So, lately I’ve been on lazy mode. I can’t seem to have the strength to write a blog post though I’ve been holding my laptop at least a couple of hours a day. The silly thing is I’ve only been watching BTS videos for the past few weeks and I don’t seem to get over it, but maybe that’s understandable…I mean if you yourself–who’s reading this post–is a fan like me.

Anyway, I have a lot of movies lined up for a bit of a review, so I’ll start with an easy watch. This post will be solely dedicated to ‘The Dude in Me‘. This movie had been released in January of 2019 and starts two of my favorite actors from different generations, Park Sung Woong and Jung Jin Young.

Check out some details about the movie and my review below.

Actors & Charac ters

Park Sung Woong as Jang Pan Soo

Ra Mi Ran as Oh Mi Sun

Jung Jin Young as Kim Dong Hyun

Lee Jun Hyeok as Man Chul

Lee Soo Min as Oh Hyun Jung

….and more

The Story

Pan Soo (Park Sung Woong) is both a businessman and son-in-law of a mob boss. This tough guy, however, unexpectedly meets a freak accident and goes into coma in the hospital. When he wakes up, Pan Soo finds out that his soul is trapped inside a 17-year-old boy’s body.

Dong Hyeon (Jung Jin Young) is an introverted 17-year-old boy that loves eating. Due to a fated accident, he swaps bodies with Pan Soo.

Later, when Pan Soo’s finally taking over this innocent kid’s body, he finds out that Dong Hyeon is in fact being bullied in school. He finds a way to help Dong Hyeon avoid getting bullied and in doing so, Pan Soo finds himself also unexpectedly coming across his first love’s path.

Revie w

I haven’t seen a body swap movie or drama for a long time and that’s basically saying I’m not a total fan of the said genre. But then, what peaked my interest for this movie is definitely the cast. Park Sung Woong has starred in many of my most favorite dramas and he’s always that tough dude that you’re not too sure whether he’s your friend or enemy, but then that’s how I like him playing his role. There’s also Jin Young who impressed me with his surprisingly good acting through Love in the Moonlight. I’m also a K-pop fan so I know a thing or two about him.

With those things aside, I want to say the movie is good. Not impressive, but it surpassed my expectations for a body swap kind of movie. It lives up to its name since the actors made it fun to watch how Jin Young was able to give us a window to the gangster Pan Soo through his acting and how Park Sung Woong made it look so freakishly adorable and weird how he portrays the role of a scared-y cat 17-year-old high school boy.

Sung Woong’s screen time was a little shorter than Jin Young’s, who basically had the most portion of the pie, but it was a worthwhile ride how the bad ass gangster gradually gave dull Dong Hyun’s life a little bit of a flare. From the bullied boy, Dong Hyun became revered by the students all thanks to Pan Soo’s ass kicking and training that he did to turn Dong Hyun into a young and fit handsome lad.

Another thing I like about this movie is how they headed to the twist which is eventually why we have them body swap. Yes, the theme is pretty cliche, but they made up for it with an interesting story line (spoiler ahead!): Tough gangster with most-likely a criminal record and some illegal business going on as a side dish gets crushed to near-death by a fat 17-year-old boy who falls from heaven. Pan Soo eventually ends up in a coma, which is kind of satirical and funny, because who would have thought that the very person who would get to knock him down cold on the ground is an unsuspecting fatso high schooler? Crazy idea there. What are the odds, right? But then, it can happen.

Anyway, the movie tries to be funny and it does work to a point where you’ll laugh and smile, but not to the point you’ll have tears in your eyes because it’s too funny. I think the humor is just enough to prevent the movie from straying too much to a serious mood for the movie despite it touching sensitive topics like bullying, mobs, illegal business, body shaming and all that. That’s probably why it doesn’t get boring throughout the entire run of the film and it doesn’t get too emotional though it’s quite something when Pan Soo actually finds out he has an heir to his name.

Heading down to the ending, I’ve read a couple of things about it being too rushed, but I guess with the time constraint they have we can expect the movie to do a cliche turn where Pan Soo gets into a deadly accident again and gets knocked off for the second time in his life. He was probably dead, which makes it a little bit of a disappointment since I really thought he was going to die in exchange of saving the others, but then oh well a feel-good movie should remain a happy one, so during the last few minutes of the film you can say that ‘all is well’. Pan Soo is forgiven for his wrongdoings and is basically given a third or fourth chance in life, but in exchange of something he has to give up. Anyway, the ending was pretty heartwarming and fun. I won’t spoil much about it because I’ve said enough. 🙂

Rat ing

Over all, I’ll give this movie a 4.0 out of 5.0 since despite the good chemistry of the cast, the movie’s just decent. Not that impressive, but it’s definitely a worthwhile watch. The cast is just perfect to trust that they’ll salvage such a cliche trope in a story.

Tr ailer

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