Double Tearjerker: Herb and Lover’s Concerto

 

 

My Friday night was spent nibbling on chips, chicharon, and Lucky Me pancit canton as the Under the Sea girls (me, Shengka, Leizl, Nica, Ericka) stayed in the IECC staff house to watch Korean movies on DVD. As an officemate suggested, we watched “Herb” (Heo-beu) thinking it was a comedy, but alas, this movie brings buckets of tears! Lover’s Concerto starring the funny Cha Tae Hyun (the guy in My Sassy Girl) was also surprisingly a drama. These two movies have some common denominators:

 

• Naunsyaming Pag-ibig

          (Well, how do I say that in English? A love that didn’t have the chance to bloom? Okay, something to that effect….)

 

• Terminal Illness

           (Of course, somebody has got to die to complete the recipe of a good drama!)

 

• BFF-Best Friends Forever

         (or, in Shengka’s vocab, BFFE-Best Friends For-Ever!)

 

Herb centers on the beautiful Cha Sang Eun( Kang Hye Jeong), a 20-year-old young lady with the mind of a seven-year-old. She suffers a mental disability wherein her brain does not catch up with the maturity of her body. Despite her low IQ, she leads a normal life hanging out with kids, reading fairy tales, and helping out her mom in their little flowers and herbs store.

 

Enter Lee Jeong Bum(Jeong Kyong Ho), a young traffic police officer who falls for Sang Eun, unaware of her condition. They go out a couple of times and although he finds her childish ideas and habits weird, he still enjoys her company.

 

Herb’s eye candy, Jeong Kyong Ho oppa!

Herb

 

 

Meanwhile, Sang Eun’s mother (played by Bae Jong Ok) discovers she has cancer, and worries about what will happen to her daughter when she’s gone. It was one of the most moving scenes in the movie for me when Sang Eun’s mother was sitting in the living room absentmindedly narrating the things she has to settle before she dies, while her long-time best friend Mi-Ja was getting tea in the kitchen, and crying silently.

 

Sang Eun now has to face the adult challenges of falling in love, and the death of her mom.

Favorite Line: Sang Eun’s mother asks Jeong Bum to break up with her : “I must be the last one to break her heart.”

This movie is most especially touching for me because there is someone in my family just like Sang Eun. Kang’s portrayal of Sang Eun is exactly what this family member is, from her innocent expressions to the fact that her hair has to be kept short so it wouldn’t dip into her soup. When I was a kid, she was my playmate. When I got older, I ordered her around. I was also very embarrassed by her, and did not want my friends to meet her. But now, I’m older, I know better, and I want to say, I Love You Tita Pie.

 

 

Lover’s Concerto talks about the short-lived friendship of two girls and a guy, bordering on love. Ji-Hwan (Chae Ta Hyun) falls in love with Soo-In (Son Ye Jin) and ends up being friends with her and her best friend Kyung Hee (Lee Eun Ju.) After a very nice summer holiday together, Ji-Hwan and Kyung Hee starts falling in love, but were both afraid to admit it.

 

Now, everything else about the moive is a mad tangle of the present and the past and revealing any further would totally spoil it. Favorite line: “I’ve fallen in love. It hurts so much, but I want to keep on hurting.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch