The Love Marriage: Hurtful Hearts

There are three types of marriages: the love marriage, the arranged marriage, and the hybrid. According to Lee Byung-il's domestic drama The Love Marriage, everyone wants the first one but that might not be for the best. After oldest daughter Suk-hee (Choi Eun-hie) and Seung-il (Seong So-min) get married for true love, the honeymooners play a disastrous truth-telling game during which he's forgiven for having a prior sweetheart while she's abandoned for four years — during which she wanders around like a zombie — for the same thing. Matters are even worse for the second daughter Moon-hee (Lee Min-ja) whose refusal to meet her mother's choice of the perfect spouse, nylon salesman Wan-seop (Lee Ryong), culminates with the lovesick young woman overdosing on pills to prove her passion for a wimpy tutor (Choe Hyeon) who the family has recently fired. As for youngest daughter Myeong-hee (Jo Mi-lyeong), she's tricked into an arranged marriage of sorts with Yeong-su (Park Am), the sadistic, misogynist assistant of her father Dr. Ko (Choe Nam-hyeon) who chuckles at everything.

He's not the only one laughing either. His son Gwang-sik (Park Gwang-su) shares his father's optimistic, carefree attitude and seems to find everything funny as he gives the sad fates of all his older sisters little more than a giggling shrug. As long as good-natured grandpa (Kim Seung-ho) buys him a camera, this boy is good to go. In complete contrast, the family matriarch finds little amusing and can't understand why her husband's approach is so consistently laissez-faire. Given his hands-off style has led to one daughter becoming a temporary hermit, one daughter landing herself in the hospital, and one daughter pairing off with a man who's going to be cruelly dominating, she has every right to be exasperated. But hey, The Love Marriage is just a movie! Let those wedding bells ring!