"Recipe for Happiness" South Korean Little Happiness Movie Review and Commentary

Movie summary: After failing the exam four times, Jin-soo finally passes and becomes a civil servant. Even though his salary is not high and his love life is not smooth, and every day is ordinary, Jin-soo feels 10 out of 10 satisfied, because he is good at finding a way to feel happy in any situation… Employment, love, friendship, and so on — how will Jin-soo face these bittersweet everyday worries?

• Movie title: “Recipe for Happiness”.
• Runtime: 91 minutes.
• Starring: Gong Myung, Park Soo-jin.
• Director: Yoon Jae-won.
• Movie recommendation rating:

★★★★★★

“Recipe for Happiness”

The 2020 South Korean film “Recipe for Happiness” is a light, easygoing piece with the bittersweet taste of everyday life. Through seven short chapters, it presents the various plain happiness that the protagonist Jin-soo (played by Gong Myung) can easily have in his life and work.

At the end of each chapter, a simple hand-drawn sketch paired with a simple line condenses the little happiness the chapter wants to express, presenting a warm and charming comfortable atmosphere.

The first chapter, through a task assigned by a superior at work, briefly introduces the protagonist’s work environment, full of a self-possessed female colleague and a lazy, slacking yet pretentious senior.

The second chapter, through a gathering of four middle school classmates, introduces the protagonist’s basic living environment and conditions.

The third chapter, at a bar with college seniors and the female lead Jing-soo (played by Park Soo-jin), who maintains a non-marriage stance and has a cool personality, introduces the protagonist’s love life.

The fourth chapter introduces the protagonist’s life at his hometown, and how his father, through studying the I Ching, calculates that the compatibility between the male and female leads is insufficient.

The fifth chapter finally shows the male and female leads going on a short trip together to the seaside, and the ambiguity between them is also budding (one-sided on the man’s part).

“Recipe for Happiness”

The sixth chapter, through two deaths, laments that if you want to do something, do it quickly, otherwise everything will be too late. What is rather odd here is that there is no ending introduction like the previous chapters had. Instead, it suddenly cuts to the protagonist waking from a dream and deciding to buy a lottery ticket, so whether those two events really happened is rather puzzling, and it is also a segment I think the director handled poorly.

Chapter six and a half (?), continuing from the previous chapter, the male lead suddenly tries hard to invite the female lead to go camping in the mountains, only to learn that the female lead has quit her job and plans to travel abroad for a year. In the end, while walking in the park, the man hugs the female lead and says many beautiful hopes for the future. Unfortunately, the woman’s reaction makes one feel these two still have no chance.

At the end of the film, one line of the protagonist’s monologue I quite like is, “I will not let anxiety about the future tie down my present.” Although it is unknown whether the male and female leads will develop further in the future, at least this South Korean director’s handling of the open ending is already a mature work that many Japanese films (I insist on taking a jab) should learn from. It does not leave viewers baffled, and I quite recommend watching this film in your spare time.