This is a set of very short transition scenes, sandwiched between two huge ones: the botched sogaetting with Jin Guk/bar meetup with Robin situation, and Yoon Mi's birthday party. The blind date situation is their first major misunderstanding, and it's aftermath is clearly shown in these scenes. Not a lot seems to be obvious in these sequences, but there is still much beneath the surface here.
Su-yeoung's persistence
While it was obvious to both Min-June and Su-yeoung that the date with Jin Guk failed, Su-yeoung is clearly invested in pushing this match forward: to the point where she insists Min-June is crazy for nipping this opportunity in the bud, and encourages Jin Guk himself to communicate with her through phone and in person.
Min-June finds herself having to handle two conversations on her way to work: a hugely exhausting one with Su-yeoung convincing her to agree to marry Jin-Guk, and an equally tiring one with an irate Robin who insists on reviewing the Maeda contract before time.
In the first one, her best friend's refusal to understand that she isn't interested in Jin Guk whatsoever frustrates her enough to cut their conversation short. In the second, she finds herself at the receiving end of Robin's frustration, unable to understand why he suddenly seems angry with her for no fault of hers (remember, at this point she doesn't even know he got the card).
Grandfather's Photograph
At this point professionally, Robin and his company are at their strongest. Mr Mistsiyoshi has caved in to their offer - faster than any of them expected - and Robin feels a sense of personal victory for getting the deal this far. How does he bask in his success? By remembering his grandfather, the man he's doing all of this for.
Remember how I mentioned Robin's obsession with his private space, and how much he dislikes any intrusions on it? This scene is a proof of that. Holding that photograph is Robin's private moment, and he reacts very strongly when Min-June encroaches on that space.
As soon as Robin notices Min-June, he instinctively jerks backwards, and turns his back to her so she won't notice his reaction. The audience gets to see what she doesn't - that he's almost gasping for breath and taking a moment to calm himself. Obviously, having his space invaded that way is a really, really big deal to him, and when it happens without enough time for him to prepare, he gets worked up and can't exactly communicate until he's properly composed himself.
We have plenty of evidence across the movie that establishes how guarded he is, besides this scene. His reaction to having his office cleaned, his anger at the fact that she threw his grandfather's uniform away, the way he grabs his grandfather's photograph from her hands in his hotel room. Taking that into account, it makes his trusting her in the end an even bigger deal.
What June Doesn't Know
Have you noticed that in the entire duration of the film, whatever interactions do take place within the office space tend to happen soon after there has been some misunderstanding of the sort? Let's take a look at the scenes shot in Robin's office:
1. In their first office scene, Min-June discovers Robin is her boss, and Robin subtly calls her out on lying to him and the company (about not knowing English, about her fake appendix operation).
2. Operation Angel, where she cleans his office and unknowingly throws away his grandfather's uniform.
3. This scene, where Robin is frustrated because he thinks she ditched him the previous day, and June has no clue he feels this way.
4. A few scenes later, where she calls her behaviour at Yoon Mi's party a mistake, and Robin misunderstands and thinks she is talking about their kiss.
5. Just before their big meeting with Mr Mitsiyoshi where both of them are aware of how they feel, but don't believe the other person cares for them that much. This is before Jennifer tells Min-June about Robin's past.
6. The final scene, where Robin apologizes to her.
Notice how the only times when misunderstandings are cleared are the first and the last scene in Robin's office? Every other scene that takes place there sees the two fumble around and struggle with their feelings towards each other, not knowing the turmoil the other person is going through.
Unlike the other outdoor locations where the two meet and talk, the office space is closed, formal. They speak freely about her love life at the hotel bar, are open emotionally to each other at the ferry and the bench outside his hotel. But most times, within the office space, any attempt at communication that doesn't involve work tends to leave more room for misunderstanding.
Min-June enters Robin's office believing he never got the note. Robin reacts to her believing she was asking for lessons she didn't seem to need. The tension between them from that botched meeting spills over to their interaction here. Here, Robin loses his temper at Min-June for not knowing about a piece of classified information on Maeda that could give them an edge in their dealings with the company (a company that, in fact, they're pretty close to acquiring, if we go by Robin's conversation with Steven but a few minutes back).
Robin's frustration isn't about her not knowing this piece of classified information. Not at all. She's botched things up before, and he's had no problem giving her opportunities to correct that. He also knows she does her work well, trusts her abilities, and when she doesn't know something he doesn't mind filling her in and keeping her in the loop. It's obvious, both by Min-June's reaction to his outburst, and the way he lowers his voice immediately after, that this is something he doesn't do, and this sort of reaction from him is unexpected.
As I have mentioned in the previous scene, Robin's irritation seems to lie more in his reaction towards her. He doesn't expect to feel the way he does, doesn't expect to be so affected by her actions...but the truth is that he is and there isn't much he can do about it.
It's possible that Robin started out believing that his attraction towards Min-June didn't run too deep, and that she could not affect him beyond that (as proved by the challenge to make him beg, and his reaction to her subsequent attempts to change his mind). I feel like this mindset has begun to change post Min-June's sogaetting.
By this point, he's beginning to feel he's more invested than he likes to admit, and this clearly frustrates him. It doesn't justify Robin's irrational actions towards her in this scene, but it helps us understand why.
"Hi, Jennifer!"
This sequence of scenes is perhaps the first time Jennifer's name is taken up in the movie, almost an hour after her appearance in the very first scene. Nonetheless, it's a tiny nod to what her eventual role in this film will be. The woman who seems to be a rival against Min-June for Robin's affections, but ultimately someone who values her friendship, and her friend's well-being over any feelings she may have.
