Starring: Cha Tae-hyun, Park Bo-young, Wang Suk-hyun, Lim Jin-kyu
Director: Kang Hyung-chul
Category: IIA (Korean)
There's nothing too scandalous about this slickly made Korean comedy, an excellent example of Hollywood-style calculation so skilfully executed that one almost doesn't mind being so obviously manipulated.
Director Kang Hyung-chul has written a script whose 'shocking' incidents are clean enough for the whole family, capped it with a feel-good Christmas finale (which admittedly loses much of its power when screened in June), and utilised an array of sure-fire box office ingredients, including a precocious kid, nostalgic tunes and the unthreatening presence of star Cha Tae-hyun (best known in Hong Kong for 2001's My Sassy Girl). It's little wonder that Scandal Makers was Korea's No1 box office hit of last year, mildly fun and instantly forgettable.
The feature length sitcom has at its centre 36-year-old man-child Nam Hyun-soo (Cha), a former teen idol turned popular radio host who lives a comfortable life free of meaningful personal entanglements. That is until 22-year-old unwed mother Hwang Jung-nam (Park Bo-young) shows up at his luxurious flat, with six-year-old son Ki-dong (Wang Suk-hyun, above with Cha and Park) in tow. The director is to be credited for a novel twist on the 'bachelor father' motif, for the tyke's greeting of 'Grandpa!' is Nam's first inkling that he has progeny belonging to any generation.