Cracked Eggs and Noodles (2005) - Pa-song-song Gye-ran-tak
During my Stories class in college, Vince Groyon asked us what subjects were closest to our hearts, then those are the stories we should write. I answered children.
This is why I was bawling while watching the Korean film Cracked Eggs and Noodles (2005). At first, the premise does not sound too exciting: A 26 year old bachelor, Dae-Gyu, whose life was turned upside down when a 9 year old kid, In-Kwon, arrived alone in his apartment, claiming that he is his son.
A Nick Hornby-meets-Takeshi Kitano-meets-Walter Salles movie, things start to get really exciting when the film does away with the traditional narrative and becomes more character driven. When Dae-Gyu asked In-Kwon how he can get rid of him, the kid proposes that they go on a walking trek across South Korea. Once they accomplish that, he promised to never bother his dad again.
This becomes a journey for the two, and with a twist like “the kid is dying with cancer and he knows it” smacked right in the middle of the narrative, Hollywood would have screamed “that’s supposed to be discovered in the end!” There were more twists packed in the second half of the story, and it is one tear-jerking rollercoaster ride... and a wheelchair ride as well. :(
Aside from the twists, it was the character tweaks that made the film very personal for me. For example, In-Kwon’s specialty that he has always wanted to cook for his dad was instant ramen with eggs and leeks, but his dad is just into plain instant ramen. The recurring visual motif of ramen was just too cute that it grabbed my heart and pricked it with chopsticks.
“Some people toss it in when the water’s still cold.
Of course, that’s no good.
The noodles will get too fat.”
For a guy who loved Doy del Mundo's "Pepot Artista", Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes", Nick Hornby’s “About A Boy”, the Chris and Paul Weitz movie version of the book, Walter Salles’s “Central Station”, and who is in search of Kitano’s “Kikujiro” for ages, this movie (plus its ramen scenes) is just pure bliss.