Review by Ren Zelen
Directed by: Kang Hyo-jin
Starring: Jung Jin-young, Park Sung-woong, Ra Mi-ran, Lee Jun-hyeok, Lee Soo-min, Kim Kwang-kyu, Yoon Kyung-ho, Yoon Song-a, Park Kyung-hye
Well, darn it if the Koreans don’t continue to demonstrate that they can make top-notch films in just about any genre. Kang Hyo-jin’s fifth feature, the comedy The Dude in Me (aka The Man Inside Me), is a fun iteration of the body-swap genre, chockfull of engaging characters, martial-arts action, humour and heart.
Possibly unbeknownst to most Western audiences, it also has the advantage of featuring K-popstar Jung Jin-young of the Boyband B1A4. Jin-young has the, not insignificant, task of playing three separate major characters: the nervous, tubby teen Dong-hyun; a tough-guy gangster Pan-soo (trapped in Dong-hyun’s body); and the svelte, handsome hunk that the ugly-duckling Dong-hyun ultimately turns into. Fortunately, Jung manages to rise to the occasion and pulls off three convincing performances.
The Dude in Me initially takes on the conventional 'bespectacled-nerd-body-switches-with-older-dude' formula and centres around the middle-aged, "entrepreneur" and career criminal Jang Pan-soo (Park Sung-woong), married to the young and pretty, but petulant and unfaithful, daughter of a gangster crime lord.
When not sending his loyal right-hand-man Man Chul (Lee Jun-hyeok) off to intimidate local shop-owners, Jang Pan-soo spends his time eating healthily in good restaurants, being fussy about his clothes, sparring with local thug Boss Yang (Yoon Kyung-ho), and being confident in his fighting skills.
While paying a sentimental visit to an old haunt, a run-down ramen café, Jang Pan-soo inadvertently comes across a chubby teenage boy in thick black-rimmed glasses who gets on his nerves with his ineptitude. Soon after, Karma falls on him like a ton of bricks in the shape of the same boy falling off a rooftop directly on top of him.
[ READ MORE: London Film Festival 2019 Review - Waves ]
[ READ MORE: London Film Festival 2019 Review - Waves ]
Jang Pan-soo wakes up in a hospital bed and is shocked and horrified to discover that he has been transferred into a tubby teen body with poor eyesight, while his own well-toned adult body, now containing schoolboy Dong-hyun, remains in a coma.
As high-schooler Dong-hyun, Jang Pan-soo is devoid of his former prestige and respect and must defer to adults and teachers. He also finds that Dong-hyun is under daily attack from school bullies and his doting father is Jong-ki (Kim Kwang-gyu), one of the store owners whom his thugs had intimidated into signing over his lease.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t take long for his true nature to emerge and the school bullies start to realise that they are messing with a very different Dong-hyun. He also finds that he has built a friendship with another victim at the school, a girl called Hyeon-jeong (Soo-min Lee), whom he had tried to protect, and who he decides needs to learn some useful self-defence fight moves.
Further complications ensue when he meets the girl’s mother, Oh Mi-Sun (Ra Mi-ran) and when he finds that he needs the help of his former henchman, Man Chul, to foil a plot his wife has hatched in his absence, along with her lover.
Although initially taking a conventional comedy premise, The Dude in Me goes on to offer a few surprises - the boy-girl relationship takes an interesting turn and although there is a love story, it turns out to occur where you might not expect. There is also the additional sub-plot of criminal intrigues and betrayals that Jang Pan-soo has to deal with while still in a high-school student’s body.
[ READ MORE: London Film Festival Review - Deerskin ]
[ READ MORE: London Film Festival Review - Deerskin ]
As in so many Asian films, the action scenes make it an especially fun watch and director Hyo-jin is well versed in presenting funny yet exciting fighting choreography. He is also skilled at using just enough humour to highlight some of the problems of modern society such as corruption in business, social stigma, organised crime, bullying and body shaming, without seeming to lapse into didacticism.
Hyo-jin also seems to enjoy letting his actors play slightly off-beat characters – alongside heart-throb Jin-young’s surprisingly assured performances we have a charming turn from Ra Mi-ran as Hyeon-jeong’s feisty mother.
Sung-woong is equally entertaining as the adult Jang Pan-soo, whose world literally collides with that of young Dong-hyun. Despite being a career criminal, he portrays Pan-soo as confident and tough, but with a conscience, and capable of displaying remorse and regret, while convincingly managing the transition to a frightened teen when he first awakes from his coma.
Korean society is strictly regimented by a social hierarchy of deference based on age and seniority, the very inconsistencies and misunderstandings inherent in body-swap comedies would inevitably generate laughter. Seeing a high-school student treat adults with the bravado and self-confidence of a gangster boss accustomed to being listened to and obeyed, would cause amusement at the ridiculousness of such an unlikely situation.
The Dude in Me however, will be satisfyingly entertaining for any audience, and the film’s 122min runtime flies by. It’s not above playing for laughs, tugging at our heartstrings and treating us to some exciting action scenes, but the ultimate message of the film is clear - we need to embrace the true priorities of life: compassion, fairness, family, decency and honest hard work.
The Dude in Me plays the London Film Festival October 9th, 10th and 13th.
"A rather unimpactful attempt at dealing with its serious subjects, and also not very funny, but it's not totally without merit."— 𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕄𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕎𝕒𝕗𝕗𝕝𝕖𝕣.𝕔𝕠𝕞 🎬 @ #LFF (@themoviewaffler) October 5, 2019
JOJO RABBIT plays the London Film Festival October 5th, 6th and 7th.
Read @musannaaa's reviewhttps://t.co/ykmhU3ulxj pic.twitter.com/YSJF5yNP1m