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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘You Do You’ On Netflix, A Turkish Rom-Com That’s Also A Revenge Story

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘You Do You’ On Netflix, A Turkish Rom-Com That’s Also A Revenge Story

How many rom-coms feature a leading man trying to avenge his father’s death by ruining the life of the woman he holds responsible, and then he falls in love with her? Netflix’s You Do You is one of the more intriguing rom-coms we’ve ever seen thanks to it’s revenge plot, and while the tone can sometimes feel a little dark, it ultimately earns its happy ending.

YOU DO YOU: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The camera pans up the side of a large, old apartment building, the Kültür Apartments, and zooms into the window belonging to a young woman named Merve Kültür (Ahsen Eroğlu). We watch as she gathers up her art supplies and looks for the perfect outfit. She tiptoes to a much larger bedroom, turns and breaks the fourth wall, asking, “Who acts like a burglar in their own home?” before flinging the doors to a much larger closet open and stealing one of her mother’s jackets.

The Gist: Merve is the type of protagonist we’ll call artsy. She’s free-spirited, hates capitalism and, and wants to be a fashion designer. She lives with her mother Nevra (Zuhal Olcay), who would rather Merve get a job in business or finance and be practical, but for Merve, that’s akin to dying a slow death. They live on the top floor of a gorgeous old apartment building owned by Merve’s estranged father, hence his name on the building, and when Merve learns he plans to sell it, she and everyone else in the building panic. Her neighbors are all like family, and they’ve been living there on the cheap for years. Unless someone does something fast, they’re all going to be homeless. They also have no idea who the buyer is, adding an air of mystery to the situation.

Merve, her best friend Nil (Burcu Turunz) and the rest of their friends come up with an idea for an app to make them rich: it’s a dating app called Soulmates that sounds like The Masked Singer meets Love is Blind. Users try to meet their soulmates on video chats while their faces are obscured by animal masks so they get to know people on personality alone. It sounds ridiculous, but they manage to find an investor, a successful businessman named Anil Gurman (Ozan Dolunay) who not only advances them the money to develop the app, but he hires Merve to work for his e-commerce company. But Anil’s motives are shady, he explains to his assistant that he’s only hiring Merve to mess with her (despite the fact that she doesn’t know him), and he gives her increasingly difficult and annoying tasks that are meant to wear her down, but she does them all cheerfully. In fact, she’s kind of thriving despite him, and she starts an Instagram account where she uses the hashtag #YouDoYou to celebrate her style and the fun she has at work and beyond. While she works, Anil watches her on closed-circuit cameras to see how she’s handling his form of torture and he eventually seems to be charmed by her, despite his wanting to destroy her life, for some reason.

Then, Anil joins Soulmates and anonymously starts video chatting Merve to find out more about her. He wears a wolf mask to hide his identity, and she wears a mask that looks like a gazelle. Anil is charming as he gets to know Merve, but it’s very one-sides and he rarely reveals anything about himself. The one strange thing he does reveal to her is when he tells her one night that he wants to “avenge his family.” Huh. Okay. Still, at this point Merve doesn’t know it’s Anil under the mask, and she starts to fall for him. Oh, and what she also doesn’t know, but we do, is that Anil is also the mystery buyer of her apartment building. This man has not only given her a job under false pretenses, but he’s seducing her and stealing her home away from her, all in the name of revenge.

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Revenge for what?

Years ago, Merve’s mother Nevra, a former journalist, exposed Anil’s father’s shady business practices and publicly humiliated him, and he died (Was it suicide? It’s never made clear.) And not only that, he was in love with Nevra, just to add a layer to Anil’s anger at Merve’s family. Merve’s father bought the apartment building from Anil’s mother so she could pay her debts after her husband died, and Anil blames his destroyed family and miserable childhood on Merve’s family. So revenge is the only answer. He’s going to buy back the home he lost as a child, and ruin the life of the girl who “stole” his childhood.

YOU DO YOU
Photo: NETFLIX

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? It sounds weird, but given Anil’s lifelong goal to avenge his family, the movie asks the question, “What if Oldboy was a romantic comedy?”

Our Take: For much of the movie, which maintains a light and charming tone throughout, it’s impossible to know whether You Do You is actually a kind of dark revenge tale that will end horribly or a charming meet-cute. The answer is, it’s both! Up to a point.