"Hi, Jennifer" is something Robin says while Min-June is on her way out, humiliated and livid. Since his outburst was about her work, you'd expect her to probably imitate him on that, but no: it's the last thing he says - to another woman - that she focuses on instead.
Shortly after this, her younger colleague Yoon Mi (she calls Min-June by the honorific unnie*, which establishes her as the senior in their working relationship) comes out, dressed up to the nines for her birthday, obviously in a style Min-June hasn't seen her in before. When the latter comments that Yoon Mi's clothes might be too revealing for their fellow colleagues, the younger woman reveals to her that she's playing up to Robin's tastes ("sexy, big-breasted women") a statement that Min-June pays very close attention to.
The bathroom scene makes it clear - once again - how singular her focus towards Robin is. Since he's tossed that challenge her way, Min-June hasn't been able to think of anything else besides proving him wrong, and she invests real time, money and energy into making it happen. She's more invested in making this almost-stranger change his mind than she would like to admit. From this point on, she goes all-out: clothes she rarely wears and doesn't seem exactly comfortable in, mingling at the party and ensuring she continuously catches Robin's attention. Truth be told...she is as invested in what Robin thinks, as Robin is in her.
This set of sequences acts as a good bridge between two sequences, rich with tension and intent on showing us how little these two characters know about each other, and their own feelings.
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* unnie: the honorific term used by younger women to address older ones. Younger men, on the other hand, use noona to address older women (something Min-June's boyfriend Ju-hyeoung should be calling her - being younger to her in age - but she allows him not to).
So I passed the test, right? Let’s meet up at the hotel bar at 7 for the real lesson. Oh! Enjoy the lunch box - June.
The note. The thing that starts it all. The thing that starts out at as one of June’s heavy botched operations - only that it hasn’t failed the way she thinks it has. The thing that shows us for certain that, despite everything, Robin isn’t completely immune to June’s charms.
It is clear that while June may not particularly admit to liking Robin, things have changed between them after the Brighton deal. Which is why in the scene where she prepares the lunch box, in the dead of night, she seems to shake herself and say The operations must go on. No matter what. Almost as if her new dynamic with Robin is distracting her from her goal.
June seems to slightly miss the mark here too. As with Operation Angel, preparing a special lunchbox personally for him calls for a certain amount of intimacy that they haven’t reached yet. The movie has given us enough indications of how he feels about having his space invaded, for him to comfortably take what June is giving him. Preparing lunch for someone at work is a very intimate, taking-care-of-a-loved-one thing to do, and for a hoarder who doesn’t like to even have his office touched, partaking of that lunch (especially if he nursed secret feelings for the person who made it) would definitely feel like too much too soon. It’s no wonder then that he takes the note, and passes the box to Yoon Mi.
June sees this differently. She sees it as yet another rejection of her efforts, yet another reason to believe he wants to have nothing to do with her. She assumes that since he’s not even opened the box, he wouldn’t have noticed the note either.
Su-yeoung Tries To Help
We don't see Su-yeoung much in the film, even though she is June's best friend. A phone call in the beginning of the film, and two scenes where she is seen aggressively pushing to get June back into the dating scene.
What we do know is that Su-yeoung has had her fair share of disappointment in her own relationships. She has been married once and by the way she speaks of love in this scene, she seems to have changed to a more 'practical' mindset in contrast to June's, which is clearly more emotional and romantic.
However, having being brought up in a culture that does value both love and marriage as an eventual goal (for instance, one does not bring one's significant other to meet the parents unless they're certain of getting married soon), Su-yeoung controls the situation the way any Korean friend would - by arranging a sogeatting.
A sogaetting (소개팅) is a kind of introductory meeting that's often set up between strangers through a mutual friend. Approaching someone you do not know is not very common in South Korea, so it usually falls on a third person to introduce the couple and to stick around in case the meeting isn't going as well as planned. If the two hit it off, the mutual friend leaves them to decide how to take things forward.
Su-yeoung's motives are very straightforward: get June to move on from Ju-yeoung, with someone. Anyone.
Ju-hyeoung may have receeded far, far behind in June's mind, but there is a part of her that clearly isn't completely over him yet. June isn't the kind of let go of her relationships that easily - she tends to not give up on a person unless there is no way even she can ignore the red flags. That's just the way she is. So when her best friend insults Ju-hyeoung, she is immediately defensive.
This is an important distinction to make, because it gives us a better idea of why June would agree so easily to getting back with him later on, just as she has begun to realise her feelings for Robin.
The Note
The scene splits into two halves: one that shows us June's disastrous date with Jin-guk, and another that shows us Robin waiting for June for an entire hour. We don't get a lot of opportunities to see Robin's point of view on certain things, but the film teases us with enough to recognize that what he feels towards June and what he shows are two different things. It's in this scene that we learn that Robin didn't completely ignore the lunchbox, that he kept her note with him...and most importantly, that he's very, very happy to see her that evening.
We also don't get many scenes of Robin shedding his impenetrable sheild and being vulnerable. The times that we do are mostly associated with his past - his grandfather's belongings and occasionally his bullet wound. Robin is depicted as a hoarder; someone who holds on to his memories and keeps them to remind himself of how far he has come, and why his present is what it is.
