Opening Day: 3 November 2008

Synopsis:

Drop dead gorgeous Shin juggles relatioship with 4 men and adapts different persona for each. Her life spells trouble when the men show their true colours after realizing that they've been manipulated.

Movie Review:

As the title implies, "Miss Gold Digger" is about the exploits of Shin (Han Ye-seul), a sexy beautiful ad executive who dreams of getting hitch to the right guy preferable one who is rich, smart and suave.

Well as the story goes, Shin did happen to cross paths with guys with all the above requisites. Not one guy but three and later four. The first guy is rich but in Shin’s eyes, he is ugly-looking. The second guy who is still trying to pass the bar to be a DA is lacking in the dressing department and the third, a Rain look-alike is a talented rap singer and dancer. It’s not that complicated but I shall delve on the last guy in the later paragraphs.

In today cosmopolitan’s society with increasing living expenses, demands for luxury goods and heavy influences by shows such as "Sex and the City", the character of Shin is no longer an exaggerated caricature. I’m not trying to create any feminist uproar here but it’s a true fact that our female counterparts have evolved greatly over the years and it’s a sad fact that we men who have been evolving at half the pace resorted to marrying foreign partners than spending time going after girls liked Shin.

Back to our "Miss Gold Digger", for the whole, it strives to be a romance comedy but unlike Jeong Ryeo-won (2 faces of my girlfriend) and Kim A-Joong (200 Pounds Beauty), our leading lady here although carries the looks sadly lacks a certain comic vibe compared to the prior two. There are scenes which can be potentially funny that falls flat at the end so it’s either due to the fact that the comic-timing is off or the dialogues aren’t witty enough to engage the funny bones in you.

The filmmakers apparently tried to squeeze too many elements into one story. There’s the main plot of our female protagonist’s conquest of course, the three 'stooges' and a cliché-filled subplot of Shin’s arch enemy being romantically entangle with her. This 'arch-enemy' role makes up the fourth guy (as mentioned earlier) which unfortunately leads to an unsatisfying conclusion.

We jump hastily from one scene to another without getting an in-depth look at the various characters except for the disturbing fact that the rich guy has a fetish for hands. There is also some dream-like sequences litter throughout the movie which revolves around Shin, other than cute and fluffy, I couldn’t find anything else to describe them.

It’s very clear to us as to what the script is trying to convey, it’s just that when everything comes together, "Miss Gold Digger" didn’t really trigger a bigger impact than it should be. A pity considers that all the elements to make it a success were there.

Movie Rating:

(A little of everything from social satire to rom-com but ultimately comes together as weak)

Review by Linus Tee