Hyung-tae co-invents an elaborate, online, avatar-based dating game. While online he meets In-ju, a woman who is beta testing the game, and tracks her down in the real world too. They both work in the same huge building (if anyone knows if it's real or not, please let me know). But he doesn't tell her who he is, so of course confusion and romance reign.

The film is sweeter and better done that I expected, and the acting is reasonable. My biggest complaint would be that the film is a little longer than it needs to be.

Seen on 11/7/2002 at the 2002 Hawaii International Film Festival.

Hyung-tae (Cho Seung-woo) is a developer of chatting and dating games for the internet. He works in the same building as In-ju (Lee Na-young) who performs as a mermaid in an aquarium. Hyung-tae falls in love with the girl who herself gets fond of her online-partner without knowing that it is actually Hyung-tae. The movie starts of as unpromising illustrations of internet graphics but soon develops a touching love story between two twentysomethings who come closer through virtual reality as well as they are more isolated by it. The events in one's life that deeply hurt and irritate form In-ju's interesting cautious and vulnerable character. Hyung-tae is so carefully approaching her that viewers long for a happy end. Laconic figures like the manager of the game company (who is looking for love, too) make the audience shift from tears to laughter. The mood of Choi Ho's movie (who studied film at Chung-Ang University and earned a degree in film at the University of Paris VIII) partly reminded me of a story in the famous samurai classic "Hagakure" which states that the unspoken, hidden love is the highest one. "Receive my love from the smoke of my burning body, when my life is gone", said the samurai. Because this would be hard to bear you should discover Hyung-tae's solution in the movie.