The radio show is named “The Flames of Love,” and is centered around a love triangle. The writer of the show is talented but perpetually suffers from writer’s block whenever he attempts to finish stories. The show also features popular jazz singer, Miss Marie (Sa-rang Kim), performing in the starring role of Arisu. There’s a young gisaeng, named Myung-wol (Bo-ra Hwang), set to play her rival, while the station’s do it all guy, Man-chul (Jeong-se Oh), plays the man caught in the middle. At first, the “The Flames of Love” fails to attract listeners, even station manager Lloyd notices that there’s something missing with the show. Then Lloyd discovers the missing element: sound effects. The station holds an open audition for a performer that can make a variety of sounds. The person that gets hired is named K. None of the employees at the station are aware that K works for the Korean independent movement. Can “The Flames of Love” become the first ever hit radio show in South Korea?

A lot of “Radio Days” should be familiar to folks that have seen “Once Upon A Time”. The peripheral settings like the time frame, the female jazz singer, and the bumbling independent movement members appear in both films interchangeably. But at its core, “Once Upon A Time” is a pure adventure film ala Indiana Jones, while “Radio Days” is a comedy centered on the radio show “The Flames of Love”. Two performers that stood out in “Radio Days” were Seung-beom Ryu and Bora-Hwang. Seung-beom Ryu rarely gives a bad performance and, as par for the course for him, he was very good in the film. Bo-ra Hwang received a lot of attention (including mine) with her impressive supporting role in “Shim’s Family” and she gets to cut loose to provide much needed color in “Radio Days.”

Well, you may wonder by now what didn’t work in the film? Biggest culprits were the independence movement sub-plot, the flat comedic elements provided by those members and the casting of Jong-hyeok Lee as their group leader. Basically, the writers of “Radio Days” provided zero creativity when working in this area of the film, leaving the predictable sub-plot to feel like an afterthought to the original radio show elements. Lastly, Jong-hyeok Lee had all the charisma of a cement block.

“Radio Days” is a likeable film, thanks largely to Seung-beom Ryu , Bora Hwang and portions of the script (the creation of the radio show). Yet, there is a tangible feeling that things should have been funnier, scenes should have been crazier, and the build-up more exciting. A lot of the blame lies with the movie’s screenwriters and the lazy manner in which they resolved the storyline. Like a cliff note rendition of a very good novel, “Radio Days” gives you the gist of a pretty cool story, but told in a strictly pedestrian manner. Heck even the ending felt like a re-hash of the ending scene in “Welcome to Dongmakgol.” If you don’t mind the poor implementation of the movie’s subplot and a few other small quirks, than you’ll still have a good time with “Radio Days.” Likely to appeal to casual fans of Korean cinema.