Wedding Palace (2013)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

I'm in an almost hallucinatory state as I write this. Is it remotely possible that the five existing favorable reviews (as of 5/15/16) were based on a different version of "Wedding Palace" than the one I just saw? For in the bit of surrealism I watched the 'good' character arriving in L.A. to get married, Na Young, was a well proportioned but abnormally, repeat abnormally short person. In Seoul however, where the the man Jason first laid eyes on her, and where he spent face-to-face time with her on a date, she was shown to be a normal sized woman. Figuratively as well as literally this bit of poetic license is unbelievable and should come with the warning: The character Na Young is filmed sitting on 3 pre-cell phone era Manhattan directories.

I thought this movie was a hoot. I watched it one Saturday afternoon on Amazon Prime. I had never heard of it but read the description and the rating was OK; so I gave it a try. It has become one of my favorite movies. It is a romantic comedy that you never see coming. I like movies with a twist and the director/producer pull it off. I had never heard of most of the actors in this film but they were all excellent. Margaret Cho is in this but her character plays a small part and not really that funny. Don't get me wrong; her part and acting are not bad. It just not a large part of the movie. But all in all a Great Film.The acting and cinematography were both great. Two thumbs up!

This movie was thoroughly entertaining. I could not stop watching. I wanted to see what was going to happen next. It stars several of my favorite comedians--Bobby Lee, Margaret Cho, and some favorite actors like Kelvin Han Yee and Brian Tee. The movie starts out with the family thinking the young toddler would die before the age of 30 unless he found a bride and got married. After a failed try, he heads for South Korea to work on an advertising campaign. He meets the woman of his dreams at the meeting, and then again at a karaoke bar. He goes back home and keeps up an internet relationship with her. He eventually proposes and she comes to USA to get married.When she arrives, he finds out she isn't what he expected. I won't spoil it here for you. You will have to watch to find out what happens. The movie is full of surprises and laughs. Christine Yoo did a fabulous job directing this movie. It's one of those movies that are fun to see over and over.

Christine Yoo has written and directed a film that is masterful in the way it moves from comedy to romance by blending the two seamlessly. That's the good news...the bad news is that by virtue of the fact that it is a film with an Asian cast and a few subtitles thrown in, it will probably not receive the wide release and the sold out American audiences it deserves. Although it is a film about Korean culture and traditions of parents whose son is a Korean-American raised in a very different world than his immigrant parents, the comedy is ultimately about generational differences among family members, something everyone can understand. While every good film starts with a great script, without the right director and cast it can't succeed. Christine Yoo as writer/director has guided this film perfectly. Brian Tee, in the lead role of Jason, has taken on a character most would not expect. He is able to subdue his character among all the hoopla, chaos and comedy of the cast to provide that perfect balance and dramatic constant the film needs to bring it all together. Bobby Lee, Jean Yoon, Steve Park, June Kyoto Lu, Kelvin Han Yee and Joy Osmanski all provide perfect comedic timing creating truly memorable characters. This is a romantic story with so many laughs and it works so well on so many levels. For example, two wonderful parts of the film are the use of animation when explaining the history of the family "curse," and the long distance dating between Jason (Brian Tee) who is from Los Angeles in the film, and Na Young (Hye-jeong Kang) who is from Seoul. You can bet this film will be a big success in Korea and it deserves the same everywhere else including the USA.