seducing-mr-perfect - Tumblr blog

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

Awww thank you! I was mostly of the opinion that they were trying to draw parallels between Robin and Min-June in the film, mostly because of the way he spoke in the bar scene after her boyfriend breaks up with her. I like this film a lot but I really feel they could have done the last half of the movie much better.

Like A Bullet to the Heart (Robin x Min-June)

Pairing: Robin Heiden x Kim Min June

Movie: Seducing Mr Perfect/Mr Robin Kkosigi

Summary: Somehow, the words that hurt the most almost always make their way back to you. Set after the bar scene and June’s conversation with her father. Features June’s nightmare which involves her three ex-boyfriends.

Note: Since we’re never told what the other two men were called, I took the liberty of naming them myself, as well as Robin’s ex.

–

You bastard.

Surprising how easily the words come to her now, when he’s just a picture trapped in a frame - all smiling and bespectacled and sipping beer from behind her, his eyes only on her, even when they were just posing. It’s always been this way with Ju-hyeoung. She’d have the choicest words to fling his way in the privacy of her bedroom, but in front of the man she was a confused, stuttering mess.

Even today. She should’ve ended it in sass and style, strutting away from him like a queen. She should’ve been the one to end things. Should’ve given him a kick in the shins - or higher. definitely higher - while she was at it. What did she do instead? She begged.

Come home, Ju-yeoung. Please. You can’t leave me like this.

What hadn’t she done right? Hadn’t she said all the right words, done all the right things? Made herself different from every other girl he’d ever known (those greedy, gold-digging bitches, always looking out to suck a man’s paycheck dry, he’d complain), paying her own way, buying her own things? Dressed up the way he wanted her to, had sex the way he wanted her to, worried and loved and cared the way he wanted her to?

She almost wants to pick up that goddamn phone and force him to explain. To hell with “don’t contact me again”.

She’s almost about to do it, when a low, familiar chuckle stops her.

She turns around. Closes her eyes. Opens them, closes them again. Perhaps if she does this often enough the sight before her will seem less real?

Jae-won perched on her bed. Min-ho in his slate-grey suit, standing next to her bedside table (you’d better not topple over my favourite lamp, Min-ho, or I swear to God…). Ju-hyeoung lording it over her treasured armchair, as if he owned the damn thing. All of them staring back at her, amusement and judgement glimmering in equal parts from their eyes.

Jae-won still hasn’t stopped laughing. After all these years he’s still all bravado and bluster and bad-boy leather jackets bought with HER goddamn money. Why did I like you? Because you’re nice. Why did I stop liking you? Because you’re nice. You see, nice people get boring after a while.

Min-ho shuffles his feet uncomfortably from his place at the back of her room, his suit hanging over his frame like an overcoat on top of a mouse. He’d always insisted on wearing it, even if it was three sizes too big for him. When did I ask you for an allowance? (Three months before this conversation) Getting meals from you is embarrassing enough (but that never stopped you from asking, asshole!) Who do you think you are, my mother? (I was perfectly content being your girlfriend. Not my fault you turned into the worst kind of manbaby instead)

Ju-hyeoung’s eyes are black coal, cold and lifeless, but the words he says still sting. She isn’t sure if it’s because of the eerie calm with which he delivers them, or the fact that she’d heard them from him just a few hours ago. Give me some space. You’re the one who made me do this. (Stop asking for space while you’re sitting in my bedroom like you own it then!)

They’re almost three feet away from her but she can almost feel their breath on her neck. Her room is hot, too hot, with too little air and she’s suffocating. Can’t…breathe…need…to…leave…

Her feet are lead but she manages, inch by inch, to move towards the door. And stops.

It’s him.

Keep reading

25 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

@kennaxval Thank you so much! I like that moment too, esp in terms of acting. I've read quite a few reviews that refer to him as wooden, but it's hard for me to believe that when the role itself demands that he act stiff, and the nuances are practically there for everyone to see.

This is a set of very short transition scenes, sandwiched between two huge ones: the botched sogaetting with Jin Guk/bar meetup with Robin situation, and Yoon Mi’s birthday party. The blind date situation is their first major misunderstanding, and it’s aftermath is clearly shown in these scenes. Not a lot seems to be obvious in these sequences, but there is still much beneath the surface here.

