LOVER’S CONCERTO

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LOVER’S CONCERTO

Jun 10, 2019

Writer by Pierce Conran
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2002 | 106 MIN | Drama

DIRECTOR LEE Han

CAST CHA Tae-hyun, LEE Eun-ju, SON Ye-jin

RELEASE DATE September 12, 2002

CONTACT Cineclick Asia

Tel +82-2-538-0211

Fax +82-2-538-0479

Released in the heyday of melodramas, Lover’s Concerto (2002) stars three of the genre’s most familiar names in a love triangle featuring all the hallmarks of Korean romantic dramas. The film was the debut of director LEE Han, whose streak of successful dramas, which also includes Punch (2011), continued earlier this year with Innocent Witness.

College student and amateur photographer Ji-hwan (CHA Tae-hyun) works part time in his friend’s cafe. One day, Su-in (SON Ye-jin) and Kyung-hee (LEE Eun-ju) visit his workplace and he is immediately transfixed. Boldly following them to their next destination, Ji-hwan approaches them and confesses his love for Su-in, much to Kyung-hee’s amusement. Though Su-in refuses his advances, the three soon become an inseparable trio, sharing experiences together throughout a long summer. However, before long new feelings begin to emerge, complicating the pleasant dynamic in the group. What’s more, Su-in and Kyung-hee have been harboring a secret from Ji-hwan.

Lover’s Concerto was CHA Tae-hyun’s follow-up project to the massively successful romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2001), in which he co-starred with Gianna JUN (aka JEON Ji-hyun), and he once again brings his youthful and awkward charm to Ji-hwan, a role that also leans on CHA’s knack for comic timing. Playing the bubbly Kyung-hee is LEE Eun-ju, who was also fresh from a successful romantic drama, Bungee Jumping Of Their Own (2001), in which she shared the screen with LEE Byung-hun. She brings a playful charisma to Kyung-hee, which was one of the last characters she played prior to her untimely death in 2004. Playing the sweet and chaste Su-in was a young SON Ye-jin in her first leading role in a film. Even at such an early age (she was 20 when the film was released) and in a role with such a limited emotional range, it’s easy to feel her screen presence and see the star that would soon emerge, through films such as A Moment To Remember (2004) and April Snow (2005).

One of the most common tropes for Korean romantic dramas, during the peak of their popularity stretching roughly from films such as The Letter (1997) and Christmas in August (1998) to the late 2000s with films like More Than Blue (2009), was the terminal illness which inevitable dooms any budding relationship. Following several hits built around the same trope, Lover’s Concerto offered something a little different, by combining the trope with a shifting love triangle and also adding in a few late twists.

LEE’s film, which utilizes a flashback structure, another common device in romantic narratives, particularly tragic ones, is a polished, earnest and effortless affair that owes much to the charm and chemistry of its leads.

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