‘Ajoomma’ REVIEW: One Warm Adventure
‘Ajoomma’ REVIEW: One Warm Adventure
Ajoomma wastes no time introducing itself. It immediately kicks off with an upbeat song, music playing for a couple of old ladies doing their morning routine at a park in Singapore. In it, the immediate introduction of two cultures. These old ladies know the same things that we all do: Korea has a strong cultural influence on almost everyone across the world, most especially in Southeast Asia. With Ajoomma, this presentation takes center stage through a film that’s as much about the simplest acknowledgement of the whole phenomenon as it is a movie that warms the heart.
Hong Hui Fang plays the titular Ajoomma, whose real name is Lim Bee Hwa. Widowed and left only with her young adult son, she spends her middle-aged days living vicariously through her favorite K-Drama star, Jae Sung. Following a sudden turn of events that involve a non-refundable trip to Korea and her son heading for the US shortly before their planned trip, Auntie Lim finds herself wandering around South Korea for five days.
Rounding up her trip are encounters with a couple of people, namely her tour guide, Kwon-Woo (Kang Hyung-seok), and a security guard, Jung Su (Jung Dong-hwan). Each of them, along with the audience, join Auntie Lim in an adventure that briefly involves a pet dog, some loan sharks, and a broken family. Not much detail can be said about these things, as the film just quickly discards them the moment that they’ve served their purpose to the story. However, when considering its application to be the total balance of an outsider’s fantasy perspective to the whole Korean Wave phenomenon versus a native Korean’s daily life, it’s nice to know that Ajoomma just sort of says it like that. It feeds these underlying narratives to the audience without much thought, and it’s easy to buy into because it's packaged as part of a positively-uplifting adventure.
If anything, Ajoomma works in the same way most other K-dramas work: family. Every plot point in this film revolves around the importance of it and the ways it changes dynamically, yet always having love remain in spite of everything. It doesn’t add much to the formula, but the added cultural layer of an outsider participating in her very own K-drama fantasy hammers home much of what I’ve stated beforehand.
But beyond that, there’s really not much to talk about when it comes to the meat of Ajoomma. With such a film whose intent is more about delivering a simple adventure with lots of sweetness and humor mixed in, it's a wonder that this film doesn’t have a local distributor lined up for it. It’s got the laughs, the tears, and the sweetness that you could ask for of any K-drama. I’d say that’s in large part to how much the cast sells the whole story to the audience. To that end, even someone like me who doesn’t watch K-dramas as much as the regular Filipino is tempted to consider it sooner than later precisely because of this. Totally sweet, and I think that’s fine enough to leave it at.
You can catch ‘Ajoomma’ until November 25, 2022 in Gateway Cineplex as part of QCinema’s Asian Next Wave category.
ADDENDUM: Due to the film receiving official domestic distribution via TBA Studios, you can now watch Ajoomma in theaters starting on March 15, 2023!