Su-yeoung’s persistence

While it was obvious to both Min-June and Su-yeoung that the date with Jin Guk failed, Su-yeoung is clearly invested in pushing this match forward: to the point where she insists Min-June is crazy for nipping this opportunity in the bud, and encourages Jin Guk himself to communicate with her through phone and in person.

Min-June finds herself having to handle two conversations on her way to work: a hugely exhausting one with Su-yeoung convincing her to agree to marry Jin-Guk, and an equally tiring one with an irate Robin who insists on reviewing the Maeda contract before time.

In the first one, her best friend’s refusal to understand that she isn’t interested in Jin Guk whatsoever frustrates her enough to cut their conversation short. In the second, she finds herself at the receiving end of Robin’s frustration, unable to understand why he suddenly seems angry with her for no fault of hers (remember, at this point she doesn’t even know he got the card).

Keep reading

19 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

This is a set of very short transition scenes, sandwiched between two huge ones: the botched sogaetting with Jin Guk/bar meetup with Robin situation, and Yoon Mi's birthday party. The blind date situation is their first major misunderstanding, and it's aftermath is clearly shown in these scenes. Not a lot seems to be obvious in these sequences, but there is still much beneath the surface here.

Su-yeoung's persistence

In the first one, her best friend's refusal to understand that she isn't interested in Jin Guk whatsoever frustrates her enough to cut their conversation short. In the second, she finds herself at the receiving end of Robin's frustration, unable to understand why he suddenly seems angry with her for no fault of hers (remember, at this point she doesn't even know he got the card).

Grandfather's Photograph

At this point professionally, Robin and his company are at their strongest. Mr Mistsiyoshi has caved in to their offer - faster than any of them expected - and Robin feels a sense of personal victory for getting the deal this far. How does he bask in his success? By remembering his grandfather, the man he's doing all of this for.

Remember how I mentioned Robin's obsession with his private space, and how much he dislikes any intrusions on it? This scene is a proof of that. Holding that photograph is Robin's private moment, and he reacts very strongly when Min-June encroaches on that space.

As soon as Robin notices Min-June, he instinctively jerks backwards, and turns his back to her so she won't notice his reaction. The audience gets to see what she doesn't - that he's almost gasping for breath and taking a moment to calm himself. Obviously, having his space invaded that way is a really, really big deal to him, and when it happens without enough time for him to prepare, he gets worked up and can't exactly communicate until he's properly composed himself.

We have plenty of evidence across the movie that establishes how guarded he is, besides this scene. His reaction to having his office cleaned, his anger at the fact that she threw his grandfather's uniform away, the way he grabs his grandfather's photograph from her hands in his hotel room. Taking that into account, it makes his trusting her in the end an even bigger deal.

What June Doesn't Know

Have you noticed that in the entire duration of the film, whatever interactions do take place within the office space tend to happen soon after there has been some misunderstanding of the sort? Let's take a look at the scenes shot in Robin's office:

1. In their first office scene, Min-June discovers Robin is her boss, and Robin subtly calls her out on lying to him and the company (about not knowing English, about her fake appendix operation).

2. Operation Angel, where she cleans his office and unknowingly throws away his grandfather's uniform.

3. This scene, where Robin is frustrated because he thinks she ditched him the previous day, and June has no clue he feels this way.

4. A few scenes later, where she calls her behaviour at Yoon Mi's party a mistake, and Robin misunderstands and thinks she is talking about their kiss.

5. Just before their big meeting with Mr Mitsiyoshi where both of them are aware of how they feel, but don't believe the other person cares for them that much. This is before Jennifer tells Min-June about Robin's past.

6. The final scene, where Robin apologizes to her.

Notice how the only times when misunderstandings are cleared are the first and the last scene in Robin's office? Every other scene that takes place there sees the two fumble around and struggle with their feelings towards each other, not knowing the turmoil the other person is going through.

Unlike the other outdoor locations where the two meet and talk, the office space is closed, formal. They speak freely about her love life at the hotel bar, are open emotionally to each other at the ferry and the bench outside his hotel. But most times, within the office space, any attempt at communication that doesn't involve work tends to leave more room for misunderstanding.

