Bravo, My Life
Director: Park Heung-sik
Year: 2005
Production Company: BlueStorm Co. Ltd.
Running Time: 93 minutes
This is the third film I have seen recently that references the assassination
of President Park in 1979, but while “The President’s Bang” (2005) and “The
President’s Barber” (2004) were both political satires “Bravo, My Life” uses
the incident only to establish time and an immediate sense of nostalgia.
It is kept in the background of a simple story about a young boy in Junior
High School going through typical adolescent growing pains of rebellion and
hormones. Gwang-ho (Lee Jae-eung) lives with his mother (Moon So-ri) and
small sister in Seoul and though a father is referenced he is supposedly
always away at work in Saudi Arabia and one is suspicious that this is just
the mother’s cover story to explain his absence. Living as a tenant with
them is a young attractive woman Eun-sook (Yoon Jin-seo) who is studying
to be a nurse.
The film follows the life of this very typical boy – his time at school –
the beatings from teachers - the people in his neighborhood – sneaking a
read of Playboy magazine – his growing crush on Eun-sook – the fear of not
answering chain letters - his first wet dream and most importantly his relationship
with his mother. She clearly isn’t an educated person and her love for her
children drives her life – her question to Gwang-ho is always “have you eaten
yet?” and like all kids that age the boy doesn’t really appreciate her and
feels the need to rebel in small ways. This sort of nostalgic a boy’s life
type of film/TV series has been done many times ("The Wonder Years" springs
immediately to mind while watching this) and in truth there isn’t much new
here but it plays out in such a relaxed realistic manner that it is a pleasure
to simply watch the small things that make up your life when you are that
age. Near the end it picks up emotionally and hits you a lot harder than
you expected.
The performances by mother and son are excellent. It's easy and almost expected
that a young boy in a coming of age film will play it with a certain amount
of cute charm, but to the credit of the film Gwang-ho is not particularly
cute or charming but often annoying in the ways kids really are at that age.
Moon So-ri ("Oasis" and "A Good Lawyer's Wife") as usual can do no wrong
- there is absolutely nothing flashy about her acting here, but she is completely
believable as a good and loving mother. Previous films from this director
were the wonderfully romantic “I Wish I Had a Wife” and the intriguing but
ultimately disappointing “My Mother, the Mermaid”.
My rating for this film: 7.0
Reviewed: 01/06
Previous films from Director:
My Mother, the Mermaid (2004)
I Wish I Had a Wife (2001)