Miracle on 1st Street (2007)

As a small child, Myeong Ran (Ha Ji Won) was witness to a brutal beating of her father in the boxing ring. As a result, the former champion became a disabled wreck of a man. About a dozen years later, the small family lives in a slum area, and Myeong Ran works hard to become a boxer and win the championship. Alas, she isn't very good: of her five fights she lost four – and the other one ended as a draw.

One day the gangster Pil Jee (Lim Chang Jung) appears in the shanty town. He has orders to clear the slum, so that a new commercial complex can be built there. While he makes the rounds to convince the inhabitants to leave, he meets some colourful people: There is a young pair of brother and sister that live more or less on their own, because their grandfather is in a hospital; then there is Seon-yu, a young woman who is desperate to get out of her poor live and who has quit her factory job to join a pyramid scheme. And then there is this scowling, bratty girl named Myeong Ran, that wants to become a boxer.

As might be expected, while he settles down to stay for a couple of days, the tough gangster gradually falls under the charm of slum live. He bonds with the small pair of siblings (played heartbreakingly real and at the same time cute by two very gifted child actors whose names I couldn't find). And can it take long, before he falls in love with the would-be boxer Myeong Ran?

It can, in fact, because this isn't quite as generic and stereotypically a comedy as you might expect. It isn't a true comedy at all. Director Yoon Je Gyun takes a break from his all out fun filled farces like SEX IS ZERO or MY BOSS, MY HERO and tries his hand with a somewhat deeper movie. Comedy, drama, melodrama, a touch of action and a dash of fairy tale fantasy are mixed quite uniquely to a satisfying and entertaining whole.
Yoon Je Gyun succeeds for the most part to steer clear of romanticising the lives of his poor characters: He makes it clear, that the cute children have to live from things, other people throw away; he shows, that gangsters aren't funny buffoons or Robin Hoods but brutal thugs (well, with exception of Pil Jee obviously); and even his boxing-obsessed heroine isn't a Rocky-like underdog who beats all odds.
The director permanently undercuts and subverts attempts of his movie, to settle into a specific genre, by shifting from comedy to love story to melodrama and back again. My favorite "subversive" scene is, what would be the money shot in a typically sports drama: Myeong Ran's Big Fight. As part of an action movie it isn't shot very convincingly, and actress Ha Ji Won isn't Korea's next action hero (despite the fact that she was quite convincing in DUELIST). But Yoon intercuts it with a brutal attack of thugs on helpless slum inhabitants. This mixing of two different kinds of violence robs the box fight of its "glory" and evokes very mixed feelings in the audience.
Yoon's constant shifting of tone works very well until the climax. There the problem of tying the divers strands together nearly lets the movie falter. And only a miracle saves it from failing...

MIRACLE ON 1ST STREET is a movie, that makes you laugh and cry. It has interesting characters, a clever plot that veers from the well traveled roads of romances. Somewhere in the background, MY SASSY GIRL nods approvingly: The new film isn't as good as the classic movie from 2001, but it shows encouraging signs of freshness and oddness. And there is a decided taste of yupki-ness involved, that please me, obviously, quite a bit.