Even If This Love Disappears From the World Tonight: Heart Memory

Initially, Kim Hye-young's Even If This Love Disappears From the World Tonight seems remarkably like Adam Sandler's 50 First Dates: A peppy, upbeat young woman (Shin Si-ah) with anterograde amnesia embarks on a romantic relationship with a nerdy young man (Choo Young-woo) despite her being cursed with a memory that gets reset every morning. Naturally, since this soapy sad romance is from the land of K-dramas, the Korean version of this story has a major additional complication: The nerdy love interest has a life-threatening heart condition!

In short, this isn't going to build to a conventional feel-good romantic ending. Memories are made: a trip to the aquarium, a cruiseship under the fireworks, an afternoon of spicy noodles. But will any of those memories last? Sure her best friend (Jo Yoo-jung) is saving all the videos, photographs, and diary entries but can a recording ever be a true substitute? How about a sketchbook full of pencil drawings? Well, as the boyfriend's chronically depressed dad (Jo Han-chul) puts it "As time goes by, everyone's memories start to fade but what remains in your heart never changes." He's a widower so he should know.

A Mother's Love: An Actor's Legacy

The great actor Ahn Sung-ki passed away earlier this year. But my, what an impressive body of work he left behind. Who can forget him as the master archer in Kim Sung-su's thrilling Musa - The Warriors (2001) or the heavy drinking journalist in Jeong Ji-yeong's moving White Badge (1992) or the nomadic monk in Im Kwon-taek's brilliant Mandala (1981)? Strictly random examples from the latter part of his career! Looking further back, we realize that Ahn was nearly as good as a five-year-old actor in Yang Ju-nam's weepie A Mother's Love (1958) as he was as a 60-something legend in Kim Joo-hwan's pulpy The Divine Fury (2019), decades later.

The earlier film is pure melodrama: Ahn plays a well-behaved young boy dropped off by his ailing mother (Lee Kyoung-hee) at the home of his married dad (Lee Min) who knocked up his mom during a one-night-stand during the war. Daddy's new wife (Jo Mi-lyeong) isn't immediately taken with her new potential charge, even if she's been unable to have any babies herself. So will she abandon the child at a neighborhood playground or a nearby orphanage? Will she let him stay at the house then depart herself as a divorcee? If she's got any sense, she'll keep him close and stay put because Ahn has an amazing future ahead. Trust me. I've seen a good swath of it.

Good News: Tripped from the Headlines

The central incident in Byun Sung-hyun's gorgeously shot Good News is based on a true historic incident: In 1970, the Red Army Faction, a radical communist organization, really did hijack a Japanese plane with the hope of getting to Pyongyang. That's the kind of source material that has unquestionable appeal. It's easy to imagine it turned into a nail-biting thriller like Argo, a sociopolitical satire like Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven or even a weird, revisionist testosterone-fueled comedy like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And Byun flirts with each idea, with each direction without every committing to any of them. Because of that, Good News is a series of promises unfulfilled, an ambitious epic people with fascinating characters given half-developed narrative arcs undermined by a major miscaculation on the creator's part: Too much time is spent in the war room deliberating how to deal with this hostage crisis and too little time, on the actual plane.

What a pity. Because on the hijacked 727, Byun has assembled a a film-worthy band of terrorists: an inexperienced leader (Sho Kasumatsu), an unstable second-in-charge (Nairu Yamamoto), even a young boy whose barely out of short pants. They're balanced by a pair of wise-cracking pilots (Kippei Shiina, Kim Sung Oh) supported by a woefully underutilized, in-flight crew. What a movie they would have made! But instead, Byun focuses on the politicians and the negotiators, going so far as to include a preening first lady (Jeon Do-yeon) and a mysterious character named Nobody (Sul Kyung-gu). The hero of Good News turns out to be a lieutenant (Hong Kyung) who comes up with the brilliant idea to reskin a South Korean airport so it looks like North Korea. When that doesn't work as planned, I kind of wondered whether he was the hero after all.