Min-June enters Robin's office believing he never got the note. Robin reacts to her believing she was asking for lessons she didn't seem to need. The tension between them from that botched meeting spills over to their interaction here. Here, Robin loses his temper at Min-June for not knowing about a piece of classified information on Maeda that could give them an edge in their dealings with the company (a company that, in fact, they're pretty close to acquiring, if we go by Robin's conversation with Steven but a few minutes back).

Robin's frustration isn't about her not knowing this piece of classified information. Not at all. She's botched things up before, and he's had no problem giving her opportunities to correct that. He also knows she does her work well, trusts her abilities, and when she doesn't know something he doesn't mind filling her in and keeping her in the loop. It's obvious, both by Min-June's reaction to his outburst, and the way he lowers his voice immediately after, that this is something he doesn't do, and this sort of reaction from him is unexpected.

As I have mentioned in the previous scene, Robin's irritation seems to lie more in his reaction towards her. He doesn't expect to feel the way he does, doesn't expect to be so affected by her actions...but the truth is that he is and there isn't much he can do about it.

It's possible that Robin started out believing that his attraction towards Min-June didn't run too deep, and that she could not affect him beyond that (as proved by the challenge to make him beg, and his reaction to her subsequent attempts to change his mind). I feel like this mindset has begun to change post Min-June's sogaetting.

By this point, he's beginning to feel he's more invested than he likes to admit, and this clearly frustrates him. It doesn't justify Robin's irrational actions towards her in this scene, but it helps us understand why.

"Hi, Jennifer!"

This sequence of scenes is perhaps the first time Jennifer's name is taken up in the movie, almost an hour after her appearance in the very first scene. Nonetheless, it's a tiny nod to what her eventual role in this film will be. The woman who seems to be a rival against Min-June for Robin's affections, but ultimately someone who values her friendship, and her friend's well-being over any feelings she may have.

"Hi, Jennifer" is something Robin says while Min-June is on her way out, humiliated and livid. Since his outburst was about her work, you'd expect her to probably imitate him on that, but no: it's the last thing he says - to another woman - that she focuses on instead.

Shortly after this, her younger colleague Yoon Mi (she calls Min-June by the honorific unnie*, which establishes her as the senior in their working relationship) comes out, dressed up to the nines for her birthday, obviously in a style Min-June hasn't seen her in before. When the latter comments that Yoon Mi's clothes might be too revealing for their fellow colleagues, the younger woman reveals to her that she's playing up to Robin's tastes ("sexy, big-breasted women") a statement that Min-June pays very close attention to.

The bathroom scene makes it clear - once again - how singular her focus towards Robin is. Since he's tossed that challenge her way, Min-June hasn't been able to think of anything else besides proving him wrong, and she invests real time, money and energy into making it happen. She's more invested in making this almost-stranger change his mind than she would like to admit. From this point on, she goes all-out: clothes she rarely wears and doesn't seem exactly comfortable in, mingling at the party and ensuring she continuously catches Robin's attention. Truth be told...she is as invested in what Robin thinks, as Robin is in her.

This set of sequences acts as a good bridge between two sequences, rich with tension and intent on showing us how little these two characters know about each other, and their own feelings.

* unnie: the honorific term used by younger women to address older ones. Younger men, on the other hand, use noona to address older women (something Min-June's boyfriend Ju-hyeoung should be calling her - being younger to her in age - but she allows him not to).

#seducing mr perfect #daniel henney #uhm jung hwa #robin heiden #robin x june #kim min june #robin x min june #robin x minjune #smp scene analyses #mr robin kkosigi #long post #then what were you doing all week?

19 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Note

Otp asks 7, 10, 11, 14, 15,

7. Do you like to talk about your OTP to others?

OMG yes. It takes me *ages* to stop once I start lol. A few of my pals on tumblr who have seen the movie often have to end up listening to this theory, that headcanon and the other fic idea. Quite a few of them actually help me solidify those ideas, so often it’s a good thing xD

10. Headcanons

I have waaaaay too many headcanons about these two.

