THE SCANDAL MAKERS (Korea, 2008)
Directed by: Kang Hyung-Chul
Starring: Cha Tae-Hyeon, Park Bo-Young, Wang Suk-Hyun, Sung Ji-Roo

Drama is easy, but comedy is hard. There’s a fine line between funny and annoying, a short distance between cute and cloying, and hilarious often lives right next door to obnoxious. But writer-director Kang Hyung-Chul hits it out of the park his first time up to bat. THE SCANDAL MAKERS was released without much fanfare and yet it stayed in Korean theaters for two months, selling as many tickets as MAMMA MIA! and KUNG FU PANDA combined. It went up against Kim Ji-Woon’s THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD at the box office and trounced it heartily, but comedy gets no respect and film festivals fell all over themselves to invite GOOD, BAD, WEIRD while ignoring the pitch perfect SCANDAL MAKERS. But Kang gets the last laugh: Barry Sonnenfeld (MEN IN BLACK) has optioned his movie and is about to give it a Hollywood remake.

Cha Tae-Hyeon (MY SASSY GIRL) is the host of a popular radio show, dispensing flip romantic advice to callers and cracking wise about their problems. While seducing a barely legal gal in his immaculate bachelor pad the doorbell rings and it’s Park Bo-Young, claiming she’s his daughter. One quick paternity test at the local veterinary clinic later, he’s sunk. Even worse, his daughter has a son (Wang Suk-Hyun) making Cha a granddad. Within hours, his hook-up is ruined, he’s saddled with a family and he’s even OLD. Desperate to hush up the scandal, he agrees to give his daughter a place to live as long as she keeps mum and soon his sleek n’swinging man shack is full of dirty clothes and his sleepwalking grandchild.

There are a lot of ways this formula could go wrong, but Kang rejects one-liners and pop montages in favor of character based comedy that actually resonates as the characters bounce off of each other like bumper cars and the situations keep spinning out of control. It’s not often we screen a movie that’s two years old, but when it’s as perfect as SCANDAL MAKERS the only mystery here is why we didn’t screen it earlier.