Sixty-something Sun-yi (theater actress Lee Young-ran) is enjoying the autumn of her life with her extended family in North America. One day she receives a call from Korea, concerning a country house in Gangwon Province once owned by her family. This triggers a flashback to 47 years ago. Tubercular and reduced to poverty due to her father’s business failure, teenaged Sun-yi (Park Bo-young, Scandal Makers), her little sister and mom are forced to relocate to a remote country house, owned by rich jerk Ji-tae (Yu Yeon-seok, Horror Stories). Morose and lost in escapist fantasy, one day Sun-yi has an encounter with a feral boy with an inexplicably healthy body (Song Joong-ki, Penny Pinchers). It turns out that a crazy biologist (is there any other kind?) had been conducting a strange, secret experiment involving wolves in the house. Could the boy be an outcome of this dastardly endeavor?
A Werewolf Boy received overwhelming support from the young female demographic in Korea, making it one of the biggest domestic hits of 2012, with more than 7 million tickets sold. I will be straightforward: if you hated the Twilight series, have never understood why young girls go crazy over them, and cannot stand the conceit of "vegetarian vampires" who sparkle like a windowpane when hit by the sunlight, stay away from A Werewolf Boy. Let me reiterate: this is the story of a young Korean girl, consciously designed to be an avatar to which contemporary teenage viewers can project their fantasies (little effort was made to conceive the character of Sun-yi as historically authentic in the context of 1960s Korea), who gets to keep a perfect boyfriend: beautiful, mute (no talking back), practically immortal, and (literally) loyal like a lapdog. Waiting for some dark, psycho-sexual motifs to poke their snouts from behind the soft-focused, golden glow of the Gangwon mountain-scape? Trust me, they never do. And once we can clearly see the movie for what it is, it is no surprise that A Werewolf Boy was a box office smash. It is cleverly crafted to pluck the heartstrings of (pre-)pubscent female viewers, who will totally identify with Sun-yi; scream squeals of delight at the sight of the preternaturally pretty Song Joong-ki acting like a smart, but not too smart, Labrador Retriever; and cry their eyeballs out at the climax.
Of course, this is not to say that A Werewolf Boy is all saccharine fluff. Writer and director Jo Sung-hee, whose previous feature film End of Animal was noticed by many for its odd but eerie atmosphere, is firmly in control of the elements. The cute stuff is well integrated into the plot as well as the characterization. Jo also wrangles child actors with remarkable ease, keeping the tone of their performances balanced against the adults. The film is pitched at a level that is larger-than-life, but never campy.
He is less successful with the film’s antagonists: he does try to imbue Ji-tae with some humanity but, despite Yoo’s efforts, the latter never grows out of his aggressively fake-looking slicked-back hairdo. When the requisite werewolf action arrives, it is surprisingly well done, with minimum of the overcooked CGI effects that marred otherwise fine genre thrillers such as Chaw.
A Werewolf Boy is neither An American Werewolf in London nor Truffaut’s Wild Child, but once you have adjusted your expectations accordingly, you can enjoy it as a junior-chick-flick fantasy cum melodrama. It’s a perfect pajama party movie for your daughters, nieces or sisters in their teens. They will devour the movie alive and won’t leave tufts of fur behind. As for the ending, it is no doubt a potent fantasy for young Korean girls, but the film’s message might ultimately be a conservative one. Or it might just be that I am a cat person.
Kyu Hyun Kim