As an elderly woman Kim Suni receives a phone call about the sale of her old family home out in the country side and decides to pay the place a visit with her grand daughter Eun Joo. From there she reminisces back to when she was a teenager and her and her mother escaped to the country side. Kim Suni was suffering from a lung problem and it was believed that the country air would do her some good. Not long after arriving Suni finds a feral boy who can't read, write or fully understand what people are saying. Despite his unruly nature Suni's mother is kind enough to adopt him and name him Chul-Soo; for she, like all the other villagers, believe he was one of the many children which were orphaned in the Korean War. Unsatisfied by the way that Chul-Soo behaves, Suni starts to 'tame' him using a dog training book. Every time he acts accordingly Suni will pat his head and from these acts of kindness a bond is formed between the introverted girl and the lonely boy.
Ofcourse it's not that simple as Chul-soo's ardent loyalty inspires jealousy in Ji-tae, landlord and full time prick who thinks he'd have a shot at Suni if it wasn't for Chul-soo. The chaos that ensues forces the pair to split up so you can imagine Suni's surprise when she returns, 47 years later, to find him waiting for her. But they still can't be together, Suni lived her life, she got married and had kids! However, she is convinced to not sell her house.
It's a bitter-sweet love story, but considering it has a running time of two hours, not a lot happens. It has an excruciatingly slow-pace that made it difficult for me to sit through. True, I am quite a bouncy person and would rather be watching something as bubbly as K-ON, but I'm certain they didn't need all of those prolonged head-patting scenes! All the action is compressed into the five minute peak of the film. However, and those of you who like this film may want to turn away now, those were the worst five minutes of the feature! The film throws away any credibility and completely ruins the mood. Up until this point it was very much an amiable tale despite the sinister foreshadowing but all the class and quality of the movie was abandoned in exchange for a rampaging Chul-soo who releases his inner Bruce Banner, just instead of a green hulk Chul-soo's rage brings forth his indestructible wolf form! Ok, so with a title like 'A Werewolf Boy' that probably shouldn't be so surprising but until that point Chul-soo seemed more like a character from Jungle Book and the whole plot was quite conceivable. So why ruin it by making Chul-soo transform? It was so poor and unfitting that they might as well have just thrown in a Sailor-Moon-esque transformation scene!
It doesn't get any better because I don't like the characters either! I'll just talk about Ji-tae though, the 'bad guy' of the series who expresses his love for Suni by yelling at her. I know he's a character that we're supposed to hate but Ji-tae doesn't appear to have any good of plan with his wickedness and one thing I absolutely despise in any kind of tv show/movie are bad guys who have no thought or clear incentive to what they're doing, they exist purely as a plot device. But 'bad guys' are human too, so at least try to make them convincing! "Ji-tae does have a motive, he wants Chul-soo out of the way so he can be with Suni!" No. That is a commonly used motive for 'bad guys' in romances but in this movie it really does not make sense because a) Suni never liked Ji-tae so Chul-soo is not 'getting in the way' of any thing and b) if he genuinely wanted Suni to be with him he'd at least have to sense to get rid off Chul-soo subtly. But no, Ji-tae is aimlessly attacking Chul-soo.
Sorry if that came across as a rant, but I honestly can't see why this is Korea's best melodrama! The plot is weak, the pacing is atrocious and the character's are grating. I am genuinely struggling to come up with something nice.... I suppose it's quite emotional if you're a pet lover, but the romance is dead. All I can say is, if this is Korea's best melodrama, they obviously don't have any good melodramas.
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