White Valentine is strongly "cultural based storytelling" instead of canned and stale boy-girl meet/part/reconcile structure storytelling.
Many Americans only think of a romance or love story as having one format, one way of progressing, while the rest of the world might be very familiar with the "American" format, Americans tend to miss the nuances of other cultures.
In this case the lack of money-- not poverty, just a lack of money, the cross generational bonding and emotional ties, the way the characters need to balance their family ties with cultural norms as they try to move toward goals that they personally choose, this set of culture based guidelines makes the story more difficult to understand, and, on top of the simple cultural difference, the story is a story that is less romance that the personal journey story for the two leads as each heads toward their personal destination.
The question of what happens to "the two" is less important to the movie than the question of what happens "to each" of the characters. Not for everyone, be it in Korea, China, Japan, or the USA, this is a story of two personal tales, two personal stories, each bouncing off the other, each providing the other story the dynamic to stay in motion.
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Many Americans only think of a romance or love story as having one format, one way of progressing, while the rest of the world might be very familiar with the "American" format, Americans tend to miss the nuances of other cultures.
In this case the lack of money-- not poverty, just a lack of money, the cross generational bonding and emotional ties, the way the characters need to balance their family ties with cultural norms as they try to move toward goals that they personally choose, this set of culture based guidelines makes the story more difficult to understand, and, on top of the simple cultural difference, the story is a story that is less romance that the personal journey story for the two leads as each heads toward their personal destination.
The question of what happens to "the two" is less important to the movie than the question of what happens "to each" of the characters. Not for everyone, be it in Korea, China, Japan, or the USA, this is a story of two personal tales, two personal stories, each bouncing off the other, each providing the other story the dynamic to stay in motion.
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