we microwave some popcorn, put on a face mask, and get cozy with a Korean movie from yesteryear. With so many films finally streaming (with subs!), now is the time to get caught up on all those movies we missed featuring our favorite drama actors.

Each month, we’ll pick a flick, write a review, and meet you back here to discuss whether or not it’s worth a watch. Super simple. All you have to do is kick up your feet and join us in the comments!

 
MOVIE REVIEW

I don’t know if everyone else is as excited as I am about Lee Min-ki’s upcoming drama (premiering August 12), but even a few more weeks seemed like a long wait to have his brand of off-beat comedy on my screen. He has an uncanny ability to make every performance feel natural, and with his standout character from My Liberation Notes still echoing in my head from last year, it seemed like the perfect moment to check out one of his box office hits.

Very Ordinary Couple piqued my interest right away, not only for its rave reviews, awards nominations, and 2013 film festival success, but also because I can’t pass up the work of female writer/directors. As the feature-length directorial debut of filmmaker Roh Deok (who also directed the 2022 drama Glitch), this breakup comedy hit all the marks and shot straight to the top of my watch list.

And what a lovely little film this turned out to be. Billed as a movie about a breakup, it captures love — in its simplest, most honest form — better than most romances are able to do. Pain, pettiness, and obsession go hand-in-hand with happiness, comfort, and caring. There’s a raw quality to the film, both in the choice to use documentary-style direction (and almost no music) and in the dialogue-driven interactions between the lead couple.

We open with a woman talking directly to the camera about her recent breakup. She tells us how happy she is about it, smiling in confirmation, and then goes home and cries on her bed when she’s behind closed doors. This is JANG YOUNG (Kim Min-hee) — one half of the couple we’ll get to know intimately over the next two hours.

Her counterpart, LEE DONG-HEE (Lee Min-ki), tells the camera that it feels good to be a free man again and then starts flirting with the woman next to him at a bar. After he’s had way too much to drink, he cries at the table and begs his friend (Kim Kang-hyun) to let him call Young.

The film plays with these mismatched public/private personas by having the leads star in a documentary about a breakup (this is why they’re talking to the camera some of the time). It allows us to see how they really feel versus how they wish they felt, and gives us a kind of interiority that would otherwise be missing. The device is most useful when they become more honest with the camera (and with themselves) as the film goes on.

The camera work also helps create the deadpan comedy, especially in the first half, keeping the movie funny, even as it deals with painful events. The leads are angry and conflicted, spitting dialogue at each other as the camera pulls in and out on their faces almost as quickly as they say their lines. The constant, shaky movements lighten the effect of their words, which would seem much more serious with a steadier frame.

Right after we’re introduced to our leads, we see them in flashback as a happy couple — laughing, eating, kissing, and generally having fun. It’s the kind of montage sometimes saved for the last act of a romantic comedy, but here it’s the backstory, letting us know we’re about to witness what happens after the romance ends.

And what we witness, at least in the beginning of this story, is petty and possessive behavior. When Dong-hee asks Young to return his laptop, she smashes it before it sending it back and then makes him pay the delivery fee. When the two are at afterwork drinks with their colleagues (since they work together at a bank), Dong-hee interrupts the conversation Young is having with another male employee (Park Byung-eun) to tell him to watch out for Young. And so it goes, until the leads are in a physical brawl with each other that has to be broken up.

About halfway through, there’s a shift in tone when a somewhat serious event sparks the two exes to rekindle their relationship. All the pettiness and desperate attempts to annoy each other — all their unwillingness to truly let go — amounts to obvious lingering feelings between them. It’s beautiful, watching them get right back to the love they left off with and return to the sweet and happy moments we saw montaged at the beginning.

But it’s all tinged with something else now too: fear. They’re both terrified of breaking up again and all the pain that goes with it. Worse, they worry if they do break up it’ll be for the exact same reasons, and we spend some time watching them walk on eggshells around each other as their insecurities get the best of them. They want the relationship to be different this time, but how can it be when neither of them has changed? The movie’s finale explores this question with a knockout lovers quarrel that will determine whether or not they decide to stay together on this scary ride we call a relationship.

Lee Min-ki and Kim Min-hee carry this movie from beginning to end with phenomenal performances that feel unsettlingly natural. They’ve got a fiery chemistry that ignites every time they’re on screen together, whether they’re fighting or flipping around on a mattress — and there’s a notable sinking during the scenes where they appear separately. This strikes me as exactly how this story was meant to be told, with the main couple experiencing the same sinking feeling when they’re apart.

In addition to the believable leads, appearances by Ra Mi-ran and Park Byung-eun, as well as scene-stealing hilarity from Kim Kang-hyun, make this a raw, realistic, and tender story. With top marks for acting, writing, and directing, this is one I will definitely be rewatching.

Join us in August for the next K-Movie Night and let’s make a party of it! We’ll be watching Twenty (2015) and posting the review during the last week of the month.

Want to participate in the comments when it posts? You’ve got 3 weeks to watch! Rather wait for the review before you decide to stream it? We’ve got you covered.

 
RELATED POSTS

• [K-Movie Night] Midnight Runners
• [K-Movie Night] More Than Family
• Kim Young-kwang goes from boy to man in On Your Wedding Day
• Female friendship, retro vibes, and raucous reminiscing in Sunny
• [Movie Review] Terrible teens, mass-murdering moms — it’s Kill Boksoon!
• [Movie Review] 20th Century Girl is a sweet but somber first love story for any generation
• [Movie Review] Seoul Vibe takes a joy ride through late-80s urban fashion
• [Movie Review] Netflix’s Carter offers great camera work and fight choreography but not much else