Marrying the Mafia 2
Director: Jeong Yong-ki
Year: 2005
Rating: 5.5
Country: Korea
This isn't so much a sequel as a very distant cousin to the first Marrying
the Mafia, but like that one it was an enormous hit. Not so much with me
as it has a very funny first half but then bogs down when it attempts to
get serious. Koreans, as I guess do every nationality, enjoy poking fun at
their organized crime from time to time - something you would never do in
real life. As in the first one, it revolves around an unmarried member of
the Mafia trying to get married - this time at the behest of the mother -
who runs the gang. This film actually spawned two more sequels about the
same crime family.
Mrs. Hong (Kim Soo-mi is a tough battle-axe who runs a large crime family
and who wants to see her eldest son In-Jae (Shin Hyun-Joon) hooked up in
marriage and producing lots of little brawlers to carry on the family name.
In the opening scene she calls her three sons on the phone that she is being
held hostage and they have to save her. In-Jae shows up first and fights
his way through a pack of ruffians only to have his mother tell him it took
him too long - this was just a test. His two brothers are helping in the
search generally giving him bad advice about women and breasts. He is set
up with one girl after another who are thrilled at being matched up with
a mobster - but they all bore him. Until he sees Jin-Kyung (Kim Won-Hee)
walk by on the way to a meeting. He is immediately smitten - and not long
afterwards he gets to save her life in the parking garage when she assaulted
by a group of men.
He is gobsmacked with love but embarrassed to tell her what he does for a
living - you know beat up people, punish people, steal - that sort of thing
- and she thinks he is in the business of charity. And he doesn't know that
she is a Prosecutor who specializes bringing gangsters to heel. Obviously
in movies a perfect combination! You can sort of take it from there. Everyone
overdoes their parts a bit - a lot of stupid is in there but it is generally
a sweet film with a few action scenes and some good laughs upfront. Shin
Hyun-Joon is excellent as the hang dog gangster who is sort of tired of the
gangster life and Kim Won-Hee is excellent as the prosecutor with a hard
side and a soft side - at one point quite amusingly using a confiscated cream
to enhance her breasts with some unforeseen side effects.
