Reader Recommendation: Hello Stranger (2010)

Today while hanging out at a friend's place, he said he had a movie that was recommended to him by another friend. This other friend was a girl, so no surprise that it was a rom-com. Since I had recently had a complaint from a female reader that there weren't enough "chick-flicks" on the site, I thought this would make an excellent addition. This movie is of course Hello Stranger and it's a very popular Korean film. I had pretty high expectations since I was told it was supposed to be great and really funny. Hit the jump to see if it lived up to these lofty expectations.


The premise of the movie is that two people head off to Seoul, Korea on vacations to see the sights. Not together mind you, they are total strangers and don't know each other at the start. Circumstances bring them together and they soon become friends. They decide to keep their names secret from one another in an odd game thinking that this will mean they can't get mad at each other no matter what is said. This results only in confusion as they tell each other their broken heart stories and start to fall in love. But can you really love someone if you don't even know their name?

The statue is of a movie star that she loves, he looks on in confusion. Hilarity follows.

This movie is best described by one word: charming. The characters, the way they act, the situations they get into are all sweet, fun, and charming. I wish I could go into more detail about the characters, but they never reveal their names. At one point they try to guess each other's names, and he comes up with May, while she thinks he could be a John. This is when they decide to keep their names to themselves. Later when she has to introduce him to a friend, she calls him Daang, and gets her friend to agree to call her May so as to keep the secret game going. The friend thinks it's pretty weird, and questions her if she's sure it is really all just a game between the two of them. Things progress from there as a sweet touching little romance begins.

May is cute as a button, Daang is a kind goofball.

It's always hard to tell if actors in a foreign film are good actors as I can't tell if they're delivering lines of dialog convincingly. I can however judge the performance based on their faces and the emotions they show. Based on that, I thought the acting was great. "Daang" is a goofball and has a difficult story behind why he's on the trip involving an ex. When he finally opens up and talks about it, I really believed that this was a real guy with real problems. Similarly, the girl "May" was cute and sweet and man could she tear up at the drop of a hat. I'm not sure if I've seen someone cry in a movie that just looked so natural. There's one scene in particular where we see her very slowly and quietly break down. The ever so gradual changes in her face as her situation catches up to her and she realizes what's happened, couldn't look more believable. As she starts to cry, it's pretty hard to watch without feeling something yourself.

The other thing I found myself feeling was joy as the comedy in this movie was genuine and funny. It almost all comes from the things "Daang" says or how he acts. Almost none of it is slapstick, which I find more Asian films rely on far too heavily. Even in the most serious films, you'll see characters slipping on bananas or hitting each other on the head like you're watching a Three Stooges comedy. I found the comedy very natural and as a result I found it to be fun and enjoyable.

They fall in love as they tour around the city

It's really the successful ups and downs from the subtle comedy and the heartfelt situation they find themselves in that make this a good movie. It might not have been exactly what I was expecting to find, but what I found was great in a whole different way. It was real and honest; it was filled with heart and tears; it was a great movie. If you like romance movies, if you like stories that ring true, and if you like movies with unconventional endings, you MUST check out Hello Stranger. Have those tissues ready!