.:A Raw Review: Windstruck:.

After watching this film, I just can't bring myself to review “Ocean's Twelve” or “Kung-Fu Hustle” any longer. This film sent me on an emotional roller coaster, and I still haven't gotten off.

Despite the risk of being extremely underslept again if I watched “Windstruck”, I still went ahead and popped in the DVD last night. I won't do a conventional review here, the way I tend to review most films. Not since “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, or “The Notebook” did a movie affect me so deeply on an emotional level that I just end up breaking into tears and become an emotional wreck. Yes, I practically cried myself to sleep after seeing the film.

Yes, there will be spoilers. Lots of them.

What makes “Windstruck” work for me is simply the honest emotionality that I found in the film. What may seem like just another trite and rote love story to others hit home to me, if only for the sheer intensity of the emotions that were all over the film. I was too lost in emotions to care about plot holes, or bad pacing, or the overt number of emotional climaxes in the film. I just fell for all of it hook, line, and sinker.

I haven't done research on it yet, but this movie certainly felt like a prequel to “My Sassy Girl”, although oddly enough, the first encounter between Gyunwoo and Kyunjin was definitely different from the latter. Moreover, Kyunjin definitely did not seem like a cop in “My Sassy Girl”, nor was she ever called by name throughout the film. That being said, I think the director was just toying with MSG fans…

Regardless, while I was watching “Windstruck”, I liked how Myungwoo and Kyunjin's love story developed. There was an instant chemistry between them, and their relationship was just extraordinarily sweet without being cheesy. Kyunjin's unapologetic ways, Myungwoo's wide-eyed awe at the significance of linking pinkies when making promises, all added to the emotions in the story. I personally loved how Myungwoo kept on comparing himself to the wind. It was an important plot point that they followed up perfectly.

For those who've seen “My Sassy Girl”, they know that the girl's previous boyfriend there died, and Gyunwoo was the cousin of the girl's late boyfriend. Simply put, if you were introduced to “Windstruck” as a prequel, then you would know that Myungwoo would die somewhere in the film. Myungwoo's death wasn't what triggered an emotional response from me, though... I mean, he almost died in a previous scene, then finally died in a police chase scene. Truth be told, what got to me was how Kyunjin then wanted to kill herself after he died.

Why is this significant? In the scene where Kyunjin was telling Myungwoo about the significance of linking pinkies, and how the prince in her story actually died and only kept his promise to return before leaving forever on the 49th day, my suspension of disbelief readied me for ghosts. However, at the end of the story, the princess died next to the prince, and Myungwoo jokingly asked if Kyunjin would do the same thing if he died. Kyunjin vehemently said no.

Kyunjin would then keep on trying to commit suicide, only for circumstances to stop her (She should've tried Strepsils...). Finally, it all came to a head in the end, when on the 49th day, she saw a paper plane flying in the air: the exact paper plane Myungwoo made when they were out in the country. It flies into her room, and then the moment she opens the windows, the wind blows and all her little windmills in the room begin to turn, and the book Myungwoo gave her that he drew flip animations on was being flipped by the wind. While the camera turned and turned around her, I was practically melting already, as she kept on saying Myungwoo's name, asking him if it's really him.

For one last time, they meet. At this point, Jun's acting was just phenomenal, as she practically made me feel exactly what her character was feeling at that point, a mixture of joy and sorrow, over the realization that this will be the last time she will see Myungwoo. That Myungwoo will not want her to follow him when she has so much to live for. And finally...

Myungwoo! I'm... sorry.

You don't have to call me that. My name is Myungwoo.

I saw this coming, but given my recent emotional state, I just really needed a movie that will give me all the excuses to cry, and as sappy as it may sound, this movie certainly did just that.

“Windstruck”, without a doubt, is a keeper of a film. If you have a heart, then this film is for you.

Perhaps someday, I will be like the wind, too, in the end. That I may love someone without any hesitation, willing to promise my all, my life, my eternity. The wind, after all, is quite in the same boat when it comes to love. You can't see either of them, but you can feel both of them, in their own unique, respective ways.

Marcelle's Overall Rating: A+