Im Soon-rye’s Waikiki Brothers is a charming, realistic story of musical aspirations turned to dust through the harsh realities of survival in a capitalist society, where creativity is scowled upon, and the monotony of drone money making the chosen occupation.
Sung-Woo and and the three remaining members of the original seven Waikiki Brothers band start the film with one last song before they hit the road. Their dream to become Korea’s Beatles is only a dream, but one they strive to achieve against the odds. They’ve lost three members already, Sung-Woo’s ex school friends with whom he began the group, and the three remaining are suffering teething problems in the form of low morale and no money. This isn’t the life of the music they hoped for, and it quickly dawns on each one that there may not even be a future.
Sung-Woo returns home with two members – the saxophonist having quit on the way home and deciding that he needs a real job. It’s a huge blow for the band, who are now down to three including Sung-Woo. History comes back to catch up with Sung-Woo in the form of an old love that never transpired, who now works as a mobile grocery store. The love of his teenage life, and now no longer the narcissistic little madam she was when they were young. Sung-Woo has hardly changed by comparison, except grow older, but the passion, patience and commitment he felt as a teen exists even now.
In such a small town, it’s inevitable that meeting with those you knew from school would resurrect themselves, and so it is that Sung-Woo meets up with his early friends from school, with whom he started the band. Whereas he is close to being a solo artist, thanks to the understandable desertion of is fellow band members, his old school friends are sitting pretty with various stable jobs. However, there is a new hostility and hatred between them; a tired depression that has developed. By contrast, Sung-woo who hardly has a penny to his name is more content that the three success that sit before him in the bar. It’s an ironic position, and one that poses the question of whether he is actually happy.
Into the mix is Kang-soo and Jun-Suk. The former an alcoholic drummer, the latter a playboy synth user that can’t help himself but steal every girl Kang-soo has his eye on. The reality is Kang-soo has little to no experience with women, and the sad situation is that he can’t keep them. There’s an obvious anxiety and hatred between the two that comes to a crunch point causing an almost cataclysmic abortion of the band.
Kang-soo’s younger brother wants to be in a band, and Sung-woo teaches him how to play, only to be backstabbed as the kid states the only thing people care about is looks not music. Initially an incompetent waiter, that is slapped about in true Korean fashion for his in inadequate service, he soon goes on to be a DJ with a very flamboyant and comical performance. A poignant and remarkably true statement of the music today, it also exaggerates the lack of skill required to make music as long as you look good for the audience.
Very much a slow, methodical reality drama, the film flashes back to what happened when the band first got together, and the drama that occurred then, and in comparison to how things end. In many ways the world goes full circle for Sung-woo, with a wonderful bitter contrast in his life of the inspired delight of friends and music as a child teenager, to the low levels of dignity that he must endure to scrape enough money together. His inability to communicate with his first love still rings true, and his conversation and remorse as evident now as it was back then.
Waikiki Brothers sounds a dry premise, but it’s very much a character driven film. It’s about a hope, and a dream for one person that they all start to lose faith in. He himself almost loses faith, as the music becomes a means of survival rather than a joy to express. Even running into his old teacher, the memories of the past bring future tragedies, and as the band becomes a group containing only one member Sung-Woo is forced to re-evaluate his life.
The acting is truly a breath of fresh air, this may be down to the fact that most have not acted on film before, but rather stage. Their deeply personal characterisations and performances are enjoyable and daring. The humour is enough to carry the film forward, but never over bearing. It’s more the humour you’d find in real life, rather than something outlandish, which makes the experience of watching the film that touch more genuine, and that little bit more likeable as you sympathise and relate to the characters on screen. We’ve all been there, that dream, that desire to do one thing that you thought would be amazing as a career, but end up doing something else. You always read about those that make it, but what if you don’t? It’s an interesting concept, and one that works so well as film that it’s almost a treasure.
Intelligent direction and a moving, but never sentimental, script provides a fascinating and immersive experience into lives that are actually rather mundane and pedestrian. It’s Im Soon-rye’s ability to take something that we all consider ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary. There is a story to be told about the things we take for granted, and the dreams we never chase, and Waikiki Brothers personifies those sentiments beautifully.
Verdict: An Intelligent, funny yet tragic film about running after an unattainable dream