My Dear Enemy

It's an artful, slightly absurdist romance, reminiscent of the gender-war comedies of Hong Sang-soo (Woman on the Beach) but more straightforward, with its meanings, and its feelings, much closer to the surface.

It gets by on the subtle interplay of its contrasting leads, a welcome store of deadpan humor and, especially, Choi Sang-ho's gorgeous widescreen photography, which makes even a trip to an impound lot into a luminous, dusk-lit experience.

Lee Yoon-ki manages to retain a loose and quite entertaining atmosphere throughout the film, a sentiment that is even more heightened by Kim Jeong-beom's music that combines classic and latin jazz.

My Dear Enemy often threatens to turn into a conventional romantic comedy, but it ends up flirting with such bromides rather than indulging them.