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Until recently, Trot music has been loathed almost universally by the younger folks in Korea, while adored universally by the 50 and up generation. The younger kids thought of Trot music as a backward symbol of the unsophisticated culture of the older generation. This is until the last couple of years, where a few younger singers gained success with trot music and “Highway Star” brought even more interest in the traditional Korean music genre.
The movie itself is an ultra-simplistic story, having the familiar style of “Radio Star” and “200 Pounds Beauty.” Honestly, the movie was as deep as a puddle of water, but that was intentional as the movie comes off as a pure commercial endeavor made to attract everyone from the older Korean generation to the influential teenage groups. Reflective of this would be the cast, featuring Tae-hyun Cha as Dalho and Chae-Mu Lim as Mr. Jang (the CEO of the record label). Tae-hyun Cha will be forever identified with his immensely popular performance in the quintessiantial Korean teenage romance film, “My Sassy Girl.” Although none of his performance following “My Sassy Girl” came close to the popularity of My Sassy Girl, he has delivered another appealing performance with “Highway Star.” Meanwhile, popular Korean tv drama actor Tae-hyun Cha, breaks free from his image of a stoic gentleman with his first big screen appearance ever. His character, Mr Jang the CEO of Big Sound Entertainment, combined a nice mixture of goofiness & root for the underdog bad luck, that made him instantly endearing.
Although performances were solid all around, the script on the other hand was a watered down mess. The romantic relationship between Dal-ho and Seo-Yeon was a head scratcher. The movie showed the initial stages of courtship between the two characters and then the next time Seo-Yeon came back into the picture, their relationship was portrayed as a couple having the close bond of two life long lovers. To make matters worse, the “comedy” scenes were mostly flat, never having the rip roaring moments as another similar K-Comedy “200 Pounds Beauty” did. Furthermore, towards the end of the film, when Dal-Ho made a confession to the live t.v. audience, the scene seemed to mimic the climatic moment in “200 Pounds Beauty” when Jenny revealed her true identity.
The overall theme that ran throughout “Highway Star” gave off a rather uninspiring message, which would be “make people smile and dance and you have success as a singer.” Dal-ho dumping his band mates without batting an eye didn’t have the attended affect of humor for me, but it sure did reflect the shallow nature of the film. Also, the concept of artistic integrity was something entirely foreign to “Highway Star.”
Although Highway Star features quality performances by its entire cast and has several cute Trot style musical performances, the overly simpleton manner in which the plot and theme was handled made “Highway Star” a mediocre film compared to other recent Asian films centered around music.
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