Miss Gold Digger – Review

This is a silly but fun comedy from Korea starring Ye-seul Han as Mi-su Shin, a very pretty young lady who works at an ad agency but wants to be with a rich boyfriend. She juggles a few man without fully committing to them, always looking for something more. She goes through her world with the guys kind of worshiping her but her being at arms length. I don’t think you’re supposed to like her, at least at first, but she quickly becomes fun to watch and she has a pretty good sense of comic timing. Her pretty, big brown eyes express a lot of what she’s feeling, and its enjoyable to watch her go through these situations with her men, trying to find the perfect match. The story is, of course, not very deep in meaning, but becomes surprising sentimental at times and there are times you are really pulling for her, despite her gold digging ways.

In her polygamous romantic relationships, she adopts different personas for each boyfriend, from being a prim and proper lady for her JFK-like boyfriend to a sexy party girl for a young rapper. But when her shopping spree starts to get tangled, the men show their true side when they discover that they have been manipulated. When dating Hyun-joon (Son Ho-young), an attractive rapper who is several years younger, she becomes a dictator so as to dominate him and give her the maximum freedom in her own free time. All the while, despite her obvious beauty, her unappreciative new next door neighbor Dong-min picks quarrels with the slightest thing that she does. It does follow a bit paint-by-numbers formula that we have seen in many Asian romcoms, but she begins the suspenseful dating of four totally different guys, which keeps things interesting.

Cute and typical romantic comedy that always overstyles its genre with a contemporary fairy tale mood that Koreans seem to love. As usual there’s a hate relationship between two characters that ultimately fall in love, with just a little different twist at the end. he plays the role perfectly because Mi-Su is not much different than her role as Na Sang Shil in Fantasy Couple. Han Ye Seul is somewhat of a fake and extreme actress, and therefore she fits this role perfectly because Mi-Su is also a fake person. Han Ye Seul is gorgeous in this movie as she is in real life. If you’re a Han Ye Seul fan, it may be worth it to watch this movie just for her because she is almost in every single scene. Also, it doesn’t bore you even though the story meanders quite a bit (as you can imagine with her juggling multiple relationships at the same time).

As a pure popcorn date movie, this works perfectly. Hopefully, this is a star turn for Ye-seul Han, as she plays this role rather well. If you like romantic comedy, I think you’ll like this. Given the limited scenes they act opposite each other, since her time is split rather evenly amongst all potential suitors, don’t be expecting any great chemistry to be established. For all its feminist ra-ra with an alpha female in clear control over the exploitation of her sexuality and beauty, the film somehow became a great romcom, even I enjoyed. Highly recommended!