It’s been said by wiser cinema-heads than I that the romcom is dead, killed off by a post-modern critical attitude that doesn’t appreciate the irony that once made the genre appealing. My own take is that the classic trappings of romantic comedies—middle class, middle-brow aesthetics tied to a belief in the transcendant values of monogamous heterosexual love—no longer apply in a world where constant connectivity breeds cynicism toward human relationships. And I’d say that was a shame if I believed in middle class, middle-brow aesthetics in the first place, but the romcoms I’ve always liked—Preston Sturges’ work, Shampoo come to mind—are already cynical, so maybe I was never the target. At the moment, Korean cinema and TV series are thriving on romcom stories, and for the most part they blend the kind of snark I appreciate with the wettest sentimentality you could possibly stand, an often toxic combination that nevertheless keeps you awake to the possibilities of a particular story.

Love Reset is what used to be called high concept, meaning it was pitched for its gimmick—married couple about to get divorced are in an accident that leaves them with amnesia and thus open to the possibility of falling in love all over again—and, as is often the case with any Korean romcom, the story is so unwieldy and imprecise that there’s bound to be something there you like, if only for a minute or two. The introduction is promising: Perpetual law student Jeong-yeol (Kan Ha-neul) is drinking himself into a stupor because the love of his life, Na-ra (Jung So-min), is getting married to somebody else. Though the two have dated for some time, Na-ra, from a well-to-do family, doesn’t think Jeong-yeol, who is going for his fourth or fifth run at the bar exam, is ever going to amount to much, but at the altar she has a Graduate moment and bolts the ceremony, arriving at the bar where Jeong-yeol is blotto to declare her intentions. From here, the movie veers widely away from the path a Western romcom would take, with Na-ra’s family, understanding there’s no point in fighting it, offers to support Jeong-yeol while he studies again for the test, a development that makes Na-ra question her own future with him, and after they marry she finds she can’t stand his spendthrift ways (he’s determined to pay back his in-laws) and purity of purpose. She goes the opposite way by drinking constantly and leaving a mess wherever she goes, and her freelance movie production work suffers for it.

What’s promising about the setup is that after the two lose their memories their families and friends reverse course and endeavor to make sure they don’t get back together again, thus creating a tension between the different intentions at play. A lot of the comedy is self-referential (“this is like something out of a movie”) and the scatological humor might be a bit too ripe for some tastes, but as a sour look at the state of matrimony in Korea and the class pressures that work to its disadvantage it’s often amusing in a broad, slapstick way. In any case, I can’t see how anyone would want to marry either of these clowns.

In Korean. Opens March 29 in Tokyo at Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-675-0075), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011).

Love Reset home page in Japanese

photo (c) Cinema Woollim, TH Story and Mindmark