Sometimes, it seems as if there are only a handful of movie plots in the whole world. Mix them up, throw in an interesting actor or two, and another cookie-cutter film emerges from the oven, fresh, piping hot and predictable. The story of a spoilt, wayward youth learning the values of kindness and life has been told over and over again – so it’s hard to imagine what Rockin’ On Heaven’s Door would have to add to an already over-stuffed genre. Give this gentle, funny, heartbreaking film a chance, however, and it will burrow its way into your heart – and smash open your tear ducts – even though it lapses a little too frequently into predictability and blatant emotional manipulation.
Chung-ui (Lee Hong-ki), a troubled teen idol, is forced to atone for his sin of fighting in a nightclub: he’s assigned to perform community service in a hospice four hours away from civilisation. At first, Chung-ui finds his environment – a medical care facility that allows its patients to do pretty much anything they like – completely alienating. One day, he stumbles across a rock band in the making, made up of hospice volunteer An-Na (Baek Jin-hee), the gruffly aggressive Moo-sung (Ma Dong-seok), heart-sick dad Bong-sik (Lim Won-hee) and pint-sized Ha-Eun (Jeon Min-seo). To cut short the number of hours he’s been ordered to serve, Chung-ui agrees to coach them to participate in a rock band competition – one that might help keep the struggling hospice afloat.
There is, really, nothing that’s technically fresh about Rockin’ On Heaven’s Door. Chung-ui’s character arc is mapped out from the get-go: of course this flippant child will grow up and become a better man, more attuned to the needs and concerns of others. Is there any doubt that his heart – and ours – breaks a little as he gets to know the four band members? His shift from calculated self-interest to genuine emotional involvement goes through all the standard paces, taking in his own back-story by way of a heartfelt epiphany about what matters more than glitz, glamour and fame.
But it’s hard to begrudge the film its formulaic nature when it is, for the most part, handled quite well. There’s no small amount of skill involved in wringing emotions and heartbreak out of an audience who fully expect – and can actually pinpoint at every moment – the emotional manipulation they’re undergoing. Chung-ui’s interactions with everyone he meets at the hospice are treated with delicacy and sensitivity, enough so that tears will likely be flowing by the time the film draws to its musical climax. The uniformly strong cast – led by the hugely appealing Lee in his cinematic début and powerfully supported in particular by the charismatic Ma – will shatter the equanimity of all but the most hardened and cynical of movie-goers.
This is not, by the way, cinema vérité – it’s the sort of film in which even the terminally ill glow with the radiance of hours in the make-up chair. No one really looks like they’re wasting away, because that would be too brutal for so gentle and good-natured a film. But, for all its predictability and studio-polished trimmings, the message and story of Rockin’ On Heaven’s Door remain touching and, ultimately, universal. If this story has to be told over and over again, at least it’s done here with a lot of heart and grace.
Summary: Heaven knows this isn’t the most original of movies, but it tells a well-worn story in a powerful, heart-rending fashion.
RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Shawne Wang