For a lot of the movie, Anil seems charming and like he’s truly enamored with Merve, which feels sociopathic given how much he talks about wanting revenge on her. In the same way that Jury Duty felt light and fun most of the time, but some viewers felt queasy about a show based on an extended prank at one person’s expense (despite the good-natured vibe of that show), there are moments in You Do You that feel like Anil’s desire for revenge goes too far, too.

By the end though, Anil… wait for it… goes to China to meditate on what he did, and comes to realize he has lived his life fueled by anger and revenge, which serves no one. So he heads back to Istanbul to profess his love for Merve and return the building he bought back to the tenants who all thought they had to move out. Ultimately, this movie is a meet cute with a happy ending, but, oh, the detours we take to get there!

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Sex and Skin: Some kissing but that’s it.

Parting Shot: Merve and Anil walk up the Camondo Steps, the spot where he spied on her, where she took many a selfie to promote her fashion, the place he knows she loves, but this time, they’re ascending the stair as a couple, as they go to check out a photo shoot for her fashion line. Everything’s coming together!

Sleeper Star: Ferot Aktug plays Sehmuz, Merve’s tarot and tea-leaf-reading neighbor who adds some fun laughs to the film.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I wish you were my boss,” Merve tells the “anonymous” soulmate she meets on her app… who actually is her boss, Anil.

Our Call: By the time it was all over, I really liked You Do You. Through the film, there were moments when I was utterly confused because the film painted Anil as a maybe-unstable voyeur for a while there, and it’s no fun to root for that guy in a romantic comedy. But to Ozan Dolunay’s credit, he never paints Anil as purely a one-note creep. In fact, none of the characters come off as caricatures, and that goes a long way toward making this film worth watching. If you want a rom-com that’s very charming but weird but mostly charming, STREAM IT.

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Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.

Movie Reviews

Film Review: Hong Kong, Within Me by Kang Yoon-sung

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Film Review: Hong Kong, Within Me by Kang Yoon-sung

“This is too real. What kind of dream is this?

“Hong Kong in the Lens by Asian Directors” is a program supported by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, which includes a series of microfilms directed by renowned directors from Asia. “Hong Kong, Within Me” is one of those titles, directed by Kang Yoon-sung, whose credits include the four entries in “The Roundup” series.

The movie begins with a Korean woman in her pajamas descending the stairs in her house while counting backwards. When she reaches one, however, she wakes up and she seems to be in a place she does not recognize, which soon is revealed to be Hong Kong. Still in her pajamas and barefooted, she goes outside first asking two young women to loan her their phone, and then taking up a cab, of an expectedly suspicious driver. She eventually reaches her destination, where a man recognizes here as Hye-rim and she him as Chan-sung. It turns out he is an old acquaintance, although the surprise of her being there is mutual. As they are talking, she reveals that she has insomnia issues, and that she received hypnotherapy treatment. At the same time, she seems to think what she is experiencing is her dream.

Nevertheless, Chan-sung, who is the owner and cook in the specialty restaurant the two are in, prepares her a meal in order to hear her opinion. A bit later on, the whole thing takes an even weirder twist, as it seems the interaction of the two is being shot by a film crew and Chan-sung is actually an actor. A swooshing cut through night time Hong Kong brings the two in a pier, where they talk once more about whether this is a dream or a movie shoot. Or even a Groundhog Day situation.

The first thing one will notice in “Hong Kong, Within Me” is that the pace is frantic, which is actually what allows Kang Yoon-sung to shoot a meta, romantic movie which also includes a ‘will-they-won’t-they’ element and much comedy, in just 15 minutes. The result can be dizzying on occasion, one could say mirroring the rhythm of life in Hong Kong, but is definitely entertaining, with the quality of the production values definitely helping in that regard.

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Kwon Hyeok-jun’s cinematography in particular, captures the different setting with a polished gusto that is quite pleasant to the eye. Furthermore, Hoo Sun-mi and Park Jong-min’s editing is responsible for the aforementioned frantic pace, in a style where the cuts are actually part of the narrative.

