My Girlfriend is an Agent
Director: Terra Shin
Year: 2009
Rating: 7.0
Country: Korea
Somewhat contrived
but rather enjoyable comedy romance spy action melodrama save the world film.
Korean comedies have their own personality and style that is very much their
own. They are nowhere as over the top as a Bollywood or Hong Kong comedy
can be, less hilarious and subtle than many Japanese comedies that I have
seen and not as calm and talky as most American comedies. They bring a lot
of emotion even to their comedies, moments of melodrama that would be more
fitting in a soap opera that would feel so foreign to American comedies.
In a film like this they switch genres on you like a game of musical chairs.
One minute action then bang into melodrama, come back to comedy and so on.
Sometimes they go a little heavy on the melodrama but this film gets the
equation down pretty well other than perhaps a bit too much crying. By the
guy.
Soo-ji (Kim Ha-neul, a favorite of mine
from films such as Ditto, My Tutor Friend, Too Beautiful to Lie and the horror
film Ryeong) is a secret agent working for the Korean government. Not just
an agent but one in the class of Bond or Ethan Hunt. Sexy and deadly. In
the opening scene she drives her motorboat right at the oncoming boat with
the bad guys in it and right before impact lifts her boat to jump over theirs
and while in mid-air does a double flip somersault and lands in their boat
with her gun out. That kind of secret agent. She is in love though with a
civilian who is a bit of a drip and who thinks she is a travel agent who
keeps ditching him (to save the world) with lies and so he finally leaves
to go work overseas and she is heartbroken.
Three years later she is on another case
- to stop the selling of a deadly manufactured virus - hmmm - to the Russians
- and is undercover as a cleaning lady in a man's public bathroom (something
you get used to if you live in Asia - usually very old women so not as uncomfortable
as you may think) when she is on her knees and recognizes a . . . penis .
. . after three years - it must be some penis. It is her old boyfriend Jae-joon
(Kang Ji-hwan) who has returned and is he tells her working as an accountant.
He asks what are you doing as a cleaner - I am a very good cleaner - and
then later spots her disguised as a hostess girl in a club.
As it turns out he is actually in a special
police agency and both agencies are investigating the same case but from
different ends and unaware of each other. The complications and misunderstandings
get hectic and funny with large dollops of action and hit and run love. It
was a solid hit in Korean and Kang won Best New Actor and Kim was nominated
for Best Actress. Bad title, worse poster, good film. I have seen other reviews
saying it is a remake of Mr. and Mrs. Smith but have not seen that.
