Review | The Dude in Me film review: Jung Jin-young, Park Sung-woong in entertaining body-swap comedy
- Stuffed with action, romance, humour and heart, The Dude in Me is not your run-of-the-mill body-swap comedy
- It features B1A4 K-pop star Jung Jin-young as three separate characters
3.5/5 stars
Body-swap comedies seem tailor-made for Korean cinema, where society is so fiercely regimented by a hierarchy based on age and seniority. Seeing a high school student stand up to adults with the swagger and confidence of a blowhard gang boss is pretty much all that is required to generate laughs.
Director Kang Hyo-jin’s The Dude in Me goes one step further, bringing together elements from Back to the Future , 200 Pounds Beauty and many other films, then betting it all on leading man Jung Jin-young to pull it off.
Fortunately for all concerned, the member of K-pop boy band B1A4 – who also appeared in the not dissimilar Miss Granny – rises to the occasion admirably.
Jung pulls off an impressive, three-tiered performance as awkward, overweight teen Dong-hyun, tough-yet-terrified gangster Pang-su – who becomes trapped in Dong-hyun’s body following a freak accident – and the handsome, athletic prince charming that Dong-hyun ultimately becomes.
Park Sung-woong is equally entertaining as the real Pang-su, a career criminal whose world literally collides with that of Dong-hyun’s, and puts him in a coma. He is tasked with setting the tone for the character – firm but fair, tough when necessary, but capable of displaying tenderness.