A. Drunk June is frisky June. She loves touching Robin to begin with, and when she’s sloshed and loses those inhibitions she becomes way way bolder about showing him how she feels. Little touches here and there that drive him crazy. Robin is the type that can down an amazingly high amount of soju and still feel sober (THIS is what his Korean employees admire him most for), so he feels responsible for the both of them and often is the one preparing a hangover remedy for the next morning.

B. Robin can read Hangul script, but very slowly and he often stumbles over his words when he reads. He can manage speaking but doesn’t speak it on a regular basis because he lacks confidence in speaking it - even though he understands the language perfectly well and can do a decent job of translating - and doesn’t like to let that lack of confidence show. Same with reading. When he goes back to the States after the Maeda deal is closed and after he begins dating June, he spends at least an hour or two of his day attempting to brush up his Korean - which is a challenge because he doesn’t have anyone to talk to who will understand what he’s saying. His logic is that if they’re going to have any sort of future together, he will need to be able to communicate with her family without the constant need for a translator.

11. If they went to high school, what trope would they be?

I don’t know! Robin would probably be one of those extremely popular guys and Min-June would be the girl who kept having problems in her relationships and they’d fight like two rampaging bulls at least in the beginning.

14. Things they would like to do together.

Robin and Min-June would love adventure and exploring places. So nature spots, exhibitions, sightseeing, hiking - I think they’re the kind of couple that would love to try out a little bit of everything just once. In my headcanon, after the last scene in the film (the kiss in the office) and before Robin finally leaves for the States, he plans to take her out somewhere scenic and special everyday, and finds out from her which places she has already seen so it will be a new experience for both of them.

15. What makes you think they are perfect for each other?

A lot of things. On the outset they look like they’d be a disaster together - jaded asshole boss and chipper assistant - but from what I’ve seen of them they’re really good at balancing each other out. There’s plenty both of them have to learn from each other: Robin needs to regain his ability to trust people, and Min-June needs to learn to place herself first. They’re not perfect people by any means - neither of their methods of dealing with relationships thus far have been entirely healthy - but they have the potential to learn and grow together and I feel that’s important in a couple.

7 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

Otp Ask Meme

Who was your first ever otp?

What are your top 3 otps right now?

What is something you look for in an otp?

What otp trope do you like the most and why?

Why do you ship the otps that you do?

Have you ever done any fanart, fan ficition or anything else for your otp?

Do you like to talk about your otp to others?

Do you have any ot3’s? If so, who are they?

Did you ship any part with your otp with others too?

What is a headcanon you have of them?

If they went to high school, what trope would they be?

Is your otp canon?

Where do you think, if it wasn’t shown in canon, there first date would have been?

What do you think their favourite things are to do together? Ex - watch movies, shopping, ect

What do you think makes them perfect for one another?

600 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

Song Analysis: Tangdanghan Kunyoga Arumdada

(You can check out the lyrics and the song here)

This peppy jazz number features twice in the film - once when June plans and executes her first two “operations”, and second, in a montage that shows us how Robin and June bag the Brighton deal. The title roughly translates to “she is confident and beautiful”, is sung by a popular Korean jazz group called Sweet Sorrrow, and the subject of the song is a beautiful, confident woman that the male speaker is beginning to fall in love with.

The first part of the song is addressed to the woman, inviting her to entice the male speaker, to flirt with him and show him she is interested. The voice seems to indicate that he has already begun to fall for her, and that anything she does will just make him that much more attracted to her. It begins with an encouragement (also echoed in the second stanza) to “turn around, stop and smile”, before he explains the effect she has on him:

I have become a hesitant fool

unable to smile or laugh

The image of your smile

makes me melt

The second stanza goes slightly deeper, acknowledging the woman’s struggles and letting her know he cares:

The pain buried in your eyes

makes me worry

I see the sorrow in your survival

My love is set ablaze.

While the first stanza takes about her confidence and beauty and how they make him crazy about her, the second focuses on what she doesn’t always allow people to see, focuses on parts of her that the male speaker wants to uncover and help heal.

Given how vastly different in tone both stanzas are, it makes sense for the chorus to change in both as well. The first chorus invites the woman to talk/wink at/kiss him, promising her that he’ll “follow [her] to the end”. The second one involves what he will do for her to help alleviate her pain:

With renewed confidence, we begin

From now, give your all to me

With renewed confidence, wipe your tears

I will make you laugh

With renewed confidence, open your heart

From now, give your all to me

Both choruses however, have a hook in common - one that seems to be the overriding theme of this song:

She is confident and cool

I’ve fallen in love

I’ve begun to love.

