개를 훔치는 완벽한 방법 how to steal a dog 2014

• Acting 8.1

• Directing 8.2

• Story 8.1

• User Ratings (0 Votes) 0

Starring: Lee Re, Lee Ji-won, Kim Hye-ja

Director: Kim Sung-ho

Running Time: 109 mins

How To Steal A Dog is a South Korean film about a young girl, living in a van with her homeless mother and brother, who hatches a plan to kidnap a dog from a wealthy old woman, and then use the reward money to buy a house for her family.

This film may look like a simple kids’ film on the outside, but it’s far, far deeper on the inside. While it’s an undoubtedy sweet and enjoyable family comedy at times, it’s most impressive simply because of how it tackles some fairly heavy issues so frankly throughout, and always manages to do so with genuine and powerful emotion, eventually turning this into so much more, and a truly moving watch from start to finish.

But let’s start off with the simpler side of things, and the fact that this is still a lovely film that all the family can watch. It’s full of powerful drama throughout, but it’s nothing so heavy that young kids can’t handle it, and the fact that the film’s main characters are all young children means that it’s all the more easy for younger viewers to relate to the story and enjoy it.

There is, after all, a story about how to steal a dog in this movie. While the situation surrounding the young girl’s determination to do so is undoubtedly the main focus, there’s still a whole heap of delightful sequences in which we see the kids hatching outlandish plans to capture a rich woman’s pet dog, and although it may seem a little bad, especially for any dog lovers watching, the innocent and good nature of the kids’ intentions makes it perfectly fine to sit back and enjoy their scheme.

So, this is still definitely a family film, and a really entertaining one at that, with pleasant childhood fun and adventure at the core of the lighter side of the story, and a well-directed, light-hearted atmosphere from Kim Sung-ho in tandem with a wonderful performance from young Lee Re making it a film that will make viewers of all ages smile.

However, that’s not why I was so impressed with How To Steal A Dog. It’s a fun family film, but the fact that it manages to introduce a range of genuinely riveting, emotionally powerful and fairly frank social issues into the middle of that story was amazing to see.

Our main character is a young girl who lives in an old pizza van with her mother and brother, so homelessness is naturally a key theme of the story. Not only does the film look at the simple hardships of not having a home, but it also delves into the social consequences for a young girl who feels embarrassed by her situation, the impact that the lifestyle can have on a family’s internal bonds, while also going further to look at issues like the struggles of being a single parent.

Throughout, the film manages to tackle all of these problems head on, never hesitating to take the film’s emotional core to some fairly dark and difficult places, but it’s that that makes the film all the more impressive. Its darker emotion never dampens the childhood wonder of the lighter side of the story, and the young girl’s determination to achieve her goal is made all the more enjoyable by the fact that her intentions are so good, however there are times when the film really manages to hit home with some properly moving drama, something that you really don’t expect given such a light-hearted atmosphere beforehand.

Overall, I absolutely loved How To Steal A Dog. On the one hand, it’s an endlessly enjoyable and delightful family movie, but on the other, it manages to provide riveting drama and genuinely powerful emotion throughout in a way that normally wouldn’t fit at all well with the genre, but instead makes for a thoroughly memorable and moving watch, and that’s why I’m giving it an 8.1.

Little Ji-soo (Lee Re) tries her best to put brave face on it, but at home everything’s gone wrong. In fact, they don’t even have a home any more – Ji-soo’s dad’s pizza business failed and he’s run off and left them. Evicted, the family have been living in the old pizza van while Ji-soo’s mum (Kang Hye-jung) has convinced an old flame (Lee Chun-hee) to give her a job as a waitress in a posh cafe. It’s approaching crunch time because Ji-soo’s birthday is coming up and the other kids are expecting to be invited to a party at a house Ji-soo doesn’t have. When she spots an ad for a lost dog which promises a reward, Ji-soo strikes on an idea. Together with a new found friend (Lee Ji-won), she hatches a complicated plan to steal the beloved dog of the grumpy old lady (Kim Hye-ja) who owns the cafe where her mother works and extort enough money to buy a lovely new house for her family where she can have her birthday in style.

Ji-soo’s worldview is both cheerfully innocent and extremely cynical. Sad and lonely with her dad gone, she blames her mother’s fecklessness for their present plight, berating her lack of practicality and failure to get her kids into a proper home in good time. Playing the sensible one for her family of three, Ji-soo is always on the look out for scams and trickery, assuming most people are up to something especially when it comes to innocent little girls. Hence she quickly has the number of the local pizza boy (Lee Hong-ki) who takes orders for family size pizzas but writes regular on the order slips and then pockets the difference from the unsuspecting customer. When she spots an ad in an estate agent’s window for houses at 5 million won she becomes fixated on gaining exactly that amount of money, thinking “per three square metre” is the name of an area and little knowing that 5 million won won’t even buy you a front porch in Seoul let alone an entire house.

Though living in a van is not exactly pleasant, Ji-soo’s problem is more one of social shame than it is of actual discomfort. All the kids at school have already been indoctrinated with class competitiveness and everyone is still talking about the last birthday party, the subject of which is getting a little nervous in case Ji-soo’s house turns out to be nicer than his. No one knows Ji-soo’s dad has run off and they’re living in a van, even the teacher seems curious enough about Ji-soo’s putative birthday party to actively remind her about it and enquire when she plans to make some kind of announcement to her schoolmates.

Thankfully, Ji-soon does eventually learn that money and status aren’t everything. The mean old lady turns out just to be sad and lonely, filled with regrets about a mistake made in her past. The scary homeless man (Choi Min-soo) turns out to be a goodhearted free spirit, and Ji-soo’s mum finally finds her feet after buckling down in an honest yet low paying job which requires a lot of early morning starts. From Ji-soo’s point of view, adults are still a bit rubbish but everything seems to be working out for the best. Oddly pure hearted for a story about dognapping, How to Steal a Dog is a charming, whimsical adventure in which a little girl’s faith in the goodness of the world is finally rewarded, even if not quite in the way she imagined.

Original trailer (no subtitles)