While some Korean movies focus on love stories and death in order to pull off a flick, The Happy Life is so straight forward that it's good, grossing over 9 millions dollars (great for a Korean film). It's a story of 3 middle-aged "ajussis" trying to fix up their personal lives.
So here's a bit: An opportunity appears for the misters to get together in the form that most people or reviewers would find a cliché--death. In this case, the death of a beloved friend, and band member, if we can call it like that.
It was regret that fueled Ki-young(Jung Jin-Young)--an almost bum if not for his teacher wife's salary--and a guitar that was about to get burned that made him realize the reason why his already dead friend wanted--to reunited them again as the band, Active Volcano.
It's my seventh time watching this movie, that's how engrossed to it. And I'm sure that if I rerun this again some other time, I'd still well up to tears, smirk, laugh, get inspired, finally be able to sing the Korean lyrics.
Music is the key element that made this movie somewhat high-grossing. Come to think f it, people are attracted to music. Good job, Lee Jun-ik. Even if people don't understand the lyrics of the songs, if ever you'll get to listen to them via radio or some other source (well, thanks to subtitles we could see the translation), you get the vibes, literally sometimes. It brought me the chills, and this proves that the movie is effective in invoking raw emotions.
And this was done mostly because of well-scored soundtracks.
What really intrigued me is the use of the songs incorporated in the movie, varying in time signature, genre?,and degree to fit the pictures being rolled. I tried removing the subs and listened solely on how the off-screen music was done, and I got to say, I was really impressed, to the 9th star level.
Why not ten for a kick-ass, tsugule-ing, film? Well, there will always be blockbusters better than The Happy Life, a flick that has better lines and apply music... well, better. But as far as I'm concerned, having a DVD or a digital copy of this is a must. Why? Because it's a that you'll definitely regret being thrown in the thrash bin, both literally and digitally, cause it's something you'll probably cherish for the rest of your life.
Something that will remind you why the phrase "too late" to be added with never--either sides is OK.
