[HanCinema's Film Review] "Kiss Me Much"

The opening to "Kiss Me Much" is remarkably, unavoidably wholesome. Yeong-hee (played by Lee Mi-sook) rallies her very large family of four children and one working husband out of bed. In the chaos that follows, the kids bicker with each other, and the husband Cheol-soo (played by Jun Kwang-ryul) struggles to make sure he doesn't lose yet another button. The tone is perfectly set. Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo have messy, but happy lives.

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In a bit of a departure from other Korean New Wave films of this time period, "Kiss Me Much" doesn't feature a single harsh swerve in the middle as the genre changes entirely. To the contrary, the family's long-term problems with debt are mentioned early on. And just as we're done guessing there wouldn't be much of a movie without conflict, tax collectors about another unknown debt, and all the meager possessions of this household are sticked as no longer belonging to the family if they can't pay up.

While "Kiss Me Much" isn't comedic at all, despite the obvious potential of the premise and the surprisingly good comic timing of the leads, it's not a melodrama either. Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo just work very, very hard at being able to scrape together enough money to avoid losing their modest home. In one of the film's darker ironies, Yeong-hee now insists the house they may lose has strong sentimental value, despite earlier dreaming of being able to move into a larger one in a couple of years.

Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo are compelling leads because their modest dreams are quite relatable. With the children lacking the maturity to fully grasp just how bad the situation is, we instead read through the slow building panic Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo just how agonizing this conflict is to them as parents. Yet despite the panic, Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo never shut down. They keep powering through imperfect solutions in the desperate hope that one of them might pay off.

"Kiss Me Much" isn't racy at all with these ethical dilemmas. Indeed, part of the crisis stems from Cheol-soo making a noble ethical move at his job as stock broker with fantastically bad timing. But Cheol-soo can never quite shake the morally questionable nature of his work. In the end, none of Cheol-soo's work colleagues or friends are much help with this crisis, despite the crisis itself being prompted by Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo taking on debt owed by Cheol-soo's brother.

Does Yeong-hee resent Cheol-soo for that? Of course she does. Yet anger and resentment have no place in a family at genuine crisis, is a big part of what makes "Kiss Me Much" so aspirational. Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo work hard at saving their family while retaining their own self-respect, the general respect they have for each other, and trying to hold themselves to a reasonable objective standard. That's all any of us can hope to do in the face of a real crisis, and we can see through it all that Yeong-hee and Cheol-soo are lucky to have each other at a time like this.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Kiss Me Much" is directed by Jeon Yoon-soo, and features Lee Mi-sook, Jun Kwang-ryul, Han Myung-goo-I, Jo Won-hee, Hong Seung-hee-II, Baek Sung-hyun. Release date in Korea: 2001/08/31.

 

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