This is the only time perhaps we see Robin actually show some attachment to something he has received in the present, that he keeps to himself, that he allows himself a private moment of joy (for instance, he tilts his head slightly while reading it, an action we see him do only with his grandfather's photograph). He first looks around to see if no one is looking, and only then gives himself the luxury of letting his guard down. And this is especially surprising given that he always chooses enclosed settings where he is completely alone - like his room or the office - to reflect on these things.
I think it's a mark of how deeply June has affected him that this intensely private man can't help but fondly re-read a casual, friendly note she has sent him, in a setting as public as a hotel bar.
Sogaetting
By sogaetting standards, the meeting between Jin-guk and Min-june is an unmitigated disaster. Su-yeoung only knows him as a friend of a friend, and June herself has her doubts even before the date has begun.
Marriage in Korea is usually a topic reserved either for when a couple have become really serious, or when it is a matsun (맞선) which involves matchmakers/relatives and where the entire aim of the meeting is marriage itself. While there are people who do date with marriage in mind, a sogaetting is hardly the appropriate place to jump into discussions about weddings, especially with almost no input from the potential "bride".
But Jin-guk? Goes straight for the jugular. Starts talking about wedding preparations: how their families will travel to the venue, the perfect place for venue and stay, consulting a family Taoist. He goes as far as to speak of the money the bride should be spending on their travel, reminding her of her potential place in his life and what he thinks her duties are. He presumes this is what she wants, presumes he is a good enough catch that it doesn't even occur to him that she may not want this, and in fact doesn't even care. June barely gets to even speak in this "conversation". She is so uncomfortable, in fact, that she has to hide in a restroom to escape him.
To make things worse, Su-yeoung enables his behaviour, fawning over him and agreeing to everything he says ("oh, a hotel? That's just fabulous!" "I love having my fortune told!"), eventually encouraging the match and calling June crazy when the latter states that she isn't interested. It's clear that by this point June has found herself in a tight spot.
Blind Date
There are two reasons the blind date/bar scene is so important:
1. It is the first of many misunderstandings in their romance. It works to keep the couple apart, keep them from even guessing that the other person might love them: so that when Robin tells June how he feels in the end, the revelation is that much more emotional.
2. More importantly, it highlights a pretty huge cultural gap between Robin and June.
For the most part Robin has fit in rather well to his new environment, despite his struggle with the language. He is respected by his peers and subordinates in the office, is able to navigate his work space without too many hiccups, seems at home with the way his juniors address him. He seems so at home, in fact, that it would easy to assume that he would know a great deal about Korean culture outside the office as well.
However, the film gives us enough hints of his struggle to understand certain aspects of Korean culture. One is the usage of certain slang words, such as piksari and tungchigi, which June has to explain to him. Another is his lack of knowledge about how marriage and meeting the girl's family works, leaving him to commit a huge faux pas in front of her father.
Robin has no idea what a sogaetting is. When June translates the same into a word that seems more accessible to him ("blind date"), she unknowingly leaves out the cultural context of how a sogaetting works and who facilitates it. "Blind date", for Robin and June, mean very different things. For June it is an arranged meeting that mostly just allows for further casual interactions to test the waters. To Robin, it could range from being merely introduced by a common friend (who won't be as involved as someone facilitating a sokaetting would, possibly?) to an actual date, which involves flirting and possibly sex if both parties are interested. This is possibly also why he assumes straightaway that she spent the night with her date as well.
This is where Robin gets not only angry, but also confused. This is someone who has gone to great lengths to get him to wait at that bar, including cooking for him and slipping in a note that specifically mentioned a time and a place. This is also someone who, he assumes, ditched her plans with him to date someone else, and didn't so much as give him a head's up about doing so (part of this is also his fault: he never lets June know that he received the note, even though he was aware that she found out Yoon Mi had the box). When the truth, really, is that she agonized over having her meticulously prepared lunch rejected, worried about losing the note, was tricked into spending an evening with an overenthusiastic friend and a man who bored her to tears, and spent the night wrestling with her brother over the takeout bill.
A lot of what Robin does here is pretty alien to the character we know thus far. He gets starry-eyed over a note, waits an entire hour for the woman who wrote it, calls her twice to find out why she didn't make it, and is tense and angry enough to warrant letting off some steam on the treadmill. None of this works, so he calls her again, unable to just let the matter go.
Let's remember that so far, Robin has been all about control. He exercises control over his relationships and over his feelings, because he knows the consequences of letting someone else have power over him. He views relationships as a game - which means he would prefer to detach himself emotionally from the other person involved, and not be affected by their actions. So when June "ditches" him, he's immediately riled up, instantly jealous, and just as instantly frustrated that he's giving her this much power over him. Part of his anger lies in the fact that she's affecting him in a way that's making him break half his rules.
He is also angry because, for the first time in possibly a long while, he was genuinely happy about something, genuinely looking forward to meeting up with someone, and her (supposed) lack of concern has ruined that moment for him. He is still thinking on the lines of what he thinks a date would look like, and assumes June's actions by those parameters. Owing to the issues he carries from his past relationship, Robin definitely seems like a man doesn't like feeling like he doesn't matter, and that's how he feels around June right now.
June never gets the opportunity (until just before their cruise trip) to clear this up with him, owing to multiple assumptions: that he never got the note, that he was calling her from some random place just to ask the time, that he thinks she is pathetic. First because she thinks the note has gotten lost somewhere, then because her cell battery died out on her. So she is left thinking he doesn't particularly care, and Robin is left thinking that he means nothing to her besides a man who can teach her the rules of the game. It's an impression of himself that makes him even more reluctant to admit how he feels about her - both to himself and to her. It's an impression of himself that he carries to the rest of the film.
