The Recipe (2010)

The Recipe is laid out almost like a treasure hunt; with the treasure being a woman who makes the most delicious Doenjang Stew. The search for her yields clues to the recipe for the stew and the story of the woman, both being intertwined. It also uncovers a love story within.

Almost the whole first half is the reporter looking for and discovering clues that lead to her, step by step, person by person that touched her life. Once he gets close enough, you get a glimpse of her life and her love and the story of how her delicious recipe came to be. It's a little slow going at first but don't let that stop you.

This movie has an ethereal, magical quality to it and it made me want to eat Doenjang Stew really bad...even though I've never had it in my life.

The story is beautifully written and very well acted. The Ume tree forests, the soybean fields and the mountains are all shot beautifully. Once again, Lee Yo Won does a great job and Lee Dong Wook is wonderful. Ryu Seong Ryong plays the reporter and I really like him in this. (He played the gay art gallery owner in Personal Taste) This is a very different role. I didn't recognize him at first.

This is a small, quiet movie but it's a lovely story. I wasn't bored at all but I think you have to be in the mood for quiet.

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This quietly moving film about a reporter's search for the perfect doenjang exudes in curiosity, a sense of wanting to taste, of wanting discover what made the perfect stew perfect, of wanting to uncover the circumstances that made all these people go ga-ga over it, and finally of wanting to search for the woman who made it.

Dooenjang/The Recipe is a perfect example of a simple story made extraordinary. Lee Yo Won, as usual, portrays her character with grace and calmness and Lee Dong Wook was the perfect 'masked goblin.' But the best performance goes to Ryu Seong Ryong, who played the inquisitive, go-getter reporter who went to great lengths just to piece every bit of truth behind the story that makes up The Recipe.

Story - If you're just as inquisitive and scientific, this story will guarantee you a 10
Cast and Music - awesome
Rewatch Value - Although a tragedy, still highly rewatchable masterpiece

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Had no idea what the executed man had to do with it but the story was on the pursuit of the recipe and the woman who made it. If you didn't watch to the you, this story would have totally lost you. Had it started with the last 35 min when LDW came in, I might have liked it better because that is when it got interesting. The romance was very interesting and would have been better suited to begin the story and not shown at the very end. I wonder how many people dropped this before that point in the movie. It's amazing I stuck with it. If you have a dying interesting in one of the methods of making soybean paste, this might peak your interest; otherwise, I'd skip it.

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"You wait"

The Recipe began with a transformative bowl of stew and then worked its way backwards to the origin of the enthralling recipe. There were slow moments where the film tended to get lost in the weeds of the intricacies of making Doenjang Jjigae, but all was forgiven as the investigation finally revealed the truth.

After his execution, Kim Jong Gu’s last request sets investigative reporter Choi Yoo Jin on his tireless quest to discover what kind of stew would be the murderer’s last thoughts. As Choi digs into the story he ascertains that the stew was so fragrant and delicious that Kim never felt the cuffs being put on. In fact, the officers were frozen at the tantalizing smell. In his efforts to track down the woman who made the doenjang, he meets one by one all the people who helped with the extensive steps she took to make the magic happen. Choi’s boss isn’t enraptured with the tale but that doesn’t stop the intrepid reporter until at last he learns how love and tears contributed to the story.

While I enjoy recipe detective work, the fine details of each step of the process often bogged the film down. If you are watching for Lee Dong Wook, you may be disappointed. He doesn’t show up until over an hour into the film. This was largely Ry Seung Ryong’s film as Choi Yoo Jin. The veteran actor showed Choi going from cynical to obsessed over the effects the stew had on people and the extraordinary details that went into it. Finally, his journey would lead him to the tragic love which inspired Jang Hye Jin’s recipe.

Anna Lee (Lee Suh Goon) directed and co-wrote this film. Her painstaking attention to food and ingredients and all the people whose hands touched the different elements was intriguing. In the same way Hye Jin had to wait on her soybean paste to ferment, this film will make you wait for the emotional payoff. Ultimately, the conclusion I came to was one any child or grandchild knows instinctively, food made with love and loving attention is the best.

17 June 2024

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I still can't stop my tears...
Just imagining how the most trivial thing - food, can open the most beautiful story of love before the audience's eyes...
Two of my favourite actors made this movie unforgettable for me... The style of romance... the director could be only a woman... such soft and tender scenes made me have butterflies in my stomach...
And, please, could somebody tell me who is the author of the score and where I can get it from, cause the music is heavenly...
And for the last scene... The journalist is telling the audience the ingredients of the doenjang, he lists the food, the flowers... and lastly the tears... The way of making... Waiting and waiting... The last scene... a tear falls and dries... leaving salt... and the music...

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Slow paced but I feel like the story is rushed.

Sorry this is my first review and I'm not good in constructing words on how I feel.

It was quite slow at the beginning but then started to pace up a bit. For some it might be boring but for me I think it is just a slow paced movie and it's not a boring one because the story was revealed bit by bit. I almost gave up at first but then it gets interesting as you know more.

It's beautiful and sad at the same time. I would say it's beautiful, slow paced but I'm not fully satisfied watching this. The movie is almost two hours long but I feel like either the story about Hye-Jin and Hyun-Soo was too short and too fast or just missing some elements. Overall, it's a good movie.

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