Release date: May 2013
Badboy K-pop star, Chung-ui, is sentenced to 300 hours of volunteer work at a hospital for brawling. He thinks the hospital is bizarre, full of out-of-control crazies who smoke and drink, then finds out it is a hospice and they are all there to die. He begins to change as he gets to know the patients as individuals. When the hospice gets desperate for funding, Chung-ui trains a band of patients to put on a benefit.
A contrived plot. The
filmmakers put together a set of stock ingredients: superstar with a bad
attitude, must volunteered in some kind of troubled institution, hates it at
first, has an epiphany, then transforms into a good person and saves the day.
This scenario has worked successfully for both run-of-the-mill feel-good
vehicles (Kang Woo-seok’s fun film Glove comes to mind) or for more offbeat
efforts (Lee joon-ik’s fabulous film Radio Star). In this film, however, the theme
of the tragic courage of dying people, played out endlessly against a
soundtrack of violins, got old and the film dragged.
My take: 2 stars
K-pop star Chung-ui (Lee Hong-gi)
teaches hospice patient
Bong-shik (Im Won-hee) how to
play the bass guitar.