The middle eight - the section sung before the sax solo, acknowledges that the man isn't perfect, but that he is willing to give whatever he has with her a chance:

I don't have courage

Nor am I tough

This is a confession

Lead me.

The tone and style of this song itself is fun and vibrant, with a quick tempo on the piano and a rollicking saxophone solo three minutes into the song. It’s quite fitting that this is the theme tune that plays whenever Min-June sets out to prove Robin wrong, because it does highlight her belief that she can catch his eye if she sets her mind to it. She may not always appear successful in doing so, but she does whatever she does with a healthy dose of confidence and bravado. On your first watch it isn’t entirely impossible to associate this song with what June wants to do, given that Robin doesn’t really seem all that interested in her antics.

The song takes on a different meaning on subsequent watches. By our second watch we already know that Robin already has feelings for her. We know that his nonchalance is a cover, that what she does and the things she says actually matter to him. We know that even though June’s antics don’t exactly work, she still manages to worm her way into his thoughts and his heart. We already know what she doesn’t: that he has been consumed by thoughts of her since the day they first met.

Two stanzas of the song play during the “operations” sequences: the second stanza makes an appearance in “Operation Angel”, where she clears up his office and subsequently finds the uniform belonging to Robin’s grandfather. This is fitting, because if anything can help Robin relate to Min-June’s plight as a woman hurt in love, it’s his past.

Given that context, this song fits perfectly. For all her bluster and awkwardness, Min-June does exude confidence in what she does, and never gives up on her goal as long as it is something she wants to do. For all his nonchalance, Robin clearly cares about her.

It’s also interesting to note that the two times the song plays, shows Min-June within the confines of her workplace - especially in the Brighton deal montage. Like the woman in the song, she shows an air of confidence, a belief in her abilities, and an ability to keep her cool in her job. These are what endear Robin to her, even before her giving nature and honesty finally do. These are qualities that he relates to, that he finds useful, that will impress him. Min-June would have probably never been able to reach out to him as successfully if she didn’t prove herself this well at work. So it is safe to say that this song possibly also highlights a subtle shift in Robin’s thoughts about her, and helps us understand why he is as smitten by her as he finally appears at the bar/blind date scene.

(Note 1: Occasionally, I will be posting both songs and song analyses for the movie, as I feel the music is just as important. I don’t have a lot of knowledge regarding music so most of my analyses will focus on the lyrics.

Note 2: I translated all the songs on my own - except "Kissing Me" - and without sufficient knowledge of Korean [with some help from Google] so I can’t completely vouch for how accurate my translation is. If I have made any mistakes, please do inform me and I will make the required changes)

#seducing mr perfect #tangdanghan kunyoga arumdada #daniel henney #uhm jung hwa #song analyses #seducing mr perfect ost #robin heiden #kim min june #robin x june #robin x min june

7 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

*raises hand* That makes three of us 😂

Honest Title Time!

International, Eyeball-Grabbing Title: Seducing Mr Perfect

Real, Still-Grabbing-Eyeballs Title: Misuteo Robin Kkosigi

Honest, Unironical Title: Not Knowing Where I Stand until the End of the Movie with Mr. Fucking Emotional Mess.

…this is why no one asks me to title things 😂

30 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

@callmetippytumbles June's story is like this twisted elaboration of "lost the battle, won the war" 😂 Like she fails so badly that she actually makes this dude fall even harder for her.

...Dick Heist it is 😂

So I passed the test, right? Let’s meet up at the hotel bar at 7 for the real lesson. Oh! Enjoy the lunch box - June.

The note. The thing that starts it all. The thing that starts out at as one of June’s heavy botched operations - only that it hasn’t failed the way she thinks it has. The thing that shows us for certain that, despite everything, Robin isn’t completely immune to June’s charms.

It is clear that while June may not particularly admit to liking Robin, things have changed between them after the Brighton deal. Which is why in the scene where she prepares the lunch box, in the dead of night, she seems to shake herself and say The operations must go on. No matter what. Almost as if her new dynamic with Robin is distracting her from her goal.

