Soundtrack Spotlight: Finding Mr. Destiny (aka Looking for Mr. Kim Jong Wook) (2010)

A/N: Yay for trying new things.  This segment is pretty much gonna be me talking about a particular movie or drama and it's soundtrack, whether that be score, insert songs, opening themes, closing themes, what have you.  Other than that, these should be pretty short, sweet, and to the point.


Seo Ji Woo is a disheveled theater director who can't seem to forget her first love, a man she can barely remember.  Her father, whose lifelong priority is to see Ji Woo get married, drags her by the ear (figuratively) into the office of a company that specializes in tracking down first loves.  The man who runs this company, Han Gi Joon, is a fastidious man whose number one focus in life is cleanliness and order.  After some cajoling from her father, Ji Woo finally agrees to let Gi Joon try and find her first love.  There's only one problem: she can only remember his name, Kim Jong Wook.  Throughout the process, Ji Woo insists Gi Joon should not continue with the search, as she really is not interested in finding her first love.  But being who he is, Gi Joon in turn insists that he must complete the task, since she is his first client and it is important that he finish what he was hired to do.

So starting off this segment is one of my favorite movies of all time, for many reasons.  This is also going to be a very short segment because I really only have one thing I want to talk about.  The music in this movie is good - the score does a good job of enhancing the mood of each scene, whether that be sentimental romanticism or goofy comedy.  It's nothing too amazing, but it does its job well.

Aside from that, there is an aspect to the music in this movie that is unique (that is, it's not altogether unusual or all that rare, but it's still rather different), and that is the musical that is featured here.  As mentioned above, Ji Woo is a theater director, and what would a theater director be without some theater to direct?  That's one thing about this movie that I really like: while it does play a large role in the latter third of the movie, the musical is only described enough that we really get a sense of how important it is to everyone involved.  Through the course of the movie, only one song from the musical is ever heard or sung in its entirety, a song called Destiny Midnight, which is really cool in its own right.  It's a big Broadway style musical number with a really cool melody and interesting choreography.  I'd recommend looking that up just on its own, it's that cool.

What I really want to talk about, however, is the credit song, or rather the song that plays over the credits.  People who are familiar with Gong Yoo's work (as I am a little) may already know this, but I didn't and it shocked me: he's an excellent singer.  If he wanted to, he could have his own music career (personally, though, I'm glad he chose acting as his main career).  But really, the song that he sings over the ending credits is one of my favorite songs ever (off of a movie soundtrack, that is).  It's called Second Love and it's a really happy song.  The melody is light and bubbly and the words are really...well, they're kind of similar to a lot of other songs, but that's not the point.  The whole song is just so...happy.  It's a really bouncy song, and even if you haven't seen the movie (which you totally should, by the way - wink, wink, nudge, nudge) you really should look up this song and give it a listen.  I don't think I've seen anybody who can stay upset after listening to this song even part of the way through, and I definitely think it'll brighten up your day.  So go find it and listen to it - after you've watched the movie, of course.