The protagonist of this film is a socially awkward young man named Un-cheol who is looking for a girlfriend. Through a series of flashbacks, we see him pursuing a series of disastrous first dates, and as the film opens is involved in yet another date with a young woman named Yoo-jin. The couple goes on a long walk and ends up at the bottom of a series of steps. Un-cheol proposes that they play a game of rock-paper-scissors to see which of them will make it to the top of the steps first. Yoo-jin, desperate to ditch this klutzy young man, intentionally allows him to win. Eventually he gets so far ahead of her that she is able to slip quietly away into the night, no doubt thanking her lucky stars that Un-cheol was so involved in the game that he didn't realize he was being ditched.
So far the moral of the story is simply to stop acting like a jerk and your dates will go better, but now the story gets a little more complex. We see additional flashbacks of Un-cheol with his father, who taught him all about the fine points of rock-paper-scissors, along with some life lessons that have stuck with him. He returns a stray dog to its owner, a sweet young woman named Eun-hee. He gets to play one last game of rock-paper-scissors with Eun-hee with the reward being a date with her if he wins the game. But he tells her in advance what he is going to play, so she has the choice of whether to intentionally win or lose. What will she do?
By the end of the movie I had come to the conclusion that Un-cheol's apparent poor choice of activities on his date with Yoo-jin was actually not so bad after all. Sure, he managed to drive an attractive young woman to take extreme measures to ditch him, but all that really means is that they weren't compatible in the first place. There's nothing wrong with taking long meandering walks with the woman you love, or to engage with her in a spirited game of rock-paper-scissors, if that's what you both like to do. Yoo-jin hated every minute of it, so it it's good that she left. Eun-hee is quite a different person, and the film ends on a note of anticipation, with the audience wondering whether Un-cheol will get a chance to date her and what the outcome will be if he does.
Not bad at all for a film clocking in at 35 minutes. A lot of movies run several times as long without ever saying as much.
So far the moral of the story is simply to stop acting like a jerk and your dates will go better, but now the story gets a little more complex. We see additional flashbacks of Un-cheol with his father, who taught him all about the fine points of rock-paper-scissors, along with some life lessons that have stuck with him. He returns a stray dog to its owner, a sweet young woman named Eun-hee. He gets to play one last game of rock-paper-scissors with Eun-hee with the reward being a date with her if he wins the game. But he tells her in advance what he is going to play, so she has the choice of whether to intentionally win or lose. What will she do?
By the end of the movie I had come to the conclusion that Un-cheol's apparent poor choice of activities on his date with Yoo-jin was actually not so bad after all. Sure, he managed to drive an attractive young woman to take extreme measures to ditch him, but all that really means is that they weren't compatible in the first place. There's nothing wrong with taking long meandering walks with the woman you love, or to engage with her in a spirited game of rock-paper-scissors, if that's what you both like to do. Yoo-jin hated every minute of it, so it it's good that she left. Eun-hee is quite a different person, and the film ends on a note of anticipation, with the audience wondering whether Un-cheol will get a chance to date her and what the outcome will be if he does.
Not bad at all for a film clocking in at 35 minutes. A lot of movies run several times as long without ever saying as much.