Overview
Man in Love (Korean: Nam-ja-ga Sarang-hal Ttae) is a 2014 South Korean romantic drama directed by Han Dong-wook. It stars Hwang Jung-min as a small-time loan shark and Han Hye-jin as the indebted bank clerk he comes to care for. The film was distributed by Next Entertainment World and runs 122 minutes Wikipedia.
Synopsis
Han Tae-il (Hwang Jung-min) ekes out a living collecting debts for a local gang in Gunsan, showing little scruple about the harsh terms he enforces. When he confronts Joo Ho-jeong (Han Hye-jin) over her ailing father’s unpaid loans, he coerces her into a draconian contract—even demanding her organs if she defaults. Yet Tae-il’s heart softens, and he offers to forgive part of her debt for each date she agrees to. As awkward courtship blossoms into genuine affection, Tae-il resolves to leave his criminal life behind—but a terminal cancer diagnosis threatens to cut their newfound love short Wikipedia.
Cast & Performances
- Hwang Jung-min delivers a layered turn as Tae-il, imbuing the hardened thug with unexpected warmth once love takes hold.
- Han Hye-jin balances resilience and vulnerability as Ho-jeong, caught between filial duty and burgeoning romance.
- Kwak Do-won and Jung Man-sik provide strong support as Tae-il’s brother and fellow enforcers, respectively.
- A cameo by Park Sung-woong adds a playful nod for fans of Korean cinema Wikipedia.
Direction & Production
Director Han Dong-wook unfolds the story over a crisp two-hour runtime, allowing both the gritty milieu and tender romance to breathe. Yu Eok’s cinematography captures Gunsan’s coastal streets with a muted palette that underscores Tae-il’s lonely existence, while Hwang Sang-jun’s score weaves in melancholy strings as the couple’s bond deepens Wikipedia.
Themes & Reception
Man in Love explores redemption through love, juxtaposing moral ambiguity with heartfelt sincerity. Its premise—a debt-for-dates bargain—has drawn some criticism for raising ethical eyebrows, but the film’s emotional core resonates with many viewers. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 95% audience score despite having no registered critic reviews Rotten Tomatoes. Derek Elley of Film Business Asia praised Hwang Jung-min’s “magnetic performance” but noted that the finale “loses focus in a tearful rush” modernkoreancinema.com.
Conclusion & Rating
While its initial premise may feel problematic, Man in Love ultimately delivers a moving portrayal of unlikely love and personal transformation. Anchored by Hwang Jung-min’s career-best turn and Han Hye-jin’s earnest support, it’s an affecting melodrama that tugs at the heart—even if it stumbles in its closing act.
Rating: ★★★½☆ (3.5 out of 5 stars)
ဟွမ်ဂျွန်မင်းဆိုတာ သူဌေးရဲ့အကြွေးတွေကို လိုက်တောင်းပေးနေတဲ့ လူမိုက်တစ်ယောက်။တစ်နေ့မှာ အကြွေးလိုက်တောင်းရင်း အဖေ့အတွက် အကြွေးဆပ်ဖိုကျန်ရှိနေတဲ့ ဂျိုဟေးဂျောင်ကိုမြင်မြင်ချင်း တဖက်သတ်ချစ်မိသွားခဲ့တယ်။
ဒါကြောင့် ဂျိုဟေးဂျောင်ရဲ့ အကြွေးစာချုပ်ကို သူဌေးဆီကနေ ဘောနပ်အဖြစ်တောင်းပြီး ဂျိုဟေးဂျောင်နဲ့အပေးအယူလုပ်လိုက်ပါတော့တယ်။အဲ့ဒီအပေးအယူကဘာလဲ…လူကြမ်းကြီးနဲ့ မင်းသမီးတိုဇာတ်လမ်းကဘယ်လိုဆက်သွားမယ်ဆိုတာ….ဟာသကားလိုထင်ပြီး ကြည့်လိုက်မိပြီး ငိုမိသွားသူတွေ ဒုနဲ့ဒေးပါပဲ။
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