This is the first work of Song Joong Ki that I’m watching after a whole drama of what he had said about “married actors”. I’m not going to delve much into it except that it sounded very ignorant of the challenges that women in the industry face as well, if not worse, than their male counterparts, like him.

In any case, the trailer looked interesting so here I am. It’s No. 2 in Singapore on Netflix so why not give it a try, right?

Well… big mistake…

The movie centers around Loh Kiwan (well, obviously), who was a North Korean defector in China and ran away to Belgium after his mother’s death, trying to get a refugee status. He struggled to survive while waiting for an interview with the refugee department and met Marie, a former Belgian athlete with a really kick-ass shooting skills and quite a tragic past, who stole his wallet that had the money from his mother and the only physical memory that has of her, a picture. From then on, the two of them tried to survive together in this world that’s not treating them both so kindly.

It started really slowly, so slowly I actually played a video game while watching it. I could play a puzzle game and still caught up because not much will be going on. It did go back and forth between the present and the past and slowly unravel the backstories of the two main characters. However, it went really fast towards the end to tie up all the loose ends, which is nice but just way too fast. The pace was so slow in the beginning that it felt like a sprint at the end. The pace was just not consistent that it took me a bit by surprise how easily it ends and falls nicely into place and everyone has their happily ever after. It kind of robbed us of something – time wasted in the beginning, I guess.

I’m not sure what I wanted from the movie but I guess if it has less romance and more about the character’s struggle as a North Korean defector trying to find his place in this cruel world would be nice. It would maybe feel a little more real.

Everyone knows Song Joong Ki and after the things that he said in “that” interview of his, he still got work. He did well enough and I do find his character pitiful (good on the makeup artist and stylist). As for the female actress (Choi Seung Eun), this is my first time seeing her and I’m not good in Dutch (I guess that’s the language that they were speaking in?) but I think that she did quite well in her pronunciation. She played the girl with the tragic past well and I do like her character.

I was not much into the melodrama romance between the two of them. What got me crying instead was Marie’s relationship with her father. Her father was played by Jo Han Chul and I really like him. I find that whenever he acts in something, it would be good. How do I put this? He’s one of the actors that if he’s in a movie or a drama, you know that it’s going to be a good one (or at least those scenes with him in it would be a good one). And the last bit of his character with his wife was so heartbreaking. He portrayed it so well. The one acting as Song Joong Ki’s mother (Kim Sung Ryung) honestly looked young enough to be his wife. I had to google her age and man, she does not look 57. And Song Joong Ki does not look that young enough to be her son. When Loh Kiwan called her “mother”, I almost wanted to laugh.

I love myself a good North Korean-South Korean movie or drama but I have to give this one a 2 out of 5. It was not bad but I’ve seen so much better.