Innocent Crush (2014) User Reviews

And just how strong is your love?...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 30 June 2017]

The cast in "Innocent Thing" was quite good. I wasn't familiar with the people they had cast for the movie, but the cast was quite good, and they did great jobs with their given roles and characters. Especially the two leads, Hyuk Jang and Bo-ah Jo. They had a great on-screen chemistry, and they really performed quite well and convincingly.

As for the characters, then writer Tae-gyun Kim had definitely managed to put together a very interesting and colorful character gallery to help bring the story to life. And it works nicely, because the characters are characters that you can easily relate to and sympathize with.

"Innocent Thing" is driven by a solid story and well-fleshed out characters. And it was really working out so well and it made the movie all the more enjoyable.

Story-wise, then "Innocent Thing" then I found the story that writer Sung-min Lee had concocted to be rather entertaining and well-thought through. And director Tae-gyun Kim did a great job in translating it from script and paper to visual presentation on the screen. The story does deal with a taboo topic, one that surfaces in society every now and then in the news. Which, just makes the entire story all the more convincing and believable.

Some things in the movie didn't make all that much sense. For example, why would the student have her teachers private phone number. And some of the behavior expressed by some of the characters just didn't always make the most of sense. But hey, people act differently of course, so that would be justified.

The pacing of the movie was quite good, and they had opted for some very interesting choice of music to accompany the movie. Now, I am not saying that the music was bad, far from it. It was actually quite becoming and fitting for the mood and atmosphere of the movie.

"Innocent Thing" is listed as a drama and thriller, don't put too much hope and expectations into the thriller aspect, because it wasn't there in an abundance. The attempts of introducing thrills to the story were a bit forced and generic, and very much like something done in previous movies such as "Fatal Attraction" for example. That being said, don't get me wrong here, because "Innocent Thing" is a rather enjoyable movie given its storyline, great acting, good character gallery and its editing and cinematography.

Chemistry is subjective

[Pro Jury · 6/10 · 3 November 2023]

With any infidelity movie, there is a great chance it will fall flat when the wife is more beautiful than the temptress. With this movie, called "Innocent Thing" on American cable TV with subtitles, the wife is a stunning elegant beauty while the temptress has a mousy face, stick figure and not much going for her other than youth and quick camera edits.

There is a night and day difference when a movie with infidelity has a world class attractive temptress, such as the movie "Argento's Dracula" also being shown this same month on cable TV. The temptress in "Argento's Dracula" has every female perfection to make instant fireworks in any husband's eyes. In other words, the temptress is irresistible.

People are different, but in "Innocent Thing" the wife is a head-turner that a man would look twice at as she walks by, but the temptress is just average and so the whole movie does not work so well. Chemistry is subjective.

Some things just didn't add up

[phuckracistgop · 7/10 · 21 February 2024]

I had my issues with certain aspects of this movie and it was difficult at times to discern reality from fantasy when dealing with what the girl imagined and what was actually happening.

A little more separation of these two could have given viewers a better insight on what was real when putting together this puzzle. Now it became fact that the girl was still a virgin, or did it? I was also curious as to what happened to the husband's ex-soulmate and if she was actually stupid enough to give psycho-girl the exacto knife after being uncomfortable and aware of the issues that this girl possessed?

Also, how did the girl and the husband have each other's cell phone numbers was a big red flag and you can add kidnapping the baby without a vehicle, to which would explain how she was able to place the baby in one location, while luring the wife to another. Even more improbable would have been this school girl bypassing hospital norms and security to get to the baby in the first place.

Oh yeah and what husband of an expectant wife would not grab the person to which she was having a violent tussle caused me to go "What in the Hell was that nonsense". So yes it was a decent movie, but the holes were plenty enough that I could not rate it better.

It's been done before, except this time it takes place in Korea

[KineticSeoul · 3/10 · 11 August 2014]

There really isn't anything that really stands out about this movie. Besides the fact that it takes place in Korea and revolves around Korean customs. The plot about a psychotic girl having a crush on a guy has been done quite a lot in western movies. So this really didn't seem to bring about anything all that new. I liked the message in the end about how guys should not take advantage of girl's emotions though. And there was one part that really crosses the line and brings about the human nature of things. But I have seen it happen in other movies before. The cinematography is also pretty good and that includes the acting as well. Overall this is another movie about a psychotic crush that leads to psychotic actions, except this time it takes place in Korea.

3.5/10

I really liked this movie.

[chrislesmckis · 8/10 · 12 November 2018]

The tone of this movie is really good. I found the beginning to be subtly perverse which i think is perfect for the context of the film. Throughout the film you're not sure what is real or not. There are a few sex scenes throughout the film that seem graphic only because of how intimate they are. I have never really seen anything like it tbh. It made me uncomfortable because it felt a little to personal. the ending is kind of chintzy and predictable, but the beginning is definitely worth watching.

A mix of innocence and disorder, causing an ugly mess.

[notaprincess9 · 2/10 · 26 October 2017]

I was so disappointed by this film. It is rarely that films get on my nerves but this one did just that.

I will not comment on the background music or the cinematography because my opinion does not matter since I am not an expert.