June seems to slightly miss the mark here too. As with Operation Angel, preparing a special lunchbox personally for him calls for a certain amount of intimacy that they haven’t reached yet. The movie has given us enough indications of how he feels about having his space invaded, for him to comfortably take what June is giving him. Preparing lunch for someone at work is a very intimate, taking-care-of-a-loved-one thing to do, and for a hoarder who doesn’t like to even have his office touched, partaking of that lunch (especially if he nursed secret feelings for the person who made it) would definitely feel like too much too soon. It’s no wonder then that he takes the note, and passes the box to Yoon Mi.

June sees this differently. She sees it as yet another rejection of her efforts, yet another reason to believe he wants to have nothing to do with her. She assumes that since he’s not even opened the box, he wouldn’t have noticed the note either.

Keep reading

24 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

WATCH IT SOME MORE. I WILL JOIN YOU. I CAN ALSO GIVE YOU BOTCHED LYRIC TRANSLATIONS. 😂

Honest Title Time!

International, Eyeball-Grabbing Title: Seducing Mr Perfect

Real, Still-Grabbing-Eyeballs Title: Misuteo Robin Kkosigi

Honest, Unironical Title: Not Knowing Where I Stand until the End of the Movie with Mr. Fucking Emotional Mess.

…this is why no one asks me to title things 😂

30 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

OMG on a parallel note the OST of this film 99.9999% jazz. With a little bit of swing and blues mixed in.

Honest Title Time!

International, Eyeball-Grabbing Title: Seducing Mr Perfect

Real, Still-Grabbing-Eyeballs Title: Misuteo Robin Kkosigi

Honest, Unironical Title: Not Knowing Where I Stand until the End of the Movie with Mr. Fucking Emotional Mess.

…this is why no one asks me to title things 😂

30 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

@kennaxval Thank you so much for reading and sharing these. I really do think there's more to this movie than what we see on first watch so I thought I'd share my thoughts with people who also liked the movie. This ranks as one of my favourite scenes too!

So I passed the test, right? Let’s meet up at the hotel bar at 7 for the real lesson. Oh! Enjoy the lunch box - June.

Keep reading

24 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

My alternative was far less poetic than yours 😂 It was Here's Where We Finally Get to Have Sex Yay.

Honest Title Time!

International, Eyeball-Grabbing Title: Seducing Mr Perfect

Real, Still-Grabbing-Eyeballs Title: Misuteo Robin Kkosigi

Honest, Unironical Title: Not Knowing Where I Stand until the End of the Movie with Mr. Fucking Emotional Mess.

…this is why no one asks me to title things 😂

#robin and june getting it on is a thing i need #i clearly have problems when it comes to priorities 😂#yeah keeping daniel henney is like giving his dog mango a raincoat during the ice bucket challenge so she will stay put #and expecting her to stay put while you pour water over yourself #btw you should totes watch daniel henney's ice bucket challenge video #mango is definitely the star 😍

30 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

@callmetippytumbles Dick Heist would totes be the sequel 😂😂

Honest Title Time!

International, Eyeball-Grabbing Title: Seducing Mr Perfect

Real, Still-Grabbing-Eyeballs Title: Misuteo Robin Kkosigi

Honest, Unironical Title: Not Knowing Where I Stand until the End of the Movie with Mr. Fucking Emotional Mess.

…this is why no one asks me to title things 😂

30 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

Honest Title Time!

International, Eyeball-Grabbing Title: Seducing Mr Perfect

Real, Still-Grabbing-Eyeballs Title: Misuteo Robin Kkosigi

Honest, Unironical Title: Not Knowing Where I Stand until the End of the Movie with Mr. Fucking Emotional Mess.

...this is why no one asks me to title things 😂

#seducing mr perfect #mr robin kkosigi #robin heiden #kim min june #daniel henney #uhm jung hwa

30 notes · View notes

seducing-mr-perfect · 6 years

Text

So I passed the test, right? Let’s meet up at the hotel bar at 7 for the real lesson. Oh! Enjoy the lunch box - June.

Su-yeoung Tries To Help

We don't see Su-yeoung much in the film, even though she is June's best friend. A phone call in the beginning of the film, and two scenes where she is seen aggressively pushing to get June back into the dating scene.

