[K-Movie Night] Yumi’s Cells: The Movie
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
This month marked the end of the Yumi’s Cells series, with Season 3 leaving our screens, but not our hearts, behind. The final installment didn’t give me the buzzy, fizzy, “I have to watch it again right now” feeling that earlier seasons did and I found myself wanting more.
Enter Yumi’s Cells: The Movie (2024) to feed my fix – a fully animated rendition of the webtoon material we saw in Season 2 of the drama, but with no Jinyoung to blind me out of my senses about the story. Could this be the thing that finally healed my broken heart over Yumi and Bobby’s horrible split? Or would it just drag up old wounds? I put on my armor and hit play, ready to find out.
[Note: SPOILERS AHEAD for both the movie and the drama.]
As a fan of the series (who did not read the webtoon), seeing a blonde-haired Yumi was the first sign that something was off. And while the opening music, as well as the voices of each cell are the same as the drama, the 3D animation somehow felt flat. I kept picturing Kim Go-eun and Jinyoung in their roles, wondering if the movie was made for kids and when the depth and humor would pick up.
But that was only for about the first half. Because while the material is similar to what we saw in Season 2 of the drama, it’s not exactly the same. The third act of this script gave me the gut punch I was expecting – but explained it in a way that provided closure. I came away understanding the breakup in a way I never did before, and wanting the best for Yumi, with no signs of a boy in sight.
This version of the story begins with Yumi working in marketing at the noodle company where she and Bobby are already dating. Yumi is a creative at heart, dreaming up stories to sell their products, but her boss is a bad guy. He tells her that her ideas suck – and then steals them for himself and takes the credit.
But the 30-something Yumi is having regrets about her life before this even happens. She always wanted to be a fiction writer, and this is not the life she had planned to live. So, when Bad Boss takes her idea and runs, Rampage Cell comes out of hiding, while Reason and Emotion both have to try to calm her down.
For those not familiar with the setup, this is how the comedy works. We have an average office worker, living out her slice-of-life days, but we get to see inside her head and watch her brain cells operate. The fun of Yumi’s Cells, in any medium, is seeing how decisions are made, and all the parts of ourselves that go into battle before we make a choice.
In the case of the job that Yumi now wants to quit, it’s her Inner Feelings that get the final say: she wants to resign, with no backup plan, and no rational explanation is going to win. And so, she packs up her things and walks out the door, scared and anxious about the future.
Bobby is there to be the good boyfriend who comforts her and tells her to take some time off. It’s true that she doesn’t know what comes next, but she should enjoy this moment of freedom. All this talk makes Yumi want to seduce him, and while Naughty Cell is a funny feature of the drama, we never saw Yumi and Bobby closing the door to the car so they could get it on in the back. I’m not sure whether to credit the animation here or note how creepy it is to watch cartoons make out.
In any case, conflict ensues when Bobby moves to Jeju for work and they begin a long-distance relationship. With too much time on her hands, she needs some structure and decides to pour her heart into writing. She finds some writing competitions to apply for, makes a schedule that only includes “eat and write,” and then sits down in front of her computer.
And, as any writer will tell you, this is when she has an existential crisis, can’t think of what to say, and starts telling herself she should quit. (Saw it coming, laughed anyway.) With Anxiety Cell covertly running the show, she takes a trip to see Bobby, who tells her she’s courageous to go after what she loves. And this is the inspiration she needs to devise a romance story about how she and Bobby met.
She writes the love story that is her life, applies to multiple competitions, and then gets rejected each time. Her cells start to spiral, telling her to accept that she has no talent, give up, and go back to a full-time job. But how can she at this age?! (Lol. The great thing about seeing this in visual form is that the negative thought spirals we usually allow to beat us up start to seem pretty ridiculous.)
But then, things start looking up. Bobby says he misses her and wants to move back to Seoul. One of the competitions that rejected her wants to give her a contract for a web novel. And further, Yumi has inspired Bobby to live out his greatest dream as well, which is to open a tteokbokki place of his own. Before long, Yumi is a paid writer, Bobby’s new restaurant is busy, and all is good. Cue Anxiety Cell: isn’t this usually when something goes wrong?
And indeed, it is. The character called Da-eun enters the picture, and in this story she’s Bobby’s part-timer at the restaurant. From here, while the movie setting is not the same as the drama, the sequence of events is the same. Bobby doesn’t mention Da-eun right away. When he finally does, the two are already close. And when Yumi sees them together, there’s a clear flirtation on both sides.
Yumi has a two-part problem: she’s suspicious of Bobby and Da-eun, making her question her relationship, and also, because she writes about love, she can’t muster the inspiration to write romance. She’s suffering on all sides and this is where the movie really departs from the drama. Yumi goes home and cries and a strong depression sweeps through her Cell Village. It’s depicted as a sewage treatment plant, where the toxic shit is leaking out and running all over the place, which just seems like the perfect image.
Anxiety Cell has grown giant and she’s blocking the normal flow of sadness, which is why the depression is out of control. For Yumi, this means she’s so distrustful and on edge, it’s taking over her life. She breaks it off with Bobby at this point when he says he was swayed by Da-eun. He loves Yumi, there’s nothing going on, and Da-eun has quit, but, yes, he was tempted.
Now, when this happened in the drama (which I’ve seen multiple times but not in a couple of years), I remember not fully understanding Yumi’s reasoning for the breakup. It’s played as if her ego is hurt and the breakup seems like a defense, perhaps even self-righteous, with an inability to let go of her strict rules about right and wrong. There is no deep depression. There’s only Yumi saying that she can’t get over it. And the rage that follows seems like it’s directed at Bobby’s actions (or, at least, that’s how it seemed to me).
But in the movie’s telling of the events, I finally understand Yumi is in real pain. She’s breaking up with him because she can’t control the level of anxiety it’s causing her. Even if he loves her and it never happens again, her anxiety is already activated and it can’t go back to baseline. This breakup is not about Bobby’s feelings, but about her own.
And so, the heartbreak is explosive because breakup is not what Yumi wants. Her Love Cell just wants things to go back to the way they were. But they can’t. As Reason Cell says, “If Bobby and Yumi continue, they’ll only hurt each other.” Not because one is going to betray the other, but because Love has already turned into Rage.
And this is really the genius part of the writing in terms of human psychology. Love Cell is rageful at the other cells for their doubts and distrust. Love should come first for Yumi. She’s happiest when she’s in love. Who are they to ruin her happiness? Love Cell goes about fire-bombing the Cell Village and the others suddenly realize she’s afraid. Worse than the breakup itself is terror of the void that lies on the other side.
What we get at the film’s conclusion is an act of self-love. Not out of spite or righteousness, but respect for the idea of wanting to be happy. Yumi was happiest in love – and her feelings for Bobby were very strong. But the love is now tainted, it won’t ever be the same, and if she’s serious about her own happiness, she can’t stay in a situation that makes her feel bad, no matter how afraid she is of being alone.
I ended up liking this movie a lot, but only in conjunction with so many years of thinking about the drama. The film can likely stand on its own just fine, but it probably would not have the power it did for me without clarifying what had always been so confusing. The finale is complicated, true to life, and the explanation I had been waiting for.
Other than that, the purely animated version lacks the emotional depth of the series without the actors there to do the story justice and give it spirit. The movie feels like an addendum, for clarification rather than feels – but one that’s worthy of a watch if you’re already invested in these characters.
Join us in June for the next K-Movie Night and let’s make a party of it! We’ll be watching Spellbound (2011) 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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