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*A lot of what I said about sogaetting I picked up from whatever I had read and watched. Korean readers, if I've gotten any of this wrong, I'm really sorry. Please do not hesitate to point it out so I can make corrections.
In the hotel room scene, Robin insults June by calling her a 386 to his Pentium, and then makes a suggestion to her. If she is able to prove herself at work, he will agree to coach her on the rules of the relationship game.
Not only must she prove her abilities, she must also pitted against a very talented co-worker and friend, Brian Hong. So far we have only seen Brian in two scenes: commenting on her weight on her first day back post her "surgery", and later teasing her about her “wild night” with Ju-hyeoung, asking June if the latter might be possibly cheating on her.
Both are co-workers, but the movie implies that Brian’s abilities are acknowledged more often than June’s are. When June asks her senior why she was chosen as Robin’s assistant, he draws a blank. When Robin puts forward June’s name for the Brighton deal, both Brian and the senior seem shocked and skeptical at first. Later on in the movie, June’s senior calls Brian the “hidden brain” of the company, an assessment every one else seems to agree with. In fact, the only indication made of her talents come from Robin, and Robin alone.
We see only a tiny part of the meeting (interspersed by a shot of Yoon-Mi chattering away on the phone before she is asked whether the meeting is still going on, implying that it is taking longer than expected) where Brian and June make their respective presentations. June stays silent throughout the entire exchange, allowing the men in the room their time to shine before she speaks up so that when she does, it’s unmistakable that she holds the trump card.
This is very similar to the strategy she uses at the Maeda party, where she poses as a reporter and allows the two Englishmen to dominate the conversation before she humiliates them into telling the truth through a rumour. Robin may not have witnessed her in action in this instance, but he has definitely benifitted from her tactics.
Brian and the senior express shock when she outlines her strategy, but Robin is shown to be suppressing a smile. Both in this sequence and in the subsequent one where the Brighton deal actually takes place, Robin seems to express a lot of pride in all that she has managed to do.
I feel this sequence is important mainly because of the conversations that occur once they return to the office. June is visibly pleased with her performance and confident that they’ve done enough to seal the deal, but Robin - in classic Robin fashion - doesn’t openly reveal how happy with her performance he really is, choosing instead to say “don’t assume anything until the contract is signed”.
Once they’re out of the elevator, they meet Brian, whose morale seems to have lowered slightly since he was bested by June for the deal.
While on first watch it looks like only June seems to show concern for him, it is clear that both try in their own ways to make it easier on him. Robin, who isn’t one for grand gestures or exposition, gives him an encouraging pat in the back, while a visibly awkward June gives him an apologetic glance.
She then admits to Robin that she feels sorry for Brian, a sentiment that irritates Robin…enough for him to step outside his role as boss and berate her on letting her emotions and sensitivity get the better of her.
This sequence acts as a way of showing us a subtle transition in their relationship, making way for the bar/blind date scene. Before this, the two shared a largely cordial working relationship interspersed with occasional, and deeply personal, conversations outside of work. Giving June a chance to carry such a huge project on her shoulders shifts the balance slightly, shows us that Robin values her abilities and sees her as an asset to the company. It is clear that no one has given her such opportunities before.
How do we know this? On the elevator, June speaks excitedly, in terms that indicate that no one has ever trusted her with a project so huge in all her years in the company (Gosh, I can’t believe it. Me getting such a big deal). Her senior express his doubts when Robin first suggests involving June in his team, and both he and Brian are shocked when June proves them wrong. Robin on the other hand shows a healthy bit of confidence in her and expresses pride in being proven right. Prior to this, he has commented on her ability to decieve people when the occasion calls for it, and has witnessed firsthand that she can think on her feet and come up with solutions even when she has significantly messed up an operation. It is clear that Robin sees something in her professionally that others don’t.
However, while June seems to be an extremely talented businesswoman and an efficient employee, her lack of boundaries in relationships seems to extend to her attitude to work as well. June seems to forget that she had won the deal from Brian in a fair fight, that she deserved the deal. In fact Brian himself does not begrudge her her success, as is obvious from their interactions at Yoon Mi’s party (June and Brian sit together, she cheers him on when their senior calls him on stage, he encourages her to join him in karaoke).
June doesn’t need to feel bad for showing her skills at work or besting Brian, she doesn’t need to allow her friendship with him to colour her perceptions of her own success. Robin - who has already spoken of how her empathetic, giving nature hurts her more than it helps - seems almost angry at this display of sadness, to the point where he brings up her relationships (something he has never done in their office space so far). He seems to take this aspect of her very, very personally.
From June’s side, there is very little change that actually happens in her perception of Robin. She still sees him largely as someone who is cold, aloof, critical of her thoughts and actions. She still sees him as a man she must beat at his own game. The transformation that does happen, happens from Robin’s side. We finally see what he sees in her, see why he would want to choose her as an assistant, see his respect for her as a professional. Without this set of sequences, perhaps his visible adoration of her in some of the scenes following, would have felt a little jarring.
Very often romcoms will have a lead couple, and a beta couple that will complement/offset them. The beta couple tends to comprise usually of people connected to one or both of the leads, and their story tends to move along with less conflict than them. The leads could look to the beta couple for inspiration on how to work on their relationship, or find themselves mirrored in them. Usually the beta couple tends to involve people who are friends/siblings/exes of one of the main characters.
