Miracle on 1st Street - Review

“Miracle on 1st Street” sees the return of director Yoon Je Gyun, previously responsible for the two Korean comedy blockbusters “Sex is Zero” and “My Boss, My Hero”. Sticking to what he knows best, he delivers another slice of wackiness, putting a farcical spin on the ever-topical subject of forced land reclamation. Returning to help him are Lim Chang Jung and Ha Ji Won, both of whom worked with him on “Sex is Zero” during the early years of their careers, and who have since gone on to become two of the most popular Korean performers.

The film begins with useless lowlife gangster Pil Je (Lim Chang Jung, recently in “My Lovely Week) being sent to the titular slum neighbourhood to clear out the remaining residents and make way for a modern apartment complex. He sets about his task by trying to intimidate people and force them to sign their houses away, but soon finds himself becoming involved with them, and in a supremely ironic, though not exactly unforeseen twist even starts helping to improve their lives. Of course, it helps that he catches the eye of troubled young female boxer Myeong Ran (Ha Ji Won, also in “Duelist”), and the two gradually form a relationship of sorts.

Basic premise aside, “Miracle on 1st Street” is pretty much plotless, with Pil Je’s land grabbing mission going out of the window after about ten minutes and being all but forgotten until the final act when other gangsters turn up, understandably annoyed at his complete lack of effort. As such, most of the proceedings are given over to his wholly predictable conversion from incompetent thug to unlikely saviour, and the film is probably best thought of as a piece of whimsical fantasy, painting the lives of the wacky but happy slum dwellers with a series of broad strokes. There is a definite air of familiarity throughout, with director Yoon cheerfully pilfering scenes from other films, in particular the boxing subplot, which appears to have been culled from the likes of “Crying Fist” and “Champion”.

Where the film does work is in the details, mainly thanks to the fact that its characters are an interesting and likeable bunch, each with a clearly defined dream to chase and their own set of entertaining eccentricities. Although they are not particularly realistic (a case in point being Ha Ji Won’s boxer, who never seems to suffer any facial injuries despite the poundings she takes in the ring, and who somehow manages to win herself a title fight despite being an amateur with no wins under her belt), their relationships with each other, and more importantly with Pil Je do develop in a believable and strangely affecting manner, and the viewer gradually gets drawn into their odd stories and romances. This helps to distract from the lack of an overall driving narrative, and keeps the film moving along and at an engagingly bouncy pace.

It certainly helps that the film is consistently colourful and funny, with plenty of slapstick (i.e. people being smacked in the face and/or crotch) and mild, inoffensive toilet humour. Many of the gags are at Pil Je’s expense, though thanks to a game performance from Lim Chang Jung, he makes for an amusingly idiotic protagonist who it is all too easy to laugh at. Unsurprisingly, the jokes later give way to shameless cheap sentiment and melodrama, though given the time invested in the characters, this development does not feel too forced, and even packs a certain emotional punch. What might not be expected is that the film also contains a number of genuinely harsh and depressing scenes, with a couple of poor children being mercilessly bullied, and with the sudden shift back into the real world at the end bringing a handful of brutally bloody beatings.

This gives “Miracle on 1st Street” a slight, though important edge which helps to somewhat dilute its otherwise sugar sweet centre and to make it far more palatable than it might otherwise have been. Largely sailing by on the charm of its characters and wacky sense of humour, it delivers the good for fans of the form, and may even bring a smile to the face of more cynical viewers, or at least to those willing to suspend disbelief for a couple of hours.