The dress is just ok.

Characters:

• Yoon Eun Hye as Yoo Min
• Park Han Byul as Hye Ji
• Cha Ye Ryun as Soo Jin
• Yoo In Na as Min Hee

Details:

• Korean
• Release date: March 24, 2011
• Running time:  107 minutes
• Language: Korean

Quick Rundown:

Four theatre and film majors must face the real world after college graduation. As each face a different fate – some are luckier than others – can their friendship survive or will they wave goodbye forever?

ESTELLE’S TAKE

When I saw the name of this movie I was intrigued. And then when I read the synopsis I was immediately hooked. It sounded like a Korean version of Sex and the City – a group of girls and a lot of glamour – centered on love and friendship.  And at the end of the day, I would get a good lesson about life and a sudden urge to schedule brunch with my girlfriends.

But where was the plot? I had thought that since the movie was called Little Black Dress there would be some sort of story around it, but aside from Yoon Eun Hye admiring the dress and making a rash decision to purchase it, we barely squeeze anything else out of those three words.  She does wear it once or twice on dates with this jerk bag her BFF introduces her to (some best friend you got there), but this dress is no traveling pants, and its screen time just stops there.

The other characters are also equally as bland and passive. Things happen to them and though they experience varying levels of hardship I don’t get the feeling that they are truly affected. There’s one scene where they have an all-out fight and everybody airs each other’s dirty laundry – bankruptcy, parents’ divorce, career failures etc., but no resolution comes out of it. Yes, we get that they remained friends despite this big brawl, but for what? It all feels so artificial.

And then somehow life turns out to be okay for them all without any visible efforts on their part and I’m left feeling like I just watched a bunch of spoiled brats complain about #firstworldproblems. What? The nonexistent central plot definitely contributed to this and the lack of a theme did not help. Was it about friendship? Romance? The dress? None of them. The complete vagueness and ambiguity of this movie left me with a big question mark, and not the kind that you can ponder on and feel all poetic about.

This & That:

• Yoo Eun Hye is famous for her debut in Princess Hours, followed by several successful dramas such as Coffee Prince, Personal Taste and Lie to Me. She was most recently in Marry Him If You Dare opposite Lee Dong Gun and CNBlue’s Jung Yong Hwa. Her new movie, a Chinese-Korean collaboration, After Love, hit the big screen on March 10 this year. Also starring in the movie is Park Shi Hoo.
• Park Han Byul entered the entertainment industry due to her resemblance to Jun Ji Hyun. She was most recently in I Have a Lover. She was also in a 12-year relationship with Se7en – the couple met senior year in high school, but broke up at the end of 2014.
• Cha Ye Ryun was most recently in Glamorous Temptations with Joo Sang Wook.
• After failing to break out on the K-pop scene (she had trouble remembering her dance moves), Yoo In Na decided to give acting a try. She won Best New Actress at the 2010 Baeksang Arts Awards for her role in Secret Garden. She starred in Queen In Hyun’s Man and dated her co-star Ji Hyun Woo after he publically declared his love for her, but the couple broke up in 2014. This drama inspired the Chinese remake Love Weaves Through a Millennium.