In this movie however, none of Robin or June’s friends seem to fit the bill. Robin’s best friend Jennifer makes her entry in the last third of the movie, and June’s best friend Su-yeoung hardly features for more than two scenes, and while she seems to pay a lot of attention to Jin-guk (June’s blind date) there is never any indication given that Jin-guk and Su-yeoung are interested in each other.
There is one couple that features from time to time in the movie, and whose story holds some parallels to June’s romance with Robin - and that happens to be June’s parents. Not much is seen of Mr. and Mrs. Kim, but the little we do see of them tells us plenty.
Our first glimpse of Mr. Kim is at his bookstore, where a very subdued June seeks his advice and company immediately after her harrowing conversation with Robin. He strikes us at first sight as a jovial but uncannily perceptive man, noticing his daughter’s swollen eyes and correctly guessing that she’s drunk a little before making her way here. He does not offer any judgement on either of these things - just points them out and leaves the subject when June doesn’t give him a straight answer. June notes that she can talk to her father like he is a friend, unlike many of her peers, and Mr. Kim remarks that it could be because they could be “growing old together” - a comment that irritates June, given what Robin had just said about her growing old alone.
June’s mother, on the other hand, is portrayed as being reserved and not very keen on showing the people she loves how she feels, nor do her children/husband feel the need to openly shower her with affection. June clearly acts differently around her mother than she does around her father: she admits to her father that she drank a bottle of beer when he asks her, and plays innocent when her mother asks her the same question. And it’s for good reason: as soon as her suspicions are confirmed, Mrs. Kim punishes her the way one would punish an errant child. Mr. and Mrs. Kim couldn’t be any more different from each other.
It comes as a surprise to June, then, that the scrapbook Mr Kim is perusing so lovingly happens to be a 34-year-old gift from Mrs. Kim, and even he tells her I can’t quite believe it either. It’s interesting that the scrapbook shows up in this scene, following the scene where June has her first major disagreement with Robin. Mrs Kim’s act of preserving memories of her relationship with Mr Kim shocks both father and daughter because she hardly seems to show this level of romanticism in their regular lives, and in this I feel she resembles Robin. He doesn’t do grand romantic gestures or acts of giving very often, but he does show he cares in small - almost subtle enough to miss - ways (keeping her note, adjusting her head to his shoulder when she’s drunk and semi-unconscious, agreeing to help her with lessons even though it hurts him).
Mrs Kim also features in the scene where June is preparing the lunchbox for Robin, asking her why she’s preparing such an elaborate meal so late at night. In my mind, this creates another link between Mrs Kim and Robin’s characters - because this, among a few other scenes, leads us to show us - the audience - a tendency in Robin that mirrors Mrs. Kim: the need to hoard things from people who matter, while simultaneously keeping their distance. Mrs Kim shows no outward affection towards her husband, but hoards all their memories together into a beautiful, painstakingly-decorated scrapbook. Robin passes the lunchbox to Yoon Mi, reluctant to partake in something as intimate and homey as eating the food June has cooked for him, but keeps the note.
Mr. Kim plays a far bigger role in the last hour of the movie, when a drenched, confused June confides in him about Robin. She doesn’t take his name, but explains to her father how Robin blew up at her over almost getting run over by a car, and also that she senses his feelings for her in that outburst. Mr Kim correctly guesses that both are in love with each other, which June vehemently denies. She begins by stating that she “doesn’t even like him, much less love”, even though she has just poured her heart out to Robin in the previous scene in a way she has never done with any of her lovers. When it comes to Robin, however, she pauses and then dismisses the idea because he is “too cold” to her. It is here that Mr. Kim mouths one of the movie’s pearls of wisdom: Words do not always express one’s feelings. You have to read the eyes! People can lie with their words, but not with their eyes.
And who does Mr. Kim use as an example?
Mrs. Kim, of course!
June is a lot like her father, in that they’re both warm, affectionate, slightly chatty people who like talking their problems out and showing how they feel. Mr Kim has spent more than 30 years with a wife who loves him and their children, but who shows it more by her actions than her words. Up until this moment, all June’s assumptions that Robin doesn’t like her stem from what he says to her, rather than his actions. In his regular speech to her, he can be cold, distant, critical when the need arises, and crabby when he’s jealous. But his actions - waiting for her at the bar, the ferry ride, taking her home when she’s drunk, being available for her whenever she requires his assistance, going crazy with worry when she almost gets hit by a car - reveal exactly how deeply she affects him.
Ironically, June’s attempt to reach out to him backfires when she finds out that he’s leaving for the States, and overhears a conversation with Jennifer where Robin vehemently denies that June means anything to him beyond just being “a woman I work with”. She goes by his words that he doesn’t care, almost missing his look of devastation when she lies to him about getting married.
It is in the montage following this sequence that we finally get a good view of Mrs. Kim’s scrapbook, filled not only with pictures of June’s parents but sketches, dried leaves and flowers and writing. Mrs Kim is a woman of very few words, but one look at this scrapbook and it is clear that she has invested a lot of time, effort and love into creating it, into showing her husband that whatever they have had together matters to her.
Robin eventually reaches this stage, when he whispers mianhae (“I’m sorry”) to her at the end of the movie. It may not be as creative as putting a whole scrapbook together, but involves a great deal of emotional energy from Robin, and a great deal of self-reflection: something he wasn't as capable of doing in the beginning of the movie. It is June’s action of telling his story to Mitsoyishi that helps Robin realise she cares for him, and that encourages him to finally open his heart to her.
