Project Makeover (VCD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version) VCD

The film opens with Jeong Ju (Ko So Young, recently in Ahn Byeong Ki's APT), a thirty-year-old girl working a dead end job as a fashion assistant whose life is going nowhere, apparently due to the fact that she was betrayed back in high school by her supposed sweetheart Jo Hani, who has since gone on to be a famous singer. Fortunately for her, one day without warning, instead of crashing, Microsoft windows offers her the chance to travel back in time to try and persuade her past self to take a different route. Magically transported back to 1994, she poses as her cousin Alice and quickly insinuates herself into the life of her teen self (played by actress Jo An, also in Holiday), hoping to change the future by persuading her to switch her affections from the vain, floppy-fringed ladies' man Jo (Lee Joong Moon) to a socially inept though kindhearted nerd called Tae Hoon (Yoo Gun) who she now happens to know will grow up to be a multimillionaire.

Operation Makeover is a film whose sugary sweet nature manages to gloss over all of its flaws, from the inherent absurdity and inconsistency of its time travel gambit to the fact that Jeong Ju is not particularly a likeable character, being blatantly obsessive, shallow, manipulative and even suicidal. What the film focuses on is pure wish fulfilment rather than any kind of self improvement or emotional life lessons, and it certainly works well on this level, particularly for its female target audience, offering a dream big sister relationship fantasy that gives the proceedings a fairytale feel. Certainly, there is very little in the way of depth aside from a vague moral lesson on acceptance, though arguably the lack of melodrama or complications only works to the film's advantage, allowing for the fun to play out unhindered by spurious drama or worries of cause and effect. Of course, this only works due to the fact that the cast are a charming enough bunch, with Ko So Young and Jo An being well matched and believable as older and younger versions of the same person, and with Yoo Gun giving an entertainingly inane performance as the comical though suspiciously old looking nerd. Although the plot itself is inherently predictable, the film is likeable enough even to keep more cynical viewers interested, if only to see which of the broad stereotypes the silly girl will end up with.

Surprisingly, director Kim shies away from the kind of face pulling and odd slapstick which tends to characterise Korean comedies, and instead goes for laughs mainly by packing the film with pop culture jokes and references from the early 1990s. Whilst some of these are likely to be lost on non-Korean viewers, there are enough nods to other popular films and universal teenage lifestyles to give anyone a sense of amused nostalgia. Most of the physical humour comes from the male characters, who are a clumsy, bumbling lot, particularly Tae Hoon and his awful attempts at wooing, which almost always seem to end up with him inadvertently grabbing poor Jeong Ju's breasts. The mix of gags works quite well, and the film is consistently funny throughout, if somewhat lacking in the kind of wild wacky abandon which might have been expected.

The film also benefits from some fittingly bright and breezy direction, and Kim throws in plenty of little visual flourishes to give the proceedings a real bubblegum feel. Although the pacing is a little off here and there, especially with some of the plot developments regarding time travel which seem to materialise out of thin air, things move along at a brisk pace, helped along by a bouncy pop soundtrack and the general lack of angst.

It pretty much goes without saying that Operation Makeover is a film aimed predominantly at female viewers, though it should also appeal to anyone looking for a fun-filled childhood flashback. Offering guilt-free laughs and one of the daftest depictions of time travel ever committed to celluloid, it stands as one of the better and least self-conscious romantic comedies from Korea in recent times.

by James Mudge - BeyondHollywood.com