Mr. Housewife (DVD) (Taiwan Version) DVD Region 3

Cho Jin Man is the titular Mister Housewife. Though well educated he chose to stay home and raise his daughter after quitting his job because of a labor protest. He is supported by his wife, a famous television presenter. He shops, he cooks, he cleans, he helps his mom make kimchi … basically he's one of the girls. And while this causes some tension in the early going - his wife wants him to get a job, his daughter is teased at school - he is happy with his life and things seem to be working well.

But Cho's life is soon disrupted. When a neighbor makes off with a sizable investment he has placed through her, money earmarked for an operation desperately needed for his father-in-law, he dresses as a woman to apply to join a quiz show aimed at housewives. He is quickly outed as a man but the producers - recognizing potential ratings gold - quickly sign him up as their first male contestant and an instant celebrity is born. All the talk shows want a piece of him, a humiliating experience for his wife who has just had her own show cancelled and is being hit on by a sleazy producer who recognizes vulnerable prey.

Light and frothy, Mister Housewife plays the cute card early and often, but is carried by a likeable lead performance. It's quickly obvious that the film is using the game show as a substitute for the typical sports movie structure, a fact that tips the film's hand early and it seldom breaks from the path it has chosen. Though it largely skims across the surface of the gender issues it raises, it is surprisingly willing to address this as a serious issue, abandoning all pretense of comedy once Cho hits the television screen, thereby leaving his marriage teetering on the edge of extinction.

What saves Mister Housewife from veering into over-broad comedy or sappy melodrama is the cast, particularly its lead who anchors things nicely. Cho is simply a man who loves his daughter and loves the opportunity he has to spend time with her. As the film develops, his character begins to be pushed and stretched a little and, while it's certainly not award caliber, he carries himself with a natural grace and charm that simply makes you want to like him. Likewise, his young daughter begins as little more than a two-dimensional sketch but by the end has shown a decent amount of range. If there is a weak note it is the wife, who is well played but comes across to these western eyes as enormously petty and self-centered. Though the film tags on the obligatory happy ending epilogue, there are moments when you really have to wonder what Cho sees in this woman. She goes so far as to use her child as a shield to avoid having to kiss him in public, this immediately following the big, teary, "everybody loves each other again" conclusion to the game show. I would be more than a little curious to hear how she plays to a Korean audience. Would they be more sympathetic than I?

In the final analysis, Mister Housewife is neither exceptional nor horrible, running it right up the middle. It's quirky, populist filmmaking that breaks no new ground, but deserves credit for layering a touch of serious drama and social commentary into it's gimmicky premise.

By Todd Brown - Twitchfilm.net