Mise-En-Scene

__**Sunny**__ **What the character wants:** Na-mi is a transferred student from a small town to the big city, Seoul. She gets bullied by some girls due to her dialects and then one day a group of girls come and help her. The girls are Choon-Hwa - known for her strong sense of loyalty & excellent fighting skills, heavyset Jang-Mi - who badly wishes to have plastic surgery to get double eye-lids, Jin-Hee - excellent when it comes to spewing profanity, Geum-Ok - interested in literature, Bok-Hee - dreams of one day becoming Ms. Korea and Su-Ji - always arrogant. Na-Mi quickly becomes part of their group. When the group confronts rival girls known as Sonyeo Sidae ("Girls Generation"), Na-Mi spews curse words she picked up from her grandmother. Because of Na-Mi the girls are able to avoid a crisis. These seven girls then form their own group named "Sunny". They also vow to stay together forever. The girls then prepare for a performance at an upcoming school festival, but on the day of their performance a terrible event occurs leading the girls to eventually going their own separate ways. Twenty five years later, Na-Mi is married to a successful businessman and has a beautiful daughter. Her life seems perfect from afar, but there's something lacking in her life. One day, Na-Mi bumps into high school friend Choon-Hwa in the hospital. They are ecstatic to see each other, but Na-Mi receives a phone call and has to leave. On her way out she ask Choon-Hwa if there is anything she can do for her. Choon-Hwa at first says no, but after a moment of reflection she makes a simple request to Na-Mi. Choon-Hwa asks Na-Mi to find the other members of "Sunny," so she can see them one more time.

**What the character needs:** P eople reminiscing about the old days and the deep meaning of friendship

**Theme/Emotions:** The nostalgic feeling is a really strong theme in this film. It reminds the audience their own good old days especially those with friends. The film makes the audience thinking of friends and school days; and also make the audience realize how much they missed being together. Although as we grow older, we end up with different lives and jobs, there are still things that won't change; for example, the growing distant can not change the friendship. As an adult, one should realize how time can affect a lot of things and also the importance/true meaning of friendship.


 * 10 aspects of Mise-En-Scene that directly relate to the theme, or //indirectly relates to the theme// through the tone.**

the director chooses to use the same incident (which is a girl bumping into Nami) with different time period to show the shift between Nami’s own childhood and her daughter’s school life. This transition is really smart because it makes the transition goes really smoothly. It relates to the theme by telling the audience that all the adults have their own nostalgic feelings, they remember the good old days with their own friends and they for sure miss them. When they see a situation that looks familiar to their old days, it will definitely reminds them their own happy memories, which's done by the director neatly.





The props use shows the theme of nostalgic feeling. The old LP reminds the audience that the time has been shifted to Nami’s school life. When the audience see this scene, it immediately reminds them their childhood and the old days. No one had an iPod back then, and this was their only music resources. Therefore, this prop can easily show the time period and make people reminisce about the old days.



In order to fit in with all the other girls, Nami also buys a Nike bag. This again is a prop choice which can bring people back into the old days. Although this is a Korean film, every country at any time period would have a trend among the teens. Here, it is obvious that Nike was the trend the kids all want to follow. The director chooses to use this because for his age, his life as a teenager had this trend and in order to show nostalgic feeling, this prop choice can resonate with those of same age.

the director chooses to use the same a ctress for the two time periods.（with different make ups) In this way it is easier for the audience to recognize the time shifting and thinking of our own school days. If the director chooses to use another old actress to present this idea, i believe it would be less effective in a way to show the time passing and the theme that although time can pass easily, there are still a lot of things that wont change.



In this shot, we know that it is shot in Choon Hwa’s ward. Something i found really neat about director’s mise-en-scene is that he chooses to decorate this room with polaroid pictures with the “Sunny” girls and also places Choon Hwa went to. This shows that because Choon Hwa doesn’t have that much time left, she wants to remember and keep all her valuable memories until she die. For someone who is about to die, the pictures can really give a strong memory impact. Memories are important to people, just like a picture, if something happened then nothing can change it. This can be related to Sunny's school life, although it ended years ago, there is something that won't change which is their friendship. Because we can understand as for a woman who values her memories so much, it is important for her to find all her girls. And this adds to the theme of although we all might end up with different pathways, friendship never ends.



The framing is very interesti ng here. Two groups of girls are having a conflict and about to fight. Two leaders are standing in the front and the fellow group members standing at the back supporting the leader. Also, it is interesting that you see how for both groups, there are girls who cross their arms; girls standing right behind the leader; girls having that look of “i dont care”. This is telling the audience how close the girls were and hints the audience teenagers’ friendship is really pure. Friendship has different definition from time to time, but when we are teens, the definition of friendship would be got each other’s back and willing to fight for each other without thinking about the consequences, which is the theme of what friendship means.

This is just a scene when the girls are resting. Director placed all the actresses in different places with different actions. For example, the girl in the white shirt is the most quiet girl in the group. The four in the second shot are the craziest girls in the group. Although they have different personalities they are still in the same group and being the best friend for the others. This again shows the meaning of friendship and also makes the audience reminiscing about the old days with all kinds of friends.

This is the scene when Nami indulges in reminiscences of her youth. She puts her uniform back on and dances in front of the mirror. The next scene is her daughter walks in with her uniform. I think it is really neat that the director chooses to make Nami looks into the mirror and her daughter walks pass the mirror. It kind of symbolizes when adult grow older they tend to look back in time whereas the teens do not bother looking back and just live as it is or maybe they don’t value their teenager time that much, they just want to be an adult as soon as possible. This contrasting effect makes the audience get a strong nostalgic feeling and sees the different between teens and adults.



This scene is when Su-ji, the prettiest girl in the school, got hit by the opponent group. Her face had been slashed with a broken glass bottle. It is a really smart shot because the director chooses to show her injured face next to the magazine poster she was on. She is not the pretties girl anymore, but that is her youth. One can experiences everything during his/her teenage: fun, pain, happiness and sorrow. As a teen, one must learn to accept these wounds and obstacles. We can have fun and we can get hurt. but when you get hurt, you must learn to be an adult and just accept that. You must learn to face the reality because that is what youth can teach you. So i think the director uses this contrasting shot is because he wants to let us know that the nostalgic feeling is not only happiness, it also includes sorrow, but no matter what it is, people miss these feelings.



This is the climax of the film when Choon Hwa dies, all the girls gather together, laughing and dancing. The director chooses to make them laugh in front of Choon Hwa’s portrait in order to show even though Choon Hwa died, true friends are always there no matter what. Since Choon Hwa’s last wish was to gather all the girls, the ending made that happened. The happiness and death make a contrast and this contrast tells the audience that friendship lasts and they know that Choon Hwa is there with them as well so they are all happy and satisfied. Again, relates to the theme of meaning of true friends.