The Mysterious Candy Store Jun Chun Dang (2026)

Magic Candies

Strange, both Korea and Japan have done a movie adaptation of the same novel at roughly the same time. From what I can tell, the source material is quite extensive, and each film only adapts selected stories, so there’s plenty of room for variation and additional tales in a potential sequel. This Korean version is divided into three titled chapters and three separate stories about children who visit a magical candy shop that grants their wishes packed in special candies, while in the background two magical women sell those sweets — one good, the other evil. The story is split into chapters, which makes it feel like the first three or four episodes of a planned Korean series of the same title that seems to be abandoned.

From a moral standpoint, I liked that the movie doesn’t simply promote the fulfilment of wishes; instead it teaches children that granting wishes can also have negative consequences, giving the movie an educational role as well. This is primarily a children’s movie, and to me as an adult viewer everything looked artificial, illogical, and above all cartoonish. Some might like the visual style of the movie which is rare for Korean Cinema, and reminds a little bit of Disney Fairytales. Of course in a world of magic anything is possible, but precisely because of that movie lacked some sense of internal logic. The child actors are solid, but I wasn’t satisfied with the adults. So this movie is not for me, but i am still glad to have seen it, if nothing, to add variety to my movie catalogue.

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