[HanCinema's Film Review] "Love Match"

Hae-joo (played by Choi Sung-kook) is an photography professor in his forties who persists in acting like an absolute child. In the context of this movie that mostly just means sex. If the first scene isn't enough to convince you of the man's juvenile proclivities, take a look around his room. It's a veritable playground of pop culture artifacts from the eighties and nineties, absolutely none of which speak very highly of the man's sense of emotional maturity, and is very predictably reflected in his dealings with women.

Advertisement

Don't expect any kind of plot arc here where Hae-joo grows up. The attitude "Love Match" has to women...well, it could be worse, honestly. In terms of grudging praise I do have to admit that there's a simplicity to the movie's attitude regarding consent that's somewhat admirable. Sin-hye (played by So Hye-ri) obviously wants to have sex with Hae-joo, so that makes his gross, pawing behavior acceptable. Bear in mind I only know this because Sin-hye willingly spends more time with the man alone than absolutely necessary. I have no idea how Hae-joo was supposed to know any of this.

So, from a characterization standpoint "Love Match" is a failure. Let's ignore that for a moment since the movie's obviously not supposed to be high art in the first place. It's a sex comedy. So how about the comedy? Dreadfully unfunny I'm afraid. Initially it's kind of amusing watching Hae-joo behave like an idiotic clown, then the variations on this joke get tiresome, then finally this childish behavior is rewarded with sex for pretty much no reason. Non Hae-joo centered jokes are a slight improvement, like the whole weird bit with the shoes.

I guess maybe the sex scenes are kind of passable from a technical perspective? It's honestly pretty hard to tell, because for me at least, the enjoyability of a sex scene derives entirely from my understanding of the characters, who by and large I either really disliked (Hae-joo) or didn't really know anything about (pretty much everybody else). The closest thing this movie gets to likable characters are the gay detectives.

And even they're not that great, frankly. They'd be borderline offensive except that I realized after awhile that if the presentation of the gay detectives is offensive to homosexuals, then the presentation of every other character is grotesquely offensive to hetereosexuals. It's just, you know, us guys aren't all animals constantly thinking about sex. My idea of the perfect woman isn't just someone with big tits who wants to have sex with me, and I hate it when it's implied that this is some kind of universal male attitude.

Still, "Love Match" does at least deserve to be discussed in terms of its target audience. If you want to watch porn with your significant other, but either you or your significant other dislikes porn because the writing is really bad and there's too much sex, then maybe by that extremely low standard "Love Match" might be a good time for you. For anyone else, particularly those with any kind of discriminating sense of taste, just don't bother.

Review by William Schwartz

"Love Match" is directed by Kim Ho-joon and features Choi Sung-kook, Song Eun-chae and So Hye-ri.