Were it not for the 1997 copyright date in the closing credits, you'd swear this conservative-minded role-reversal comedy was made in 1992. In the United States. As a sitcom. The hair! The clothing! The makeup! You half expect Lisa Bonet or Screech to come bounding through a door as some kind of punchline. This is the kind of film that, visually, makes you realize just what a massive leap forward SHIRI was to Korean cinema in terms of character, costuming, production design, lighting, screen writing and just about everything else. It's competently made, but beyond a couple of scenes filmed outdoors, this is entirely a set-bound affair; most of those sets are windowless, garishly splashed with primary and secondary colors (even doors have little squares of color running top to bottom), and constructed and lit as though a studio audience was sitting just outside camera range. I suspect director Kim Bon is a television mainstay, and presumably remained one as this appears to be his only feature, but I wouldn't guess comedy to be his forte as he lets minor comic set pieces unfold in poorly framed compositions and with precious little editing (which might have given them some kick). I also suspect the only reason such a forgettable film appeared on Hong Kong DVD in October, 2008 was because it toplined one of that year's tragic Korean Celebrity Suicides®, Choi Jin-sil. Sidelined by the birth of her baby boy, professional event planner Choi fakes being a bad mother so that her husband (Lee Kyeong-Young) will offer to become a stay-at-home daddy and she can return to work, where she soon discovers that a) her husband is just as adept at raising the baby (at least at first) as he was at his regular job, and b) Korean women should stay home and raise babies, because if parents don't fill the traditional roles, toddlers can end up perched precariously atop high-diving boards at public swimming pools. (don't ask). Easily digested. Easily forgotten. Bring on 1999.
