This New Korean Rom-Com Feels Like a Throwback ’80s Teen Movie in the Best Way

As a film amateur who grew up on John Hughes and other filmmakers like him, I was trained from a very young age to expect the high school to be filled with archetypes: intimidators, popular children, jocks, nerds and personalities without humor and gruff. Although we have evolved since then (at least a little bit), there is something about some of these now classic 80s films that remain endearing even if some of the characters and details of the plot feel problematic or downright stupid compared to today’s standards.

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When I noticed that the new original Netflix film, Love Untangled, was trendy on the world list of the 10 top 10 of the platform, I knew that I had to give it a chance as a fan of adolescent films. Love Untangled is a set of romance in high school in 1998 and presents all the tropes of characters above, then some.

The line line of the film explains that he “follows Park Se-Ri, 19, while she plans to straighten her hair perpetually frizzy before making a confession that changes life, while putting herself in foot with the student transfer Han Yun-Seok.” I assumed from this description that the film would be a bit like I cannot buy love – where the protagonist prepares a plan to acquire the affection of popular children – and in certain respects, it is. But I also expected what left on the lighter and more silly side. After all, the node of the film concerns the wild hair of a teenager and how he affects her love life, but the film has much more depth than you expect, and the complexity and the darker scenarios compensate for the most fun aspects of the film.

Park Se-Ri (Shin Eun-Soo) blames her bad luck in the fact that she has curly hair. Se-ri is a twin, and the unfair reality is that her sister has smooth and smooth hair and no problem hanging on a boyfriend. Se-ri, on the other hand, remains hidden in the bathroom trying to manage his mane for hours, blaming her hair for all his problems.

Se-Ri has a major crush for Hyun, the largest piece of school, and would do everything to do it like her. But alas, her big hair means that he will never fall in love with her – at least not by the governing social rules. Se-ri and her friends are friends with a new child in school, the Han Yun-Seok (Gong Myoung) calm and reserved, and when Se-Ri learns that Yun-Seok’s mother is a hairdresser, she makes fun of her mother in the hope of obtaining an agreement on her services so that she can look cute and impress Hyun.

Even if Se-Ri does everything she can to attract the attention of Hyun, it is the authentic relationship that she forms with Yun-Seok which becomes the real romance of the film. Shin Eun-Soo is instantly adorable as a SE-RI, full of life, charm and a sense of adventure. She is the full opposite of Yun-Seok, who rarely speaks, but when he does, it is with pure honesty and a heart. These young actors raise the film of a sometimes stupid and superficial adolescent romance to something more, especially when the themes become darker later in the film and we learn how Yun-Seok and his mother arrived in town. While the first half of the film focuses on the romantic Hijinks of Se-Ri, the tone moves towards the end (and can leave you fully in tears) while the background of Yun-Seok becomes the center of attention, and the gravity of its family situation is settling.

It seems almost unfair that love disadvantages concentrates the attention so much about the hair of SE-Ri. Although this can put the initial events of the movie film, there is so much more than that. A sweetness-bitter romance that completely captures the happiness of high school crushing (and spoiler: this leads to a happy ending), the film won its place in the top 10 for a good reason. It is a pure and comforting magic.