The above scene is seen as taking place after their confession in the final cut of the movie, but is really part of a set of deleted scenes that were set in the days between Robin’s going-away party and the Maeda takeover (I will explain this further in the scene analysis set aside for those scenes). Mrs Kim is shown as being happy about Robin’s possible relationship with June (we’re never told why: it could be because he’s a wealthy, established man who has taken an interest in her daughter), and Mr. Kim is shown as being doubtful and slightly skeptical of this new man in June’s life - eventually threatening to throw him out when he believes Robin won’t marry her at all (thanks to June’s brother completely messing up the translation).
Even though this scene was supposed to feature before their actual confession in the office, it is interesting that in the final cut, the movie closes with a meeting of these two couples, whose dynamic and conflicts so closely mirror each other.
The bar scene counts as one of my favourite scenes in Seducing Mr Perfect. Sometimes, on first watch, it feels very much like the jaded asshole boss insulting his angelic assistant for not being jaded enough (the more angelic person will eventually be proven right in the end. And yes, June is proven right - but not without learning some very important life lessons of her own). But there is so much more going on this scene that you tend to take away something new every time you watch it.
To truly understand what’s going on in this scene, we need to rewind a bit and look at some of the scenes linking the car ride scene and this one.
As mentioned in my last post, the car ride sequence ends with a montage of Robin settling into his new hotel room, and June waiting in vain for her boyfriend to celebrate his birthday with her. The scene following this reveals a tired, worn June, with bags under eyes and a face that clearly reveals that she hasn’t had much sleep.
Here, her colleague Brian teases her about her “wild night”, only to have her retort that Ju-hyeoung never came to her flat at all. Robin, who is close enough to them to overhear the conversation, smugly replies that his assessment that Ju-hyeoung is hiding something from her is right.
Shortly after (possibly that night, or a few nights afterwards), Robin asks June to come to a rather fancy Italian restaurant, presumably for work, and June catches her boyfriend there with another girl. While she vows to confront him in a manner different from her other breakups, she quickly loses her composure and publically berates him for cheating on her.
June’s fight with Ju-hyeoung here reveals to us two things about their relationship:
1. Ju-hyeoung accuses June of not giving him enough “space”, and blames her for his decision to cheat. The irony of it all is that when she goes out with him again, he claims to miss the old her, the ‘pleasure bunny’. We don’t seem to have seen much of their relationship, but the little that we do see shows us that Ju-hyeoung only ever saw June as someone worth anything when she was sleeping with him, and when she blindly trusted him enough for him to abuse her trust whenever he wanted to.
2. It takes a lot for June to end a relationship. Even when she has caught Ju-hyeoung cheating on her red-handed, she begs him to come home with her so they can talk this out instead. It’s a reasonable solution to her immediate problem, but it also shows us that June is still trying as hard as she can to ignore some very obvious red flags, even when they’re right in front of her. Even though they have broken up, June still insists that her best friend talk of him with respect, and it doesn’t take very long for Ju-hyeoung himself to convince her to get back with him. Fortunately, by the time he does, she recognizes that she needs to take charge of her role in the relationship this time around, thanks - in part - to Robin.
Robin appears in front of her only after Ju-hyeoung has left, but it is entirely possible that he’s witnessed at least part of the fight. If he has, there are chances that he has at least seen June try to convince her boyfriend to come home with her, and remembered being in a similar situation (Jennifer does tell June later that Robin couldn’t let go of his ex for over a year before she shot him). This sets the tone for their conversation at the bar in the hotel where Robin stays.
Starcraft
I don’t know a lot about this game, but the little I do know says plenty about Robin’s own thoughts on relationships. Starcraft is a sci-fi themed Real-Time Strategy Game, where players harvest resources and spend them on constructing units and buildings and on research. Strategy is very important in this game, as the main aim is to make sure your units overpower those of your opponents. One loses the game when one’s buildings have been destroyed.
What does it mean that Robin views love as a play of strategy and June doesn’t? It means that both have vastly different approaches to how they view partners. June sees a partner, Robin sees an opponent. June believes in wearing her heart on her sleeve, Robin believes in holding all his cards close to his chest. June wants to be open and free with her lovers, lavishing them with concern and affection. Robin wants to maintain power in his relationships, so displays of affection, if any, will be hidden behind layers and layers of attitude. We see this kind of approach, too, in the lessons he gives June: one of which involves “training your opponent on how to treat you like a queen”. Relationships aren’t just a game to Robin. They’re a battlefield, and he’s not about to lose his life in one again.
Memories
Compare Robin’s facial expressions in this dialogue, to other conversations he has had, or will have later, with June (the “he’s hiding something” dialogues, his lessons, the Pentium comment), and you will notice a marked difference. When he correctly guesses June’s way of doing relationships, his body language seems more relaxed, his expression less stiff and guarded, and there is a hint of laughter in his voice. If you observe his facial expressions and eyes in this scene, you might also find a certain wistfulness in the way he describes these actions. Almost as if he’s run the same gauntlet himself.
The movie doesn’t expand much on Robin’s relationship with his ex (one of my main problems with what is an otherwise amazing movie). All we know is that he loved her more than she did him, she left him for another man, he couldn’t let go, she shot him. The possibilities for how this relationship could have been are endless, and could range from Robin being a creepy stalker to his ex being manipulative. But there are tiny hints, and you could find most of them in this scene.
