One of the Best Romantic Time Travel movie of all times

ebiros2

This is the fourth movie by director Jay-yong Kwak that has "Kanokyo (her)" as part of the title. He deserves credit for going out of his native Korea to make this movie. He's also the author of this story.

Jiro - a not so savvy college student, one day sees a beautiful girl at a department store. He later celebrates his birthday alone at a restaurant. The girl he saw at the department store shows up, and says it's her birthday as well. She insists on paying the tab, but she actually has no money. Jiro doesn't know about this until, the manager of the restaurant comes chasing after them. From that point on, the girl starts saying things that doesn't make sense to Jiro, but he finds that she is following him around from that day on.

Many people have complained about the difficulty in understanding this story. Especially the fact that there're two identical looking "she", one that's a flesh and blood girl (Haruka Ayase) that gets memory transplanted from the robot "she" that she auctioned off for 6.2 billion. And another "she" that's a robot made by Jiro (Keisuke Koide) in his later life that he sends back in time to save his life and that of others. The real life "she"'s name is not mentioned, or why she looks exactly like the robot Jiro made is explained. The matter further gets confusing because the first "she" that Jiro encounters is the flesh and blood "she" but she already has the memory of the robot from the memory transfer. The real life "she" also appears after the robot is destroyed, and becomes Jiro's wife.

Now, if that's not confusing, I don't know what is. It's almost impossible to take it all in on the first viewing.

But what's outstanding, is how director Kwak put life into the character of robot "she", and all the situation she goes through with Jiro. Although the story is about a robot, there is no more heart warming relationship than the ones these two creates.

Koreans have one of the highest average IQ in the world (according to world statistics). I can believe that. There's something outstandingly refined about this movie. I can't quite put my fingers on it, but it's futuristic, and human at the same time.

A great science fiction love comedy/drama that's worthy of becoming a classic.

score 8/10

ebiros2 15 February 2013

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2753876/