What we do know is that Su-yeoung has had her fair share of disappointment in her own relationships. She has been married once and by the way she speaks of love in this scene, she seems to have changed to a more 'practical' mindset in contrast to June's, which is clearly more emotional and romantic.

However, having being brought up in a culture that does value both love and marriage as an eventual goal (for instance, one does not bring one's significant other to meet the parents unless they're certain of getting married soon), Su-yeoung controls the situation the way any Korean friend would - by arranging a sogeatting.

A sogaetting (소개팅) is a kind of introductory meeting that's often set up between strangers through a mutual friend. Approaching someone you do not know is not very common in South Korea, so it usually falls on a third person to introduce the couple and to stick around in case the meeting isn't going as well as planned. If the two hit it off, the mutual friend leaves them to decide how to take things forward.

Su-yeoung's motives are very straightforward: get June to move on from Ju-yeoung, with someone. Anyone.

Ju-hyeoung may have receeded far, far behind in June's mind, but there is a part of her that clearly isn't completely over him yet. June isn't the kind of let go of her relationships that easily - she tends to not give up on a person unless there is no way even she can ignore the red flags. That's just the way she is. So when her best friend insults Ju-hyeoung, she is immediately defensive.

This is an important distinction to make, because it gives us a better idea of why June would agree so easily to getting back with him later on, just as she has begun to realise her feelings for Robin.

The Note

The scene splits into two halves: one that shows us June's disastrous date with Jin-guk, and another that shows us Robin waiting for June for an entire hour. We don't get a lot of opportunities to see Robin's point of view on certain things, but the film teases us with enough to recognize that what he feels towards June and what he shows are two different things. It's in this scene that we learn that Robin didn't completely ignore the lunchbox, that he kept her note with him...and most importantly, that he's very, very happy to see her that evening.

We also don't get many scenes of Robin shedding his impenetrable sheild and being vulnerable. The times that we do are mostly associated with his past - his grandfather's belongings and occasionally his bullet wound. Robin is depicted as a hoarder; someone who holds on to his memories and keeps them to remind himself of how far he has come, and why his present is what it is.

This is the only time perhaps we see Robin actually show some attachment to something he has received in the present, that he keeps to himself, that he allows himself a private moment of joy (for instance, he tilts his head slightly while reading it, an action we see him do only with his grandfather's photograph). He first looks around to see if no one is looking, and only then gives himself the luxury of letting his guard down. And this is especially surprising given that he always chooses enclosed settings where he is completely alone - like his room or the office - to reflect on these things.

I think it's a mark of how deeply June has affected him that this intensely private man can't help but fondly re-read a casual, friendly note she has sent him, in a setting as public as a hotel bar.

Sogaetting

By sogaetting standards, the meeting between Jin-guk and Min-june is an unmitigated disaster. Su-yeoung only knows him as a friend of a friend, and June herself has her doubts even before the date has begun.

Marriage in Korea is usually a topic reserved either for when a couple have become really serious, or when it is a matsun (맞선) which involves matchmakers/relatives and where the entire aim of the meeting is marriage itself. While there are people who do date with marriage in mind, a sogaetting is hardly the appropriate place to jump into discussions about weddings, especially with almost no input from the potential "bride".

But Jin-guk? Goes straight for the jugular. Starts talking about wedding preparations: how their families will travel to the venue, the perfect place for venue and stay, consulting a family Taoist. He goes as far as to speak of the money the bride should be spending on their travel, reminding her of her potential place in his life and what he thinks her duties are. He presumes this is what she wants, presumes he is a good enough catch that it doesn't even occur to him that she may not want this, and in fact doesn't even care. June barely gets to even speak in this "conversation". She is so uncomfortable, in fact, that she has to hide in a restroom to escape him.

To make things worse, Su-yeoung enables his behaviour, fawning over him and agreeing to everything he says ("oh, a hotel? That's just fabulous!" "I love having my fortune told!"), eventually encouraging the match and calling June crazy when the latter states that she isn't interested. It's clear that by this point June has found herself in a tight spot.

