A Werewolf Boy (Neukdae Sonyeon)

If you are in the U.S., you can watch this movie on Netflix. But since I don't have a Netflix account, I watched it here. Disclaimer: I do not guarantee the safety of any link so make sure you have your anti-virus .

This was the winner of my last poll for which movie to review, but I think I will still work my way through the rest of the list before moving on to the K-drama winner (Reply 1997). It was probably a little unfair that so many votes came in for this film from people who never read my blog, but I'm not going to fuss about it because this was an entertaining story to watch. I will say that I wasn't as emotionally invested in this movie as I was with Secretly Greatly but that was only because the very last few minutes threw me all the way off. But let us start at the beginning.

In a magical woods...

We arrive at a creepy old house in the middle of the night...

Okay, not that creepy, but you get it.

...with a man carrying a bucket of raw meat out to a barn full of howling dogs (first impression) and a particularly ferocious sounding beast behind a door covered in locks. The man seems to be having some difficulty and soon collapses with what we think is a heart attack.

Yeah, something like that

Now onto the present day...

We start the movie in the U.S. with granny Kim SunYi (Lee YoungLan) waking up before dawn to beautify herself (because old people legit can't sleep in). Then later as she joins her son and his wife for breakfast with the grandkids, she receives a call from S. Korea that leaves her stone-faced and insistent on flying out on the next thing smoking.

That's what I keep sayin'

Once arriving in S. Korea in her finest airport fashion...

Looking good Granny Kim

...she is meet by her cutie patootie granddaughter, EunJoo (played by Park BoYoung).

The two make small talk before arriving at the reason for granny's trip. The old family homestead has been left to her and realtors would like buy it and bulldoze the property to make room for a new vacation spot. 

Did you know that if you visit GD's pension, you might get to meet his dog, Gaho? Apparently that's where he is being held captive.

Feeling nostalgic, Granny shares with Eun Joo that she first saw the place when she was her age and suddenly we are transported to the distant past (exactly 47 years earlier)

...when a much younger SunYi (also played by Park BoYoung) is standing outside of a still quite rundown country house with her mother, sister, new neighbors and an obnoxious rich boy that we will only refer to as WAH (short for 'What an ').

Crazy, , psycho...I still hate you.

Apparently our young lady has a lung condition and has come out to the coutryside to convalesce. But perhaps this is not the best place for her, as there is tale that the last resident of the home was a scientist who raised wolves in the old barn (remember our intro). With that tale in mind, SunYi wakes up to the sound of noises coming from the barn. Since this is a movie and characters do that we would never do in real life, SunYi grabs a flashlight and heads out to the barn IN THE DARK, ALONE, to investigate.

Low and behold, there IS something in the barn and it comes straight out of that locked room, knocking SunYi over and running off into the woods. Mom and sister come to check on SunYi along with the neighbors and once again we hear about the wolves. The next morning SunYi and her mom are in the front yard hanging laundry. In the shadows, SunYi sees a thing: the thing that attacked her last night. Calling for her mom, they discover it is not a thing, but A BOY!

And a hungry, dirty one at that.

Feeding him boiled potatoes, they lure him out of hiding and call the police to figure out what to do with their feral visitor. Apparently the police have been advised not to give a and so have the local social workers, so SunYi's mom decides to keep the boy as her foster son and names him Chul Soo (played by the very talented Song Joong Ki, who is now currently enlisted).

Yeah, he looks safe to keep around the kids

Chul Soo is a problem! Imagine dressing a stray dog in people clothes and inviting him to the dinner table...

How Rude! Utterly disgusted by his poor table manners, SunYi decides that if this boy is going to act like a dog then she will train him like one.

AND THE TRAINING WORKS. Maybe too good because you can see some deeper affection developing on the part of Chul Soo towards his master (possible love interest). Still fun times with the adorable puppy boy continue.

Until some red flags start to show that Chul Soo may be more than a wild boy.

That's not something NORMAL people walk away from

Most of the conflict in this story arises from WAH and his ultra evil ways. From what we find out when the family moved in the house, the father of the family died and the father's former business partner's son (yeah, that is kind of confusing) bought the house and is letting them stay there. Well, WAH is not doing this out of the kindness of his heart. He has his eye on SunYi and because Chul Soo is a good boy he senses evil and promptly chases off WAH.

But WAH is tireless in his evil ways. The real catalyst for the drama starts with him using a set of keys to sneak into the house late at night and creep into SunYi bedroom. On guard dog duty, Chul Soo chases the creeper out of the house and is met with a setup. Thugs hired by WAH are ready and waiting to beat down our puppy boy, but they wasn't ready for the Thriller.

This is scene scarred my brain as a child.

Chul Soo goes all Tasmanian devil on everyone and it lands him in jail with WAH shouting at the police to do something about the wolf boy. But we know how many s the police give, so no action really except that since WAH owns the house, Chul Soo has to go back out to the barn.

Still, even this is not enough for WAH. Using the information about the previous owner (the scientist) he has government authorities alerted and they reveal that our Chul Soo is actually a failed wolf/man hybrid experiment and that he may need to be destroyed if he is found violent. This leads to more severe house arrest and WAH concocting a plan to frame our wolfie.

And he ING does it. He kills a man and s with our naive little wolf's head and sets him up for the fall. But when his hubris over his victory gets the better of him and he starts attacking SunYi, that's when the douche bag finally gets his due.

Still, a kill is a kill and Chul Soo is in trouble. So he grabs SunYi and they steal off into the night for one last dog pile before the morning. A morning that leads to their goodbye...

Y'all...those were his first words...ever!

...and a last instruction.

Now normally I would ride this blog out to the end but I think that this particular movie is best served by watching the ending yourself. I won't lie...I hated the movie's end and felt it undid all the goodwill I had towards SunYi. But after a week's reflection, I now have a different theory. I think that the whole story is an allegory for the ideals of youth and the way we are forced to abandon our youthful idealism in order to grow up and only once we are fully matured can we revisit those things we left behind to fulfill our role in adult society. Under that light, I understand the movie just fine. But my heart still bristles at the thought that selfless adoration means nothing if the person you adore doesn't see you as their equal and in this story, while I think she loved him, I don't think she loved him anymore that a young girl could love her family pet.

If you have seen it, please tell me what you thought and how you felt because I have more words to share but they are probably not kind.