''Sunny'' (; lit. "My Dear is Far Away") is a 2008 South Korean film directed by

Lee Joon-ik Lee Joon-ik (born September 21, 1959) is a South Korean film director and film producer, producer. He is best known for directing and producing ''King and the Clown'' (2005), one of the List of highest-grossing films in South Korea, highest gros ...

. Soo Ae plays the titular Soon-yi, whose husband enlists to fight in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

, and she decides to join a singing group that will travel to Vietnam to perform for the soldiers there.

Plot

Soon-yi is a young woman stuck in an arranged marriage to a man who still loves his college girlfriend. Her husband, Sang-gil, is a soldier in the

South Korean army The Republic of Korea Army (ROKA; ko, 대한민국 육군; Hanja: 大韓民國陸軍; RR: ''Daehanminguk Yuk-gun''), also known as the ROK Army or South Korean Army, is the army of South Korea, responsible for ground-based warfare. It is the l ...

, and though she visits him regularly, he does not return her affections. After Sang-gil is sent to fight in the

, Soon-yi resolves to follow him. She joins a band which is heading there, where she sings for the soldiers as "Sunny", with the hope of being reunited with her husband.

Cast

* Soo Ae ... Soon-yi/Sunny * Jung Jin-young ... Kim Jeong-man, band leader * Jung Kyung-ho ... Yong-deuk, bassist *

Joo Jin-mo Joo Jin-mo (born Park Jin-tae on 26 September 1974), is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his leading roles in the films '' Happy End'' (1999) in which he won Grand Bell Awards for Best Supporting Actor, '' 200 Pounds Beauty'' (2006), ...

... Seong-chan, guitarist * Shin Hyeon-tak ... Cheol-sik, drummer *

Uhm Tae-woong Uhm Tae-woong (born April 5, 1974) is a South Korean actor. He made his acting debut in 1998, but initially struggled to emerge from under the shadow of his older sister, popular singer-actress Uhm Jung-hwa. After several years of small roles an ...

... Sang-gil, Sunny's husband * Park Yoon-ho ... Private Kim * Lee Joo-sil ... Mother-in-law * Jo Mi-ryung ... Jeni *

Shin Jung-geun Shin Jung-geun (born September 26, 1966) is a South Korean actor. He is most active as a supporting actor in films such as '' Running Turtle'' (2009), '' In Love and War'' (2011), ''The Grand Heist'' (2012), and '' The Five'' (2013), as well as ...

... Battalion commander * Fredrik Skalin ... Soldier

Production

''Sunny'' was produced on a budget of (). Director

made the protagonist female in response to criticism that his films were largely male-oriented. Lee cast Soo Ae in the lead role, saying, "No other actress in outhKorea has the distinctively pure image that hehas". Soo Ae did two months of training to refine her singing and dancing skills, and admitted to being concerned over whether or not she could pull off the character.

Release

''Sunny'' was released in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

on July 23, 2008. On its opening weekend it was ranked second at the box office with 480,144 admissions, and exceeded the one million mark on July 19.''My Love is Far Away'' Attracts 1 Mil. Movie-Goers in A Week
. ''

KBS World KBS World is the Korean Broadcasting System's international broadcasting service. It consists of KBS World Radio, KBS World television channel and KBS Korea. History The foreign-language radio broadcast from KBS (before its restructure into a ...

''. 29 July 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-29. As of August 31, ''Sunny'' had received a total of 1,804,223 admissions nationwide, and as of September 14 had grossed a total of .South Korea Box Office September 12–14, 2008
. ''

Box Office Mojo Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is ...

''. Retrieved 2008-11-29.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * * {{Lee Joon-ik 2008 films 2000s musical drama films South Korean musical drama films Vietnam War films South Korean war drama films Films about music and musicians Films set in 1971 Films set in Vietnam Films shot in Busan Films shot in Thailand Films directed by Lee Joon-ik 2000s Korean-language films Showbox films 2008 drama films 2000s South Korean films 2000s war drama films