Not even bad in a good way
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
View MoreIt's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
View MoreClose shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
View MoreExaggeration is a keynote during each scene of this largely silly affair that consistently propels its scenario into the region of the inane, with care in photographic method serving merely to emphasize character behaviour that is excessively overstated, thereby too often causing a viewer to lose interest in a plot line that is flimsy at its center. Two nightclubs, Lala and Nemo, situated directly across from each other, are historic business and inter-family foes, the Lala Club passed down from her father to Eun-Ja (Lee Mi-suk), who is so mired in debt due to waning business receipts that she is faced with imminent loss of the club, and annoyingly to the owner-operator of Club Nemo, Kim Geo-man (Bo-sung Kim), whose planned takeover of Lala would complete his family's triumph over that of Eun-Ja, while she nevertheless harbours a compelling desire to retain her entertainment-based property. To accomplish her goal, she and three close friends decide to develop their own brand of floor show, in the process becoming a lip synching and dancing quartet, calling themselves the Oollala Sisters and, despite their lack of experience they soon, in predictable fashion, begin to attract larger crowds than can Club Nemo, a circumstance that must lead only into a nightclubbing and family showdown scene. Acting in this film is simply too histrionic in many instances, but the musical numbers are splendidly vigorous, with a bit of satiric humour added, not nearly sufficient, however, to off-set the general hamminess that exposes a weakly written screenplay. Direction loses its rhythm towards the film's ending, with some clever choreography becoming the brightest element to a viewer.
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