Oishii Man

A vehicle for Korean model-actor Lee Min-ki, who steps into the music arena here as rock singer Hyun-seok, Oishii Man should perform at home to the teen marketplace, and shooting it in Hokkaido with a Japanese actress is an attempt to cross over there, but its potential outside those two territories is slight.

Hyun-seok is a soulful, pretty singer with a great, carefully-arranged shaggy hairdo, who suddenly realises he’s going deaf in Kim Jeong-jung’s follow-up to Hers (2007). He needs to go somewhere quiet, so he heads to an icy Hokkaido, where the owner of a local guesthouse (Ikewaki) reminds him of the divorced woman (Jung) with another alarming hairdo he once met in Seoul.

Oishii Man is notable for its sound, courtesy of Lee Seung-yup. The muffled noises of the snow, ice, and even a trip through the remains of an iceberg, stand out in stark contrast to Hyun-seok’s singing in Seoul, and sequences where he fails to hit the notes are affecting.

Characterisations and plotting are paper-thin, however, and Oishii Man has trouble stretching even to the 98-minute mark, despite some wonderfully-icy location shots.

Production company
Sponge Entertainment

Producer
David Cho

International sales
Showbox/Mediaplex Inc
(82) 2 3218 5636

Screenplay
Yoo Dong-sik
From a story by Kim C

Cinematography
Oh Seung-hwan

Production design
Seo Yu-mi

Main cast
Lee Min-ki
Chizuru Ikewaki
Jung Yu-mi