Robin isn’t only correctly deducing June’s way of handling relationships. He’s also giving us a glimpse of what he used to be like.
I think this scene shows us that Robin, at one time, used to be exactly like June. Notice how he pauses at the “and” before he talks about anniversaries and the way his tone softens. Notice how playful he looks when June confirms what he has said, and asks him how he knows. And it’s worth it to also notice how guarded he becomes again, with his response:
Robin sidesteps June’s actual question here, which is if he’s had personal experience. You will notice throughout the film that he finds it extremely hard to share things that are personal to him. Even when he’s trying to make sense of how he feels about June later on in the story, he is reluctant to openly show any affection or talk about how he feels. This is something he struggles with even towards the end - it is Jennifer who has to give June background on his past relationship, and Robin only reveals his grandfather’s connection to Maeda when June aggressively questions him on why they need to change the name.
But the way he frames this answer leads me to believe that he has done many of the same things, and had been as involved in his past relationship as June is now. I believe this scene also exists so that we see Robin as someone who used to be like June, and his character arc involves learning to be a wiser version of that person rather than this detached, jaded man.
This is why he goes extra hard with his criticism of her way of doing relationships. He’s seen what happens when you give that much of yourself to a person, and cannot understand why June would still want it live that way.
Treated Like Trash
This is where Robin unknowingly really crosses the line. This is a rather blunt man. As long as it doesn't require much emotional input from him, he will be honest. Most times, he simply calls it as he sees it. And in this case he believes that in doing so he's giving June valuable advice. But his words are extremely harsh and his opinion of her - to June herself - seems considerably low.
So take my advice, and this is sincere, so listen to me. If you continue on acting like this, being so…pathetic, you will always be treated like trash by men. And you’ll grow old, all by yourself.
As I have said in the previous section, Robin has been through the agony of loving someone more than they loved him. He’s also possibly been through the emotional stress of being always available for someone who probably wouldn’t make time for him or give him importance. It’s entirely possible for him to relate to June to the extent that he would want to give her the kind of advice that he feels he should have gotten from someone.
He has most likely seen her beg a man who betrayed her to return to him, an action that rankles because he’s done it a million times over in his first relationship. And then to learn that she’s faced this over three relationships? It’s beyond Robin’s own comprehension. A younger, more naive Robin would have understood this better, but he has moved too far away from that person to even believe he exists anymore. Plus, it is a fact that he is depicted constantly in the film as being truly lonely, with very few friends or people he actually trusts. Growing old, all by himself, isn’t a very impossible future in Robin’s case. So I believe that when he is calling her pathetic, it’s not just an opinion on her, but on his past self as well.
But June sees this very differently, and for good reason. From her point of view, it sounds like Robin is doing the same thing her boyfriends have done - blaming her for the way she’s been treated. She hears “you will be treated like trash" as something Robin feels she deserves, and “you’ll grow old, all by yourself” as a comment on her own worth. These statements stand out to her, considering she repeats them in her tirade against him here, and she hears him say them in her nightmare as well. As far as she is concerned, this stranger saunters in, calls her pathetic, blames her for being who she is in her relationships and tells her it’s her own fault that men are being assholes to her. Especially during a time when she’s vulnerable and hurting and her wounds are still very raw, Robin's remarks are the equivalent of rubbing salt over them.
Apologize!
This scene is the game-changer in the movie. The pivot on which the main plot rests, the moment that changes their equation for the rest of the film, the mirror scene to the eventual climax. In romantic comedies like this one, it is always possible to find a scene where an arrogant lead character may find themselves throwing a challenge at their love interest, only to gladly lose to them in the end. This trope is very cliche, granted, but it is also used pretty effectively here.
It matters to June that Robin apologizes for what he has said. She wanted something specific out of her exchange with him: comfort, kindness, empathy - and was left with very painful judgements on her opinions and behaviour instead. These are judgements that continue to haunt her beyond this scene, and later when she speaks of missing her old self, she berates herself on similar lines by calling herself “hopeless”.
It is also a testament to how much Robin is growing to matter to her, that this one throwaway comment on her affects her much more deeply than even Ju-hyeoung’s break up with her did. From this point onwards, her focus is entirely on proving Robin wrong and beating him at his own game. Her physical and emotional energies in the movie are spent so extensively on winning him over that she almost forgets about Ju-hyeoung until he finally returns.
The interesting thing about this scene is viewing it with the knowledge that Robin has already begun to have feelings for her here. He tells her, at the very end of the movie, that he wanted to kiss her from the moment he saw the smeared lipstick mark across her face. Even though he seems extremely cold towards her, the film hints at him unknowingly showing he cares about her in different ways. The least obvious, but very implicit, one is this: June and Robin were supposed to be meeting up for work. June even refers to him as a slave-driver for making her do it over dinner. But the moment he sees her alone, heartbroken and vulnerable, he pushes the work aside immediately, takes her to the bar at the hotel he stays in, lets her have a beer and listens quietly as she pours out details about her love life and failures to him. He follows this up with advice that he sincerely believes will help June, only for it to backfire when June points out how cruel his words were.
What does it mean when he throws this challenge at her, fully aware that he is starting to like her? I think it shows how high his level of confidence is that he won’t be swayed by anyone. No matter how she makes him feel, he’s certain that he will be able to hide it and gain control over it, and that June will never be able to get under his skin. And that’s where he gets it all wrong.
