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Creative Korean writer-director Kim Ki-Duck, who dazzled with the delicate “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring” and the sensual, offbeat “3-Iron,” here attempts to explore the relationships of looks and psychological well-being, and the effect that the passage of time has on appearance, self-esteem and relationships. The subject makes the film interesting, but the story seems to go on endlessly. The title “Time” might also apply to how long one feels one is watching.
The film is best at the outset, when we find lovers Seong Hyeon-ah as See-hee, and Ha Jung-woo as Ji Woo having problems. She is insanely jealous if he so much as ogles another woman, and she feels a change of her looks would be refreshing to him and help their relationship. Her behavior is such that one roots for him to dump her for good and consider himself a lucky guy.
See-he decides to get a facial makeover from a plastic surgeon. She disappears, and when she is healed, she shows up again as Seh-hee, played by Park Ji-yun, makes a play for Ji Woo and finds that he still hopes to find his old love again but also falls for the woman he thinks is new in his life. You can speculate on possible variations of the screenplay from there.
With complications mounting concerning the identity of See-hee and Seh-hee much becomes ho-hum. But the film does have its points. Someone who is borderline nuts will be just as crazy after a facial makeover, which tells us that problems lie in the mind, not in the eyes, nose, chin, lips and whatever else the experts than revise. The director can be counted on to make a good-looking movie, this one steeped in the contemporary scene with all its artifacts. But if not in need of a plastic surgeon, the director could have used a good script surgeon. A LifeSize Entertainment release.
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