Scandal Makers (2008)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Excellent but underrated film

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Top stars and the kid is cute but not that interesting and funny. It wants to be a drama but turns to be a comedy or the other way around.

This is a movie that comes with the tag line that reads "not your average family reunion", so true. It starts off with the introduction of the lead character played by Cha Tae Hyun who is a carefree bachelor who comes to realize that he may have a daughter who in turn has a son making him his grandfather. The story essentially kick starts at this point of time and maybe till the end it is going to make you laugh. As anyone can guess the story is about how he adopts to being in a family and becomes a responsible person. But what intrigues me in this is the journey that as audience, we are put through, which gives us a sweet feeling long after the movie is over. It is to be noted that the director's second venture "sunny" is more mature than this but still speedy scandal is the most fun of the two. It's Cha Tae Hyun's movie and he does justice to it and he brings dimensions to the movie unlike anyone. Though his character in "My Sassy girl" is my all time favorite, speedy scandal will come next to it! To enjoy this movie all you have to do is to shed the inhibition that movies that are predictable will probably suck, but the bitter truth is that sometimes being predictable doesn't hurt and this movie sure will put a smile to your face as the end credits roll.

Cha Tae-hyun has come a long way since his big debut in My Sassy Girl. 14 films later, he starred in a dramedy that potentially rivals the 2001 classic. Speedy Scandal contains similar lighthearted humor and serious drama that made My Sassy Girl such a hit. Just, with a different kind of love story. While My Sassy Girl centers around the romantic relationship, Speedy Scandal focuses on the love between family. Cha Tae-hyun's character, Nam Hyeon-soo, is a radio DJ who finds out he has a long lost daughter and grandson. Being a bachelor and a "famous" person, the sudden intrusion of taking in Hwang Jae-in (Park Bo-young the nation's little sister) and Hwang Ki-dong (Wang Seok-hyeon) is certainly overwhelming. And so the journey of accepting his (un)wanted family begins.Pretty much right off the bat, the premise of the story starts. The film does a great job of showing Hyeon-soo's uptight personality with the opening credits being a tour of his large apartment filled with neatly organized suits and cologne. His high class lifestyle makes the entrance of unknown dependents so much more shocking and entertaining. And it's not just Cha Tae-hyun that makes the film interesting to watch. Park Bo-young, who has since gained a lot of popularity for her role as the under aged mother, makes for a cute daughter who has a lot of spunk. And as for the little boy (who is also kind of cute), Wang Seok-hyeon, he's not only responsible for the main portion of the humor, but also acts as the catalyst to bring the family together. All the actors make the film very enjoyable and hard to let go.It's obvious that Nam Hyeon-soo will change his characteristics and become a better person in the end, so the conflicts that occur are what you're really watching the film for. Just because Cha Tae-hyun is the main protagonist doesn't mean that the film is all fun and games. The film touches upon some serious topics, such as abandonment, family values, and the need to be loved. Park Bo-young delivers some pretty great crying scenes that make even the viewer feel the guilt of the father.After watching the film, I couldn't help but feel the need for a sequel. Like when many good shows or movies end, people require a fair amount of closure to feel satisfied. The end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a good example. Ending scenes in The Return of the King seem to go on and on. For Speedy Scandal, the ending is complete and ties up all loose ends (unlike a lot of Korean films), but I guess I like the characters so much that I wish for a sequel. That will most likely not happen though, since Korean cinema isn't so keen on spin-offs. Maybe the film is missing just one more scene in the end to give it the perfect closure.

It's little wonder how Scandal Makers turned out to be a blockbuster hit in South Korea. It doesn't have any offensive jokes that could put anyone off, relied on slickly crafted humorous situations that don't try too hard, and has characters that will endear and grow on you. It has some feel-good messages to impart without being preachy, and one would almost be surprised that this is a first time effort from writer-director Kang Hyeong-cheol.Sure the premise may not be something that's new, and coming to mind is The Game Plan, where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson finds his orderly, playboy life being abruptly interrupted by a kid claiming to be his daughter. Over here though, this Korean film upped Hollywood's ante by adding to the family tree complexity, and also to the magnitude of laughs. Hyeong- cheol's story has three generations living under the same roof, and it played out very nicely with little scenes that go to waste. I suppose with first time fearlessness, Hyeong-cheol provided the story with an air of freshness over a tried and tested formula about unexpected gate-crashing family members.Nam Hyeon-soo (Cha Tae-hyun) is a radio DJ whose afternoon talk show gives him a new lease of life and popularity, especially with a single mother sharing her story on his show about her search for a long lost father. Bur his orderly, playboy lifestyle and bachelor pad get unceremoniously imposed upon when Hwang Jeong-nam (Park Bo-yeong) and her son Hwang Ki-dong (Hwang Seok-hyeon) come knocking on his door claiming to be his daughter, and grandson even! I think for any bachelor in the 30s (*ahem* like myself), this would either turn out to be a bad April Fool's Joke of mistaken identity, or horror-of-horrors, a tryst early in life that had gone totally wrong. What more, with such a scandal – a swinging bachelor with a young adult daughter, who in turn is a single mom at a young age – it threatens Hyeon-soo's career and lifestyle, and so begins the comedy of keeping under wraps the situation, as well as to learn how to live and tolerate his new found family who have come from the village, where Hyeon-soo's only common ground with Jeong-nam, besides their talent for music, is their propensity to have early offspring.A perfect dysfunctional family that serves up as a perfect scandalous story given the follies of youth. But this film is more about perceptions despite its title. We have a man who perceives himself as a major celebrity who would be ruined, as he has observed, should the paparazzi expose his childhood shenanigans. We have a daughter who perceives that it would be easy for her never-seen-before dad to accept her when she appears out of the blue with kid in tow. And the young kid too perceives that his crush (it's in this family's genes to start young) will only like him if he wears fancy clothes, rather than to rely on his musical talent.While Cha Tae-hyun plays his selfish character, who through the course of the film learns something important about family, with aplomb, Park Bo-yeong's single mom role seemed to be too entrenched in her live-the-singing-dream subplot, and little is seen in the dynamics with her young son. In fact Hwang Seok-hyeon is the ultimate scene stealer here as the round-headed kid with curly hair, and his story-arc opposite Tae-hyun as grandfather and grandson is perhaps the best of the lot with plenty of laughs guaranteed. This kid just oozes charisma and charm, and from the moment he appears the magic got weaved and you'll find him totally endearing himself to you, the audience, with his smile-non-smile antics, and those crazy sleepwalking spells.Scandal Makers is easy going fare that would appeal to a broad spectrum of audiences with its fine comedy and positive messages of love and enduring family ties that remind you of blood running thicker than water. Bring a date, take your whole family, and discover just why the South Koreans went ga-ga over this. It could be that kid Hwang Seok-hyeon, whose performance alone would justify the price of a movie ticket! Highly recommended!