My Little Bride

My Little Bride (Korea, 2004)
Rae-won Kim, Geun-yeong Moon
Sun-il Yu

Get this: a man and a woman forced to get married by circumstances. They live together in one roof yet promised not to consummate the relationship. Cute little fights between the two surface then and again as they get on each other's nerves. Bouts of jealousy happens and before you know it, the two realized that they couldn't live without each other. Thus, honoring their vow of matrimony. Very Full House, eh?

There's always something romantic with two people hating each other's guts at first and eventually falling in love. Such formula in movies never grow old when it comes to movies as long as it is done with taste and has a good script.

My Little Bride is no exception. It is about a guy and a girl who were asked by their grandparents to get married in fulfillment of their promises to each other. The two refused the idea at first but later on agreed because of the manipulation of the girl's grandfather (who is the only one living among the grand parents) and their respective fathers. They live together in one house but stayed in different rooms. Because they are childhood friends, the two are not really unknown with each other. However, they still live their own separate lives with little arguments every now and then. In the end, they realized how much they have loved one another since childhood and remained committed to their marriage.

The movie works in every way as far the romance formula is concern. There are quite enough "kilig" moments and funny scenes (check out the hilarious scenes with the spinster Miss Kim!) mixed with a little bit of drama. I wouldn't be a surprise that Korea made a hit out of this one.

However, I don't know if it was just my sick thoughts or what but I feel that there was something twisted about the whole thing. You see, the movie doesn't involve the typical boy and girl characters. In this one, the guy is eight years older than the girl. Oh, there's nothing wrong with that, I know, except that the guy is in college and the girl is a high-schooler! Sangmin is 24 and Boeun is 16! Looking at them together doing the lovey-dovey thingy somehow creeps me out. The movie may have make some funny references to the "sugar-daddy" concept but it looked exactly like that, especially that Moon Geun-Young (Boeun) looked so much like a child and Kim Rae-Young (Sangmin) looked older than what he's supposedly be playing. I'm sure that perverts would have a blast watching this film especially when the girls are wearing their school uniforms!

The story of "My Little Bride" wasn't like that originally. It based from the Korean series "Sweet 18" and jugding from the title, the female lead character was 18 years old and was on her final year in high school. If that would be the case, then there'd be no problem whatsoever with the film. I just don't know why the makers of the film had to make the female lead 16 years old and on her first year high school! If Hollywood would recreate this one, I'm sure that they'd stick to the original story. If not, they'd get a much older-looking female lead or a much younger-looking male lead just to avoid the controversy that it may create to moralists.

Aside from that, the last scene didn't work for me. It was when Sangmin confessed to all the students and faculty of the school (oh, didn't I mention that Sangmin became Boeun's teacher?!) that he is married to Boeun. He made a plea to the students not to give her a hard time because she is still a kid who just honored their grand fathers' wish. In turn, Boeun admitted (to the whole school, as well!) that he was very much in love with Sangmin. That scene was very Hollywood that would work well for students who are infatuated with their teachers!

Minus those small (if you'd call them small!) set-back, My Little Bride is an entertaining romantic film. It is one of those romantic movies that came out in Korea that would easily capture the hearts of every movie-loving Filipinos. But still, it isn't at par with My Sassy Girl or Windstruck.