SINGLES

Pretty and shy Na-nan (Jang Jin-young from The Foul King and Sorum) is soon turning 30. Currently, her life is spurting like an old car in need of oil change. She has been demoted from a designer to a Chillie’s restaurant manager by her evil superiors. Her geeky boyfriend has unceremoniously dumped her. She seeks counsel from her best friend Dong-mi (the one and only, ultra-sexy Uhm Jeong-hwa from Marriage Is a Crazy Thing), who has had forty-eight boyfriends and counting, and is hatching a plot to start an independent internet business. Based on the Japanese writer Kamata Toshio’s novel Christmas at Twenty-Nine, Singles is a sophisticated urban comedy that plays it cool and cute, but without the kind of strenuous, self-important and noisy “humor” that prevails in many recent Korean comedies. Even though the narrative gives greater weight to Na-nan than to Dong-mi’s relationship with her roommate Joon - played with his trademark wide-eyed poker face by Lee Beom-soo (Wet Dreams) - from a sociological point of view the latter relationship is far more interesting. Joon is a new type of fantasy “guy” for young Korean women: an absolutely reliable male friend (as opposed to “boyfriend”). Lee and Uhm have great chemistry together, and the later complications that arise in their relationship are handled with wit and a surprising degree of level-headedness. Singles is not a serious docudrama about the trials and tribulations of the unmarried late-twentysomethings living in Korea. Nonetheless at its core lies, I think, a sincere heart. The filmmakers want to tell young Korean women, their target audience, that occasionally falling flat on your face in the tough struggles of life is fine, if you have good friends (not a dreamboat rich husband) and a sense of humor.