It started off good with promising scenario. I did not know if the story-line would center around the girl's relationship with the teacher and his inability to tell his wife the truth or if the girl was going to end up being a psychopath. After a while, we see that the girl is totally crazy, trying to be as close to him as possible, hinting to his wife that her husband is sleeping around with her, giving those wild looks with her freaky big eyes and so on. If the film ended up being like Fatal Attraction, I would probably rate it way higher than I did.

What really disturbed me is that the director and writer did not know which way they wanted the film to go. At one scene, the girl is portrayed as infatuated with the teacher, acting crazy and crossing the line and the next one, she suddenly has feelings and feels like the victim who was betrayed by the one she loved. You cannot have both, dear writer. She is either a psychopath (who has no feelings, feels no remorse or strong connection such as love to other humans)or she is indeed a nice, sweet girl who loves her teacher. If you have studied psychology, you understand what I mean.

Also, the final scenes were a bit off. He does not want his wife to be hurt and he chooses her when the girl gives him an ultimatum yet he is scared when she is close to falling off the building and holds onto her hand for dear life until he can't anymore..Then in the final scene, we see him crying his eyes out, mostly because the girl died but also because he obviously isn't enjoying his life back home.

So what did he actually want? A crazy girl bossing him around, seducing him, even raping him (at some point), threatening him when she can't have her own way?

All in all, I could not understand what the point of the film was. I suppose it wanted us to think it was well-thought and had some plot twists, but it ended up causing a huge mess, which, unfortunately, was not beautiful.

Rating 2/10

top notch psychological thriller

[karluk99 · 8/10 · 20 May 2015]

Young-eun develops a crush on her high school physical ed teacher, Jun-ki. Jun-ki initially finds her attractive, but then tries to break off the developing relationship after scandalous rumors threaten his career. This is easier said than done, since Young-eun becomes obsessed and refuses to let him go.

This certainly isn't the first movie with a similar theme, but there's a lot to like about Innocent Thing, foremost among them being an outstanding performance by Jo Bo-ah as Young-eun. She seemingly without effort displays a wide range of emotions, from cute and flirty to dark and menacing. The movie could not succeed without a strong performance from her, and Jo Bo-ah delivers splendidly.

I normally would not like the disjointed editing that frequently makes it impossible to tell whether a scene is really happening, or is simply a hallucination in Young-eun's psychotic mind. But in this movie I thought it was a great way to allow the viewer to experience Young-eun's descent into madness. We think that she is a cold-blooded murderer who will let nothing come between her and her obsession, but then discover that at least one of the murders never happened at all. How about the other one? I'm not sure, and I doubt that Young-eun knows either. It could be murder, it could be an insane revenge fantasy that never happened.

There is a lot of moral ambiguity in the movie. Jun-ki starts out with an indefensible attraction to a high school girl, but at least never lets it develop into a real affair. The pregnant wife starts out as an innocent victim of her husband's unfaithfulness and Young- eun's jealousy, but then commits what would be a serious offense while trying to hush things up. Depending on your point of view, Young-eun is either a menacing psycho or the victim of Jun-ki's lust and the wife's attempted cover-up.

I suggest you see Innocent Thing with friends. It's entertaining enough to keep you all on the edge of your seats, and there will certainly be a lot to talk about afterward.

Good obsession movie by any standard

[phd_travel · 8/10 · 3 February 2020]

From Zombie movies to Monster movies the Korean filmmakers have been making better versions of Hollywood movies. Here is a story of a fatal attraction style crush of a school girl on a married high school gym teacher. The Compared to a Hollywood thriller the pace is deliberate but its a watchable and plausible build up to a genuinely tense finale. Good acting.

Dark thriller with a touch of horror.

[ts-85601 · 8/10 · 14 December 2021]

The film shows the horrific consequences of lustful attraction and how important it is to differentiate between love and lust, especially for today's teens and young adults. Korean cinema never fails to impress.

Forbidden Love Goes Bad

[PalmBeachG · 8/10 · 13 June 2023]

I liked the movie - a romantic mystery and thriller keeps you guessing what is going to happen next. The teacher and coach gets caught up in a high school girl who has a crush on him. The girl takes it too far trying to get his attention all the time until she traps him in a room alone a night when things get out of hand. It is all over from then on out as she becomes a stalker, pulling tricks and imagining things and even conning his pregnant wife into tutoring her in his home and even staying overnight. It goes from a bad situation to a worse situation. The ending isn't the happiest one I have seen - that's for sure.

who was innocent here really?

[nasisobhi · 10 October 2021]

I'm a fan of Jang Hyuk's works, He is great, He's impressions and the way he express feelings of the character. And in this movie he nailed it again.

The writer Tae-gyun Kim managed to make the characters good and the way we can relate to them and the cast make it perfect with their acting skills.

The girl was too crazy by the way she was a high school student but she didn't understand a thing name credit and honor, if she loved her teacher that much why did she post that on the internet.

In that case the teacher would have lost his job and she couldn't see him again, but we all know that she was crazy so she didn't care, she just wanted to have him no matter what and that wasn't love in my opinion that was just a crush and we all have been there.

At last: no one was innocent here the girl and the teacher had forbidden love and his wife told him to let her die and also took her to a doctor for abortion which was for no reason but for the girl that was the last shot, they were all sinners so who was the innocent one.