Woo Hye-rim plays Hye-rim with an excessiveness that goes a bit too far on occasion, but actually works in the economy of the short. Kang Yun-Sung as Chan-sung plays his part in more down-to-earth fashion, with the antithesis creating a very appealing chemistry.

“Hong Kong, Within Me” is well shot, well acted, well directed, looks particularly good, and is also a lesson on how to condense movies into the short format. Definitely a joy to watch.

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Movie review: ‘Furiosa’ prequel brings new life to the Mad Max franchise

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Movie review: ‘Furiosa’ prequel brings new life to the Mad Max franchise
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is one of the most enriching prequels I’ve seen, adding emotional depth to franchise characters and detail to its worldbuilding, all while maintaining the style and action that fans have loved since director George Miller’s “Mad Max” saga debuted in 1979.
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Film Review: Secret: A Hidden Score (2024) by Hayato Kawai

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Film Review: Secret: A Hidden Score (2024) by Hayato Kawai

“I just wanted to be an ordinary girl”

The rather successful debut of Taiwanese musician Jay Chou in 2007, “Secret”, sent ripples to the film industry of the whole of Asia, with a Korean remake coming up in 2021, and this year, a Japanese one titled “Secret: A Hidden Score”. This review will deal with the latter. 

Minato was studying music in the US, but he came back to Japan after experiencing trauma and is currently studying piano at a prestigious music academy. One day, he hears a beautiful song played on the piano and becomes fascinated by the music. The song leads him to meet Yukino, who is the source of the music. Minato falls head over hills for the beautiful, cheerful, intriguing but also secretive and mysterious girl, and the two soon start hanging out as much as they can. Or better, as much as Yukino will allow, to the disgruntlement of another girl, Hikari, who also has feelings for Minato. Yukino helps Minato regain his will to be a musician, but one day, she suddenly disappears. 

There is a pattern to the Japanese films we usually catch in European/Western film festivals, which makes “Secret: A Hidden Score” a kind of a novelty, since this is the type of film that is quite popular in Japan, but does not get out of the borders so frequently. Whether this is a good thing, however, is a whole other topic. 

Hayato Kawai comes up with a very sensitive film about life in college, romance, and the concept of trauma and how people can heal. What is the most intriguing aspect of the whole narrative, however, is the relationship in the center of the movie, and particularly its imbalance. Minato falls for Yukino immediately, and while she also obviously likes him, she is holding back due to her secrets, in an aspect that makes the relationship, and subsequently, the whole film quite intriguing. 

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At the same time, this aspect, and again the whole movie, benefits the most by the charisma, the performance and the chemistry of the two main actors. Kotone Furukawa as Yukino in particular is a joy to watch throughout the movie, with the way her teasing and secretive nature eventually changes to a more open up one, and the way her whole story leads to drama being probably the best aspect of the whole film. Taiga Kyomoto as the nerdy, traumatized, hopelessly in love Minato is also quite good, with the interactions of the two being quite pleasant to watch. Gorgeous Mayuu Yokota as Hikari cements the prowess in the acting, while Ryota Miura and Ryotaro Sakaguchi as Minato and Hikari’s friends provide a very appealing humoristic element to the movie, even if they are too loud on occasion. 

Furthermore, the twist is also good, even if not that surprising, with the last part that explains more about what happened being particularly well directed. That it explains more of the character’s actions and demeanor while creating additional empathy for them works quite well for the movie too. In that regard, the placement of the flashbacks, the revelations and the aftermath are well embedded in the story, in a trait that should also be attributed to the editing, which is definitely on a high level here. 

At the same time, a number of issues all Japanese films seem to face nowadays are found in “Secret: A Hidden Score” also. The intense lagging, particularly in the last part of the movie, the scenes that seem almost unnecessary and an effort at forced sentimentalism are all here in abundance, bringing the quality of the whole thing several levels down. The extensive use of music is also an issue, although this is justified due to the nature of the story. Lastly, the story, and particularly the twist have not aged well since the original, with the whole thing appearing preterit on occasion. 

In the end, “Secret: A Hidden Score” is a mixed bag of a film that draws the viewer in with the charisma and beauty of its protagonists and a story that seems intriguing in the beginning, only to disappoint in the end. Probably fans of romantic TV dramas will be the ones that will enjoy the film.

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