[HanCinema's Hawaii International Film Festival Review] "Secret: Untold Melody"

Do Kyung-soo of Exo takes up the mantle of Jay Chou, starring in "Secret: Untold Melody" which is a remake of the Taiwanese singer's romantic melodrama Secret. If you haven't heard of the original film, just rest assured that it's quite well-known in South Korea. Which is to say, that I'd seen it there, and knew the big plot twist ahead of time, so I'm reluctant to spoil it here, despite said plot twist not being as clearly explained as it was in the original.

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The ending's also a fair bit darker than the original, mostly because the remake is more faithful to the continuity of the plot twist. Which I liked a lot less, because "Secret: Untold Melody" is an unavoidably emotional love story where your inclination is to just yell at the screen, to hell with logic, listen to your heart! And the remake certainly succeeds there well enough. Won Jin-ah is perfectly cast as the leading lady, who's actually slightly older than Do Kyung-soo, with both of them being surprisingly convincing college students.

The plot, to the extent that matters, is about Yoo-joon blowing his audition for a major European piano program for physical reasons that aren't clearly explained. As the plot goes on, we learn that Yoo-joon's passion for music was inspired by his mother, about whom he's been feeling more ambivalent these days. So as he goes to school back in South Korea, having apparently failed, Yoo-joon meets Jeong-ah, a mysterious student who only sees him, instead of seeing him as one of many possible musicians.

It's easy to see why Jay Chou, and now Do Kyung-soo, were drawn to the story, despite neither of them being classically trained pianists, although they are fans of Chopin. And who wouldn't be? It's not just the elegiac nature of his music, after all, but his clarity of purpose, how Chopin's art was motivated by his love affair with George Sand. Ironically, George Sand was more famous in her lifetime than Chopin is today- quite a role reversal over the past couple of centuries.

The actual story isn't really that relevant to how "Secret: Untold Melody" plays out. Music isn't about what actually happened, but how the experience makes a person feel. In that regard, "Secret: Untold Melody" is consistently cute without being cloying. You can remove the infamous plot twist fairly easily and still what you're left with is a compelling love story about a young man finding something new to focus on in life.

The young woman doesn't get much by comparison- Jeong-ah's life just isn't that exciting, and a lot of it needs to be obscured in order for the plot twist to work. Still, there's definite elements of female fantasy at play here. Imagine being willing to give up everything for a man, only to find out that all along, he was willing to do the same for you, and just barely manages to beat you to it. In this way, "Secret: Untold Melody" is an ideal love story.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Secret: Untold Melody" is directed by Seo Yoo-min, and features Do Kyung-soo, Won Jin-ah, Shin Ye-eun, Bae Sung-woo, Kang Kyung-hun, Kim Kyu-seon. Release date in Korea: 2023.