Blind Date

There are two reasons the blind date/bar scene is so important:

1. It is the first of many misunderstandings in their romance. It works to keep the couple apart, keep them from even guessing that the other person might love them: so that when Robin tells June how he feels in the end, the revelation is that much more emotional.

2. More importantly, it highlights a pretty huge cultural gap between Robin and June.

For the most part Robin has fit in rather well to his new environment, despite his struggle with the language. He is respected by his peers and subordinates in the office, is able to navigate his work space without too many hiccups, seems at home with the way his juniors address him. He seems so at home, in fact, that it would easy to assume that he would know a great deal about Korean culture outside the office as well.

However, the film gives us enough hints of his struggle to understand certain aspects of Korean culture. One is the usage of certain slang words, such as piksari and tungchigi, which June has to explain to him. Another is his lack of knowledge about how marriage and meeting the girl's family works, leaving him to commit a huge faux pas in front of her father.

Robin has no idea what a sogaetting is. When June translates the same into a word that seems more accessible to him ("blind date"), she unknowingly leaves out the cultural context of how a sogaetting works and who facilitates it. "Blind date", for Robin and June, mean very different things. For June it is an arranged meeting that mostly just allows for further casual interactions to test the waters. To Robin, it could range from being merely introduced by a common friend (who won't be as involved as someone facilitating a sokaetting would, possibly?) to an actual date, which involves flirting and possibly sex if both parties are interested. This is possibly also why he assumes straightaway that she spent the night with her date as well.

This is where Robin gets not only angry, but also confused. This is someone who has gone to great lengths to get him to wait at that bar, including cooking for him and slipping in a note that specifically mentioned a time and a place. This is also someone who, he assumes, ditched her plans with him to date someone else, and didn't so much as give him a head's up about doing so (part of this is also his fault: he never lets June know that he received the note, even though he was aware that she found out Yoon Mi had the box). When the truth, really, is that she agonized over having her meticulously prepared lunch rejected, worried about losing the note, was tricked into spending an evening with an overenthusiastic friend and a man who bored her to tears, and spent the night wrestling with her brother over the takeout bill.

A lot of what Robin does here is pretty alien to the character we know thus far. He gets starry-eyed over a note, waits an entire hour for the woman who wrote it, calls her twice to find out why she didn't make it, and is tense and angry enough to warrant letting off some steam on the treadmill. None of this works, so he calls her again, unable to just let the matter go.

Let's remember that so far, Robin has been all about control. He exercises control over his relationships and over his feelings, because he knows the consequences of letting someone else have power over him. He views relationships as a game - which means he would prefer to detach himself emotionally from the other person involved, and not be affected by their actions. So when June "ditches" him, he's immediately riled up, instantly jealous, and just as instantly frustrated that he's giving her this much power over him. Part of his anger lies in the fact that she's affecting him in a way that's making him break half his rules.

He is also angry because, for the first time in possibly a long while, he was genuinely happy about something, genuinely looking forward to meeting up with someone, and her (supposed) lack of concern has ruined that moment for him. He is still thinking on the lines of what he thinks a date would look like, and assumes June's actions by those parameters. Owing to the issues he carries from his past relationship, Robin definitely seems like a man doesn't like feeling like he doesn't matter, and that's how he feels around June right now.

June never gets the opportunity (until just before their cruise trip) to clear this up with him, owing to multiple assumptions: that he never got the note, that he was calling her from some random place just to ask the time, that he thinks she is pathetic. First because she thinks the note has gotten lost somewhere, then because her cell battery died out on her. So she is left thinking he doesn't particularly care, and Robin is left thinking that he means nothing to her besides a man who can teach her the rules of the game. It's an impression of himself that makes him even more reluctant to admit how he feels about her - both to himself and to her. It's an impression of himself that he carries to the rest of the film.

*A lot of what I said about sogaetting I picked up from whatever I had read and watched. Korean readers, if I've gotten any of this wrong, I'm really sorry. Please do not hesitate to point it out so I can make corrections.

#seducing mr perfect #daniel henney #uhm jung hwa #robin heiden #kin min june #robin x min june #robin x minjune #robin x june #mr robin kkosigi #sogaetting #blind date #note #hotel bar #do i look like a man who has time to spare?#smp scene analyses

24 notes · View notes