In 3 days, I watched 3 different *hanguk yonghwa* of varied themes. One was a romcom, another was a period movie and the third was an action-comedy. But all of them had Ahn Sung Ki, the "thousand-year-old-man-with-a-dayum-hot-body" (according to some soompi poster). I did not intend on an ASK marathon; it just happened. *lol*

"The Romantic President" (starring Ahn Sung Ki, Choi Ji Woo, Im Soo Jung) was the first of the 3 ASK flicks I watched, and one with an already finished review, so I'm posting it here. The others are still unfinished, stored in my hard drive (and in my head).

Agaphei lent me her copy of TRP. She and Russel raised my expectations of the movie; Phoebe doused them. So when I saw the movie, I initially found it cute and funny, and thought "Hey, it isn't so bad as Phoebe said it was". Or perhaps because she has lowered my standards for it.

It *was* funny, when ASK was hanging out with the vagrants, much to the dismay and then later embarrassment of a self-righteous security guard, and when Ji Woo called up Im Soo Jung's dad to report his daughter's misbehavior, and found herself calling up the President's Office. And it *was* cute, when ASK was telling the truth about his "homework being blown by the wind", and when ASK and Ji Woo were arguing over some line of "The Oriole Song".

But these were all lumped at the beginning, and pretty soon, the movie ran dry of these cute and funny moments. I guess it started to go downhill with ASK's poor rendition of a Michael Jackson. And then he started conducting himself in a manner unbecoming of a President, not just any president, not even a chaebol president, but a country president! It's ok to let one's hair down once in a while, but that "escape" from his bodyguards was pretty draggy. The bodygaurds supposed to be the best ones, protecting the most powerful man in the country, yet 2 lovestruck people were able to slip away from their scrutiny.

The love story between ASK and Ji Woo was poorly developed, as well as the relationship betwen Ji Woo and ISJ (in contrast to sisterly the sisterly love that blossomed between Minjee and Yongsoo in "Beautiful Days" ). There were also a couple of subplots--one with ISJ's guy friend (was that you, Lee Beum Soo?!?! Internet resources say that you were also part of this movie's cast, but I don't recognize you as the policeman/investigator in "Making It Big". )  ; the other with Ji Woo's transvestite roommate--that tie up loosely with the main story, taking away precious airtime for the development of the main characters' love story, and being poorly developed subplots themselves.

It's refreshing to see Ji Woo in a cheerful role. And Im So Jung's cute! The first couple of times I've seen her (in "A Tale of Two Sisters" and "...Ing"  )  , she had short hair, so I didn't recognize her right away. I thought "Hey! She looks like Im Soo Jung, only she has long hair." It was only when Phoebe texted that I got confirmation: She looks like Im Soo Jung, because she *is* Im Soo Jung!

As for Ahn Sung Ki, I can see what "soompi poster" meant by her remark (though there were no bod exposures, and NOT to my disappointment). And to borrow Phoebe's words: "Not the best bod, not KSW-level, but for someone in his 50s? 60s? not bad indeed. Heh. =)" He had some funny moments during the movie, but more corny ones; the latter through no fault of his (except for the Michael Jackson bit, but I don't know, should I be expecting someone in his 50s? 60s? to do the moonwalk?).

"The Romantic President" even failed to meet my already low expectations. It tried to cram in too much stuff. There were too many things going on, too trying to be funny... that it fell flat. Rating: 2 out of 5 stars