Sunny

        

Seven girls. One group that will last, as one of them says, “beyond their death”.

That’s what Sunny the movie is all about: Sunny the group, then and now. Back in the 1980’s and still stuck in the present.

The movie manages to capture the essence of a friendship between middle school girls that reunite later in life, when their leader dies. The friendship doesn’t. It is beautifully directed, as the scenes that show the past and those that show the present do not look mismatched; they shift smoothly and quite beautifully. It also has so many clichés but still captures them differently. Like the beautiful girl of the group, the “popular” one, is actually the silent one, that surprises when she proves to be a fighter when it comes to her friends. Or how much first love can hurt. Or the little ironies that are sprinkled all over the movie; how the “best” ones end up being in the worst state being one of them. I also love the subtle ways the movie shows how some relations (wife – husband, parents – daughter) work in nowadays’ Korea or how everyone’s addicted to dramas (the hospital scenes in the beginning really made me laugh).

Simply put, this movie is amazing. Breathtaking. It has so much of a plot and substance and does not fail in putting it together. And I love this. I also love how well matched the actresses are with their characters, which I adore. They play their roles so well, that I found myself crying towards the ened because they gathered as seven again only after the leader was gone. I mean, here we have the leader that acts as tough as a boy, but has the heart of a girl (Kang So-Ra plays young Ha Chun-Hwa, Jin Hee-Kyung plays mature Ha Chun-Hwa), the daughter of a teacher that could be called as “Queen of swearing” (Park Jin-Joo as the teen Hwang Jin-Hee, and Hong Jin-Hee as the mature one), the not-your-skinny-type of girl that can’t wait to get a double eyelid surgery ( Kim Min-Young and Ko Su-Hee play the young and not so young Kim Jang-Mi), the girl that dreams to be a writer, but proves to be quite the fighter as a teen(Nam Bo-Ra and Lee Yeon-Kyung play Seo Geum-Ok), the girl that lives her life as the pageant queen she will be one day (Ryoo Bok-Hee, played as a teen by Kim Bo-Mi and as a woman as Kim Sun-Kyung), the beautiful girl that everyone knows will become a model(Su-Ji, played by Min Hyo-Rin as a young girl – Su-Ji the woman only appears for the last couple of minutes in the movie and I’m not sure who plays her yet) and the newcomer, the girl from the countryside that lastly joins the band(Shim Eun-Kyung and Yoo Ho-Jeong play Lim Na-Mi in the two very different moments of her life) that put up with other bands of girls (ironically named “Girls’ Generation” – I doubt there’s any connection to this Girls’ Generation , but it’s not the only time the director uses popular band names nowadays in the movie, as the girls initially wanted their group name to be Wonder Girls). I admit it would have been interesting to see the WG vs. SNSD back in the 80’s as teen groups :)

And don’t get me started on the cinematic aspects of this movie or the fashion. It’s just…well, I’ll let you judge for yourself.

                                               

You can watch it (and I highly recommend you do so) with English subtitles here, here or here.

Photographs from here or screen caps of mine.

P.S. The soundtrack is also quite amazing!

Words are not enough

 

Funny how ironic life can be sometimes. Just a week ago I was talking about milestones, about the fact that everything has an end. And just a few days ago someone’s life ended. Someone I really loved and cared for, someone I didn’t expect to leave me at this point in life. Or at all. I guess we really take things for granted, don’t we?

Now that one of my grandpas is gone, I just feel my heart is filled with regrets. The regret that I didn’t go see him on Sunday, that I didn’t call him like at all and that it seems an eternity since I’ve last seen him, the regret that I actually never told him how much I love him and how important he is to me. That I admired, and still admire, him. I can only hope that, as an understanding and patient grandpa that he was, he understood what I had never actually told him. I also hope that he really is in a better place right now, watching over us and forgiving us any mistake we could have possibly made. And if he’s not there yet, I’ll make sure he will go there, because he deserves it. That’s the only thing I can do for him right now, pray.

You see, I don’t really believe in the so-called “it’s Tuesday, 13 or Friday, 13 so it’s bad luck”.

But it was Tuesday.And 13. 

13.12.2011

It was like a warm spring day, not a cold December one. Maybe this means it was better for him to go wherever he went; maybe this means that God, knowing through how much pain he’s been through during the last years, decided to ease everything, by taking him close to him without having him experience much pain, without him even expecting it. Maybe, and I really hope this is a sure thing, he now knows no pain or anger or anything; he must have his well deserved peace.

            

Milestone

 

It hurts knowing how it will end at one point. Your birthday, a bad day, a long class at school, being stuck in the traffic jam, your childhood… everything has an end. I guess this is why they say we should enjoy each moment of our lives. It is true that we will never be younger than we are at this very moment. So why waste the moment? Might as well spread our wings, open our minds and just go wherever life will take us. Yet, rather than doing so, rather than listening to my instinct that always proved to be right, I do the exact opposite. I plan. I over think. I don’t just let life happen; I make sure what I want to happen will happen at one point or another. And in the rare moments that I just let it be, I feel complete for that moment. But the moment being nothing more than that, a future memory lost in my little treasure box deep in my heart, sooner or later the regrets sink in. And the what ifs…    

             

Is there any way to beautifully close a chapter in your life and move onto the next one? I sometimes wonder of how my parents were when they had my age. When they tell me pieces of their life back then, I can’t help but notice how something in them changes. How their eyes have a tiny sparkle of happiness mixed with sadness, even melancholia, how they no longer focus on me and just look into space, how they relive those moments when talking about them. I wonder if this is how I will end up like. Talking about the youth I’m supposed to live now to my future children. In a way, it sounds like the best plan for  life. I will have my family. And I will be a role model for my children, just like my parents are for me. And I will make sure my parents, grandparents’ stories will live on. But there’s the other way around: realizing I will lose something. A part of me. I guess that it all comes down to this, after all. You take something from life and have something be taken away from you.