Why is it so important for the story to make Robin apologize? He spells it out to you here itself. He never apologizes for anything. He seems to believe that he is right in what he says and does, and that he doesn’t need to change that line of thinking for anyone. By having him spell it out here - and by many of his actions in the movie - we are led to believe that Robin needs to undergo a very gradual, very deep transformation for him to even admit how wrong he is. It makes his apology towards the end that much more poignant, because one can really feel the change in him and how his experiences with June have transformed him for the better.
I think he poses the challenge mostly because he feels certain she won’t take him up on it. I’m not sure he is entirely serious when he tells her this - not because she can’t, but because he’s sure she won’t. Here, too, he’s pretty wrong. If Kim Min-June is given a challenge, you can bet your last bottle of soju that she will tackle it. Or at least try.
Departure
June leaves the bar angry, frustrated and slightly drunk, with Robin looking on. She tells us that she was hoping for a confidante, someone who offered comfort rather than judgement - it’s not your fault, they just weren’t the right men for you - and Robin is at a point where he is incapable of providing that.
But he will echo this very sentiment sometime in the future, at a time when he’s beginning to rethink his own principles.
A lot happens in the car scene. And I mean A LOT. Till now Robin and June have been squabbling strangers in their first scene, boss-and-assistant in their second and co-conspirators at the Maeda party. But this scene not only sets up things to get a little more personal between them, but also brings up little things that will later become important to the story. I will be dividing each of them into sections:
Language Barrier
The film tells us, straight off the bat, that the language barrier between Robin and June is almost non-existant. June has a pretty high level of proficieny with the English language, owing to her work environment, and is capable of using it fluently when the occasion demands it. Robin is said to have mastered five languages (and we see him speak at least three in the film: English, Korean and Japanese) and can understand just about everything said to him in Korean. They use their native tongues with each other because that’s what they are most comfortable with, and communication flows seamlessly between them.
However, it is only natural that Robin - who is familiar with only certain aspects of Korean culture - will struggle to understand some of the finer nuances. That includes slang and turns-of-phrases, as well as things that only someone who has lived in Seoul can understand. This doesn’t seem very obvious in the movie, but we do get hints.
When Robin compliments June on a job well done, June uses the word “piksari”, a colloquial word Robin isn’t familiar with, and means “mistake”. She does this so Robin doesn’t give her undue credit: she knows that her success could be attributed more to the executives’ stupidity than to her own skills.
The other colloquial word used here is tungchigi, which seems like a variation of “call it even”, when referring to the matter of paying the bill for his car. I helped you bag the company you wanted, so naturally I don’t need to pay.
None of this seems important to the viewers now, but it serves nonetheless as an indication that Robin might have a tough time understanding certain aspects of the culture. We see this in the way he misunderstands the concept of sogetting (basically a blind date where a mutual friend introduces two people, often with the aim of marriage) at the June/Jin-guk date. We see it in the way he interacts with June’s father at the end. To his credit, Robin may not seem like a fish-out-of-water, but there are certain things that - as an American - escape him. This has the potential to create misunderstandings between them.
He’s Hiding Something
June’s boyfriend hasn’t even shown up yet (except for a tiny shot of him being an ace photographer in the beginning) but we already know he’s going to be a collosal asshole. After all, he stood June up during their Hong Kong trip and is now giving her missed calls while cutting her calls off. It’s Robin - who’s tried the same tricks before - who points it out to her.
It’s not that June isn’t aware of how unsatisfying her relationship is. She spells it out for us in the very beginning: is it possible to find a love that won’t make me lonely? But she’s also the type that doesn’t want to give up on a relationship until she’s absolutely certain there is nothing left to save. In her heart she knows that Robin is right. But she will still make excuses for Ju-hyeoung because if she didn’t she’d have to admit he’s someone who doesn’t deserve her. And she isn’t quite ready to do that yet.
Bullet
This scene is pretty interesting, given that it’s so loaded with irony. June uses the analogy of a bullet to illustrate to Robin what true love feels like, and Robin quips that he has had personal experience with being shot.
It seems all light and casual, until you go back to this sequence for a rewatch and realise the bullet wound was given to him by a woman he loved. He not only has personal experience being shot: he has personal experience with loving someone who didn’t care about him, at a time when he was very much like June herself. In his mind, no one knows the consequences of believing in “true love” better than he does.
An Unhappy Person
How does June explain true love to Robin?
To share your heart, to not be lonely, to be warm…happy…that sort of thing.
Funny, because she says just the opposite when she’s stood up in Hong Kong:
June is right about what love should feel like. But where does she get it all wrong? She gets it wrong in that love also involves keeping yourself first. She admits to caring immensely for people she loves at the cost of her own well-being. But love is a two-way street. It involves being one with another person while still maintaining your own individuality. June doesn’t know where her lover ends and where she begins. She respects the boundaries of the other person, but allows her boundaries to be trampled on time and again. Basically, she expects so little from her lovers that they find it easy to use her, throw her away and then blame her for the fallout.
Robin understands this. He’s been there. Which is why he takes the other extreme: take care only of yourself. Look out only for yourself.
He may be wrong about a lot of things, but when he points out that June doesn’t seem very happy, his observation is completely on the money. And mind you, this is someone he has just met.
The sequence that follows this scene - the birthday montage where June prepares Ju-hyeoung's own flat for his birthday (even more of an indicator how messed up this relationship is) and Robin settles in, in his hotel room - shows both of them going about their lives alone, solitary, in spacious rooms that seem to scream for another person to keep them company.
The only thing Robin seems to forget…is that he is as lonely and unhappy as she is, for very different reasons.
