Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Review of Park Hyo Min's Japanese movie, JINX!!!


I originally wrote a review of this film for its IMDB site. This new blog review has slight differences.

Korean actor Park Hyomin created an endearing and memorable character playing Ji-Ho, a Korean exchange student in Japan. The film's subtitle, "90 Days to Say I Love You," hints at the plot. Here is a photo from the film showing Ji-Ho (Hyomin) between the two reluctant lovers. 


Ji-Ho is determined to get a withdrawn Japanese friend and the equally withdrawn boy the friend loves together, because Ji-Ho's boyfriend in Korea, as we see at the first, has died in a tragic accident, and Ji-Ho wants her new friend to find the happiness that Ji-Ho herself has lost. 

The bittersweet theme does not stop the film from having great good humor, and the ending is positive and uplifting. It is a charming romantic comedy. Its exploration into the nature of grief and how to cope with the pain of great loss never devolves into sentimentality. And Hyomin's touching portrayal of Ji-Ho, hiding her wounded soul beneath a smiling, happy face, keeps you caring and, at the end, just might have you cheering. 

Hyomin and the other members of T-ARA, the Korean pop music band of which she remains an important part, all have personally experienced the necessity to hide inner pain behind a smiling face, for both professional and personal reasons, and their tragic, unjust experiences in that regard must have contributed to the understanding with which Hyomin portrayed the wounded but heroic Ji-Ho.  Here is an interview with Hyomin when JINX!!! was released. Interview with Hyomin

Here is a link to a trailer for JINX!!! with English subtitles. JINX!!! Trailer with English Subs


Hyomin remains an important member of the superstar K- Pop group, T-ARA (pronounced Tiara). She won a MBC Best Female New Comer Drama Award in 2011 for her role in the Korean historical drama, Gyebaek. She debuted as a solo artist in 2014 with the hit, "Nice Body."  In 2015 she was the female lead in a Korean web drama titled, "When You Are in Love, It Rains." She returned as a solo artist in Spring of 2016.

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