Power of 'Passion' writ large in new movie

Park Bo-young, top, and Jeong Jae-young from "You Call it Passion" / Courtesy of Naver

“You Call it Passion,” the title of a Korean comedy flick that opened Thursday, is a much-mouthed colloquial term regarding young job seekers or rookie employees struggling to survive in their jobs.

The term carries sarcastic rhetoric towards the age group, ranging from millennials to 30-somethings, that downplays their working conditions while demanding they be more passionate about what they want to do. The term reads as if passion is the silver bullet for unhappiness and despair currently shared by tens of thousands of unemployed young Korean adults or those at the lowest ranks in their career hierarchy.

With the ever-high unemployment rate, some Korean companies have made headlines hiring young adults who are willing to work without pay. The companies then reward them with “passion pay” -- nothing close to severance pay or similar, but literally nothing -- and take those passionate, willing employees for granted while criticizing other job seekers for not being passionate enough. It has aroused the ire of many young adults who thought the judgment was unfair.

The movie’s title reflects what is on the minds of young job seekers, who are being urged to become more passionate but instead became tired of finger-pointing from older adults. The movie, in the end, hints that passion, after all, might be the silver bullet for the young adults’ group.

Leading character Do Rah-hee (Park Bo-young) is a rookie newspaper reporter on the entertainment desk, which is headed by Ha Jae-kwan (Jeong Jae-young), who is thirsty for exclusives and drives Do crazy by demanding them.

In the mid to late part of the movie, Ha hands Do proofs of articles given to him by Chief Jang, a female villain from celebrity management company JS Entertainment, who is trying to incriminate her company’s hottest star and actor, Woo Ji-han, on a rape charge. Investigating the articles, Do discovers they were forged by Chief Jang. She writes an exclusive story that reveals Chief Jang’s attempts to bury Woo’s career for good. Innocent Woo, at the end of the movie, bows in front of Do for uncovering the truth and Ha appreciates her for the work.

Apparently, Do would not have blown the scandal wide open if it were not for her “passion” to dissect the articles and dig into what could possibly be Chief Jang’s setup to send Woo to jail. Although Do scoffed at Ha in the beginning of the movie for barking at her “Nothing is impossible with passion,” it turns out what ultimately saved Do’s journalistic career was her passion.

Led by Korea’s acting jewels, Jeong and Park, the movie’s characters are persuasive. The movie also has earned praise for realistically portraying the Korean office environment.

Its title may have some say that Do proudly represents Korea’s young adults who have had an earful of inconsiderate older adults yelling at them to be more passionate on groundless logic. But as the movie’s credits roll, and as theatergoers ponder what they just saw, Do’s journalistic success and having reconciled with Ha tell young adults to think otherwise.