Sunny (Sseo-ni)

A CJ Entertainment presentation from the Toilet Pictures, Aloha Pictures production. (Worldwide sales: CJ Entertainment, Seoul.) Produced by Ahn Byung-ki, Ahn In-ki. Executive producer, Katherine Kim. Co-producer, Lee An-na. Directed, put together by Kang Hyoung-chul.With: Yu Ho-jeong, Jin Hui-gyeong, Shim Eun-gyeong, Gang So-ra, Park Jin-ju, Kim Bo-mi, Kim Min-yeong, Nam Bo-ra, Min Hyo-rin, Goh Su-hui, Kim Seon-gyeong.As perfect generally day's sunshine, Korean femme-centric ensembler "Sunny" can be a warm ray of movement picture light that leads to pleasure and tears in equal measure. Ably mixing the arrival-of-age and middle age crisis genres, Kang Hyoung-chul's sophomore effort plays something such as a far more potent, better Korean version of Hollywood weepie "From time to time" (1995). Its socko local haul of $47 million won't be surpassed offshore, nevertheless the film could glow worldwide, since it explores issues familiar to auds everywhere, although getting a definite kimchi flavor. (Korean dialogue) Pic's pivotal character is Im Na-mi (Yu Ho-jeong), first met just like a well-to-do, taken-for-granted housewife who accidentally finds out that her high-school friend Chun-hwa (Jin Hui-gyeong) remains make the hospital with terminal cancer. Thrilled doing old buddy again, Chun-hwa demands that Na-mi obtain former teen gang -- known with one another as Sunny -- back together again for just about any reunion before Chun-hwa dies they have got to behave fairly quickly, since Chun-hwa isn't likely to reside greater than two several days longer.. Na-mi sets to satisfy Chun-hwa's wish by checking in first getting an old teacher. As Na-mi walks up the method to her old-fashioned, Kang relies on a 360-degree pan to leap back two-and-a-half decades for the eighties, when teenage country bumpkin Na-mi (now carried out by Shim Eun-gyeong) was the completely new kid at her Seoul secondary school. The flashback allows the script presenting the whole Sunny crew: feisty youthful Chun-hwa (Gang So-ra), who always had more belief in Na-mi's talents than she ever did foul-mouthed Jin-hui (Park Jin-ju) pretty airhead Bok-hui (Kim Bo-mi) overweight, plastic surgery-obsessed Jang-mi (Kim Min-yeong) violent bookworm Geom-ok (Nam Bo-ra) and too-awesome-for-school ambitious fashion model Su-ji (Min Hyo-rin). Each is charmed to various levels by Na-mi's honest if awkward style. The film cycles forward and backward between past and provide very easily, handling the seven protags (elevated by two) together with a lot of subsidiary figures without ever losing its balance or momentum. While tissue needs to be launched at cinema exit entrance doors, it's the pic's robust humor that puts the hook in. Kang's script handles to supply up a deft depiction of teenybopper existence while perfectly using the quick changes that have transformed Columbia formerly thirty years. Pic's fabulous and funny focus can be a downtown standoff between Sunny together with an adversary distaff gang, their fight coinciding by getting a panic attack around the left-wing demonstration by Korea's Fifth Republic militia. Set to "Touch by Touch" (a track by Austrian group Pleasure, a eighties Korean pop sensation), and happening underneath a theater placard for your anti-communist-designed "Rocky 4," this amusing but breathtaking sequence reps a showpiece for your technical expertise Kang demonstrates throughout. Pic's teen thesps are evenly terrific. Likewise, the thesps who play their grown-up options heartwarmingly embody the mistakes of grownups whose dreams were unfulfilled. Supporting cast may also be perfect. Clever lensing by Lee Hyung-deok capitalizes round the superb production type of Lee Years of age-han, which contrasts the monochromatic sophistication of contempo corporate Seoul while using bubble-gum pop colors in the eighties. Version caught within the Busan fest will be a director's cut that clocked in at 11 minutes a lot more than the version first released commercial in Columbia in August. Versions include more vivid teacher-triggered violence plus much more profanity from Jin-hui than was thought commercial viable. At press time, a little of music applied to the director's cut soundtrack, including Cyndi Lauper's "Over And Over," had not been removed for worldwide play.Camera (color, widescreen), Lee Hyung-deok editor, Nam Na-youthful music, Kim Jun-seok production designer, Lee Years of age-han costume designer, Chae Kyung-hwa appear (Dolby Digital), Lee Seung-yup. Examined at Busan Film Festival (Korean Cinema Today), March. 13, 2011. Running time: 135 MIN. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com