Song Analysis: Tangdanghan Kunyoga Arumdada
(You can check out the lyrics and the song here)
This peppy jazz number features twice in the film - once when June plans and executes her first two “operations”, and second, in a montage that shows us how Robin and June bag the Brighton deal. The title roughly translates to “she is confident and beautiful”, is sung by a popular Korean jazz group called Sweet Sorrrow, and the subject of the song is a beautiful, confident woman that the male speaker is beginning to fall in love with.
The first part of the song is addressed to the woman, inviting her to entice the male speaker, to flirt with him and show him she is interested. The voice seems to indicate that he has already begun to fall for her, and that anything she does will just make him that much more attracted to her. It begins with an encouragement (also echoed in the second stanza) to “turn around, stop and smile”, before he explains the effect she has on him:
I have become a hesitant fool
The second stanza goes slightly deeper, acknowledging the woman’s struggles and letting her know he cares:
The pain buried in your eyes
I see the sorrow in your survival
While the first stanza takes about her confidence and beauty and how they make him crazy about her, the second focuses on what she doesn’t always allow people to see, focuses on parts of her that the male speaker wants to uncover and help heal.
Given how vastly different in tone both stanzas are, it makes sense for the chorus to change in both as well. The first chorus invites the woman to talk/wink at/kiss him, promising her that he’ll “follow [her] to the end”. The second one involves what he will do for her to help alleviate her pain:
With renewed confidence, we begin
From now, give your all to me
With renewed confidence, wipe your tears
With renewed confidence, open your heart
From now, give your all to me
Both choruses however, have a hook in common - one that seems to be the overriding theme of this song:
She is confident and cool
The middle eight - the section sung before the sax solo, acknowledges that the man isn't perfect, but that he is willing to give whatever he has with her a chance:
The tone and style of this song itself is fun and vibrant, with a quick tempo on the piano and a rollicking saxophone solo three minutes into the song. It’s quite fitting that this is the theme tune that plays whenever Min-June sets out to prove Robin wrong, because it does highlight her belief that she can catch his eye if she sets her mind to it. She may not always appear successful in doing so, but she does whatever she does with a healthy dose of confidence and bravado. On your first watch it isn’t entirely impossible to associate this song with what June wants to do, given that Robin doesn’t really seem all that interested in her antics.
The song takes on a different meaning on subsequent watches. By our second watch we already know that Robin already has feelings for her. We know that his nonchalance is a cover, that what she does and the things she says actually matter to him. We know that even though June’s antics don’t exactly work, she still manages to worm her way into his thoughts and his heart. We already know what she doesn’t: that he has been consumed by thoughts of her since the day they first met.
Two stanzas of the song play during the “operations” sequences: the second stanza makes an appearance in “Operation Angel”, where she clears up his office and subsequently finds the uniform belonging to Robin’s grandfather. This is fitting, because if anything can help Robin relate to Min-June’s plight as a woman hurt in love, it’s his past.
Given that context, this song fits perfectly. For all her bluster and awkwardness, Min-June does exude confidence in what she does, and never gives up on her goal as long as it is something she wants to do. For all his nonchalance, Robin clearly cares about her.
It’s also interesting to note that the two times the song plays, shows Min-June within the confines of her workplace - especially in the Brighton deal montage. Like the woman in the song, she shows an air of confidence, a belief in her abilities, and an ability to keep her cool in her job. These are what endear Robin to her, even before her giving nature and honesty finally do. These are qualities that he relates to, that he finds useful, that will impress him. Min-June would have probably never been able to reach out to him as successfully if she didn’t prove herself this well at work. So it is safe to say that this song possibly also highlights a subtle shift in Robin’s thoughts about her, and helps us understand why he is as smitten by her as he finally appears at the bar/blind date scene.
(Note 1: Occasionally, I will be posting both songs and song analyses for the movie, as I feel the music is just as important. I don’t have a lot of knowledge regarding music so most of my analyses will focus on the lyrics.
Note 2: I translated all the songs on my own - except "Kissing Me" - and without sufficient knowledge of Korean [with some help from Google] so I can’t completely vouch for how accurate my translation is. If I have made any mistakes, please do inform me and I will make the required changes)
