Review: THE BEAUTY INSIDE, High Concept Melo Is as Glib as Its Title

By Pierce Conran

A corporate-sponsored high concept web series gets the glossy Korean melodrama treatment in The Beauty Inside, top romantic offering of summer 2015. Featuring a laundry list of Korean stars all playing the same character, this debut film by music video director Baik stays very true to its source material, while also expanding it with familiar local melodramatic elements.

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Review: C'EST SI BON Trades Rich 60s Music Setting for Dull Romance

By Pierce Conran

A terrific period setting is squandered in the disappointing C'est si bon, a twee and lethargic romance masquerading as a dynamic folk music biopic. Programmed as one of this year's two major Lunar New Year holiday releases (the other being period action-comedy sequel Detective K: Secret of the Lost Island), Kim Hyun-seok's sixth film seeks to expand on the director's proven credentials in the rom-com field (Cyrano Agency, 2010) by enticing older viewers with music and period detail designed to evoked their youth.

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