[K-Movie Night] Mood of the Day
by Dramaddictally
Welcome to K-Movie Night — a once-a-month feature where we microwave some popcorn, put on a face mask, and get cozy with a Korean movie from yesteryear. With so many films finally streaming (with subs!), now is the time to get caught up on all those movies we missed featuring our favorite drama actors.
Each month, we’ll pick a flick, write a review, and meet you back here to discuss whether or not it’s worth a watch. Super simple. All you have to do is kick up your feet and join us in the comments!
Movie Review
With Yoo Yeon-Seok still in full swing in the chart-topping drama Phantom Lawyer, I was reminded of the fact that you really can’t ever have too much Yoo Yeon-Seok on your screen. And so, enter the decade-old rom-com Mood of the Day about a charmer on a train who’s out to woo a taken lady — with a 2016-era Yoo Yeon-Seok as said charmer (if you’re picturing him as Chilbong in Answer Me 1994, you’re not far off).
The film is an opposites-attract story with a familiar-sounding plot, which could send it into territory that’s either cozy or cliché. It’ll be up to us to decide, but luckily, if it turns out to be the latter, the K-Movie Night series is full of Yoo Yeon-Seok cameos and side characters to keep the charm coming (see especially, New Year Blues and The Beauty Inside). No matter what, there’s bound to be some feel good.
(PS: if you’re watching Phantom Lawyer because you love Esom as much as I do, check out the thought-provoking 2018 movie Microhabitat — just make sure you steel your stomach first.)
Mood of the Day has a classic setup. A woman who believes in love and monogamy is seated on a train next to a man who racks up women for sport. In fact, the word “player” has a double meaning as we learn about JAE-HYUN (Yoo Yeon-Seok) — a former basketball star turned sports manager — who practices his game with swish shots to the trash can and lines like, “call me when you’re done with your boyfriend.”
Whenever he lays on the smile and seduction, it’s hard for women not to smile back. And casting is doing a lot of the work here, with Yoo Yeon-Seok able to balance a character that’s annoyingly arrogant but oh-so-attractive. By the time he’s sitting next to SOO-JUNG (Moon Chae-won) on the train, he’s already spotted her in the station, except now, she’s a captive audience for his ingratiating game.
Soo-jung is an ad exec who’s trying to sign an up-and-coming basketball player for an ad contract. This means she and Jae-hyun are on the train with a similar errand: both are going to Busan to look for JIN-CHUL (Park Min-woo), who’s being drafted by the NBA. With this frame, the film centers on a chase, as our leads try to track down this elusive young man, while getting to know each other along the way.
Right before her trip, Soo-jung learns that her first love is about to marry a close friend of hers, while she’s been with her current boyfriend for ten years and there’s no proposal in sight. “Maybe it’s fate,” she says, just as Jae-hyun sits beside her and starts talking about the fated-ness of their seating arrangement. “Or, maybe it’s a coincidence,” she tells him.
This is the first of many disagreements they’ll have over the next hour and a half, as we see their very different stances on love, relationships, and casual sex. When she tells him not to hit on her because she has a boyfriend, he blows it off. And so, she comes back by saying he’s not her type. But Jae-hyun lives for competition and replies, “I’m thinking about sleeping with you tonight. You are my type.”
This is about the time that Soo-jung starts looking for another seat. But unfortunately, the train is booked and she winds up next to Jae-hyun again, where he can continue to make her uncomfortable with his constant attention. While all the shenanigans are angering to her (and wildly inappropriate for real life), the fun of these early scenes comes from us knowing that the story isn’t going to allow Jae-hyun to stay like this forever. And again, he’s just too charming to look away from.
The turn comes when Soo-jung realizes that Jae-hyun can help her with her mission to find Jin-chul. We move from her actively avoiding Jae-hyun to following him off the train and into a car, where they’ll drive to Jin-chul’s grandfather’s funeral (and miss him). This isn’t only a necessary setting change (how long can we watch two people talk on a train?), it’s also necessary for the story to work without wearing us down against Jae-hyun.
There’s a moment in the car where Soo-jung calls out his behavior as sexual harassment (it is), but this is tempered by her decision to go along with him to meet her own ends. She’s trying to use him to get an ad contract, which evens the power dynamic enough to keep this funny. So, when he keeps preaching the gospel of one-night stands, and she counters that she’s not into it, his tactics to change her mind, while manipulative, are bearable because she’s also got a stake in spending time with him.
And the more time she spends with him — even running into women he’s been with before — the more she actually starts to like him. Interestingly, much of their discussion is about love and feelings and how those tie into relationships and sex. She thinks love is hard to come by and you should only sleep with the person you love. He thinks love is around every corner and each encounter can be special.
This makes her curious. And she wants to experiment with changing her mind. Of course, her honesty and authenticity about this catches him off guard and he’s not sure he can go through with it with her. They drink. They play one-on-one basketball. They get it on. The whole thing is pretty sexy. But which one of them will come out of this with their mind changed?
Is it a special one-time thing? Will it be more? Or have they done such a good job convincing each other of their opinions that they’ll both flip sides, disappointed to find the other person is no longer where they stood?
The film takes a charming approach to a cliched setup, with leads that make this movie what it is: cute, funny, lightly infuriating, and highly watchable. By the end, I have no doubt that these two like each other. It builds in an effortless way that makes the ending fit — and I buy that the game has changed.
Join us in May for the next K-Movie Night and let’s make a party of it! We’ll be watching Yumi’s Cells: The Movie (2024) and posting the review during the last week of the month.
Want to participate in the comments when it posts? You’ve got 3 weeks to watch! Rather wait for the review before you decide to stream it? We’ve got you covered.
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