Comic romances are a dime a dozen in Korea, and anyone who has spent much time watching Korean cinema will recognize the basic plot structure: young, good-looking (middle class or rich) man meets cute, spunky woman by chance; they go through some outlandish experiences together, and then eventually the threat of something tragic pushes them together in a final burst of melodrama.
Someone Special seems to start off all wrong. Our male lead is neither cute nor particularly young; the role is played by Jeong Jae-young, better known for acting nasty and brutish in films like Silmido or No Blood, No Tears. His love interest is played by Lee Na-young (Please Teach Me English), who looks fantastic in the cosmetics ads plastered around Seoul, but here she’s clumsy, badly dressed and mumbles a lot. She’s not spunky, she’s just weird. To top it off, the film’s sock-it-to-you tragedy comes two minutes after the opening credits, before we even get to know the main character. What was Jang Jin thinking?
Maybe, instead of making a formula film, he wanted to make the best Korean romantic comedy in years. After Guns & Talks - a memorable hit at FEFJ in 2002 - Jang has given us a charismatic, bittersweet gem that blends the best of his physical, talky humor and the melodramatic side that can be seen in his screenplays for other directors. Our main characters - a moody, lovesick baseball player and a woman who seems unnaturally attracted to him - seem real because we rarely come across anyone similar in Korean cinema. They are both more ordinary and more distinctive than the typical movie couple. As a bonus, Jang also gives us a film-within-a-film that, with equal parts affection and ridicule, provides one of the best sendups of contemporary Korean cinema you’ll find anywhere.