Shotgun Love – Review

This is the comedy between Sang-yeol and So-yeon. A home shopping food model Sang-yeol had an uneventful life until he meets a lingerie model So-yeon, whom he secretly loved. Soon So Yeon finds herself pregnant by her boyfriend Park, who is a TV producer. He wants her to abort the baby. Since she wants to keep the baby she informs Sang Yeol that she is pregrant with his baby. Will the truth be revealed in the end? Maybe so, but one thing we do know is what a tangle web some people can weave. Shotgun Love is a competently staged mix of silly comedy, romance and melodrama, which ends up being quite entertaining, but a bit too long and a little goofy. Whether it really would have been much more useful is questionable, but in the end, the concept is just not rich in potential.

In Shotgun Love, the serious idea is this: Shallow people can only discover deeper feelings through personal tragedies. Lim Chang Jung takes on what by now is a pretty familiar role for him, and if you follow the career of these respected roles, you’ll find little to be surprised by. Then on a rainy night, So-Yeon calls Sang-Yeol to meet for drinks. The next morning, Sang-Yeol finds himself naked in a motel room. Although Sang-Yeol can’t remember what happened the night before he assumes that he slept with So-Yeon, because the front desk confirmed that he came in with a woman. Basically, as you watch you need to follow the clues to come to your own conclusion before the final curtain is unveiled before our own eyes to reveal the big ‘aha’ moment. As its title suggests, the film is a rom-com, though one with an interesting twist in that it sees him as an unfortunate man who is suckered into believing that he is the father of an actress.

This all seems like a lot, doesn’t it. Well, that’s because it is and Shotgun Love is indeed constructed like a comedy, yet without ever managing to become one. The two roommates contribute little to the campy humor with a maximum factor. In turn, this provides us to suffer along with the protagonists. This in turn, is more than precarious for the imaginary melodramatic final phase. So in the end, the drama only works half as well, as does the comedic timing. To that effect, shows Rain Jung qualities, but he makes little of something. And that something is not large, and even quickly forgotten, but Young certainly does not need to crawl under a rock for his work.

A fellow movie critic said it best when it comes to movies like these: Sometimes you come up with a funny idea. Then you come up with a number of supporting ideas that are kind of funny. Then when you try to string them together, you get all serious because you’re trying to make it work. I think that generally sums up how I feel about this film as it just didn’t hit the mark for me. So, to sum it up, the sometimes wonky wording of the script and the predictability of the plot; yet living up to its rom-comical genre, I give this a slightly below average score. A clever manoeuvre that makes a cluey audience immediately think, ‘I hate that chick’, due to the character’s obvious bad over-acting.