Min & Max (2016)

For the most part, this was nothing more than a goofy, honestly quite stupid, but still lighthearted and funny film with a delightful female lead and some great romantic chemistry.

That is until possibly the stupidest scene I have ever seen in all of Asian media happened.

We watch the female lead be lured to an empty building in the middle of the night where she is then bombarded by a group of dancers gyrating in a semi-choreographed fashion to a song about literal twerking while the male lead plays the drums (which is apparently a new skill he developed between this scene and the last one) and then when this mess of a non-sensical performance is over, he confesses his love to her complete with a flying drone.

Because what every woman wants is for the man she loves to confess his love while people twerk in the background to the equivalent of a bootycall song.

Yes. That is a sentence...that exists. And that is a Scene...that also exists. *metaphorical throwing my hands up in utter mystification*

The side of my brain that wants stories to be logical and well-thought out can't fathom why anyone would choose that song for such a moment or want twerking dancers involved in a love confession, but then the part of my brain that stores all of the information I've collected about Asia over the years through their dramas and films and music understands Exactly why that song was chosen. Because Someone on that production team heard it and liked it and didn't know what the Literal Hell it was about.

But I'm digressing at this point, so let's get back to the actual review.

Truthfully, I wanted to quit watching the movie after this scene (it's so cringeeeeeeeey), but I went ahead and finished it anyway for review purposes, and the story ends...pretty much how you would expect this type of movie to end. There's a tragic reveal, followed by a big romantic gesture, and finally, the leads accepting their feelings for one another. I will admit the reveal that Min's 'boyfriend' is actually dead and what happened to him made me very sad for her character. The accident is emotional to watch, and you definitely can understand why she's been so traumatized since. The big, romantic gesture, on the other hand, didn't do anything for me, most likely because 1/3 of the way through the movie I'd already stopped being invested in the male lead because he stopped being interesting.

If you take out the ridiculous love confession, this is a really fun, if pretty stupid, movie with charming leads, and it does some interesting things with it's premise, even if I didn't personally find all of those things all that enjoyable or interesting. (One of the better parts of the film were all the little animated sidebars. They go a long way in helping you connect with and like the characters.)

I think a lot of people will probably like this movie and how goofy it is. Heck, me from 5 to 10 years ago probably would have really liked this movie. But me today? I'm not ever gonna watch this again, because I refuse to give that stupid confession more of my screen time, lol.

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