comedy, Han Sun-hwa, Hyun Bong-sik, Jo Jung-suk, Kim Han-gyul, Kim Ji-hyun, Lee Chan-won, Lee Ju-myoung, movies, Pilot, reviews, Seo Jae-hee, Shin Seung-ho, South Korea
August 14, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Kim Han-gyul
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2023 and 2024, in South Korea, the comedy film “Pilot” features a nearly all-Asian cast of characters (with one white person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A disgraced hotshot pilot, who’s been blacklisted from the airline industry, pretends to be a woman when he finds out that an airline is recruiting female pilots.
Culture Audience: “Pilot” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedies about gender swapping.
The breezy comedy “Pilot” has similarities to the 1982 film “Tootsie,” but Pilot has updated themes that demonstrate the role that social media can play in shaping public images. Even with its amusing moments, “Pilot” has a lot to say about gender stereotypes. There are some scenes that require a suspension of disbelief, but they are explained in a way that’s fairly reasonable in the context of the story, which still has a few plot holes.
Directed by Kim Han-gyul and written by Jo Yoo-jin, “Pilot” takes place in 2023 and 2024, in unnamed cities in South Korea, although it can be assumed that much of what happens is in Seoul. The movie’s opening scene shows what appears to be a female airline employee running frantically through a busy city street while being chased by dozens of people. Who is this person? And why are so many people chasing this person?
The first two-thirds of the movie explain what happened before circling back to this scene in the last third of the movie. The protagonist of “Pilot” is Han Jung-woo (played by Jo Jung-suk), a hotshot pilot with Hankuk Air, a leading South Korean airline company. In 2023, Jung-woo is 31 years old and a star employee on the rise who has recently been promoted from co-pilot to captain. He does TV interviews on behalf of Hankuk Air, which treats him like a celebrity, because Jung-woo is featured in Hankuk Air’s advertisements.
At first glance, Jung-woo seems to have it all: He has a lovely wife named Soo-young (played by Kim Ji-hyun) and an adorable 6-year-old son named Si-hoo. Jung-woo’s career is thriving. He has the respect and admiration of many people. Soo-young, a dancer who teaches ballet to children, is also doing well in her job. What could possibly go wrong?
But things go terribly wrong. Jung-woo has become arrogant. He has a dismissive and sexist attitude toward women in the airline industry. One day, at a company meeting, Jung-woo stands up and loudly compares flight attendants to bouquets of flowers that can wilt. His misogynistic comment is controversial and causes public outrage.
Jung-woo’s comment comes during a rough time for Hankuk Air. The company is experiencing a power struggle between the two siblings who are set to inherit the company brother Noh Jeong-wook (played by Hyun Bong-sik) is the vice president who takes credit for the hard work and innovative ideas of his older sister Noh Moon-young (played by Seo Jae-hee), who is the director of the company.
Due to Noh Jeong-wook’s mismanagement, the company’s stocks are plunging. Staff cuts are made. Jung-woo is one of the people who is fired, mostly because of his sexist remarks that he said in public. As a result of the scandal. Jung-woo has problems finding a job at another airline. He eventually finds out that he’s been blacklisted.
Things go from bad to worse for Jung-woo. Shortly after he gets fired, Soo-young tells Jung-woo that she wants a divorce and that she’s been thinking about ending their marriage for quite some time, long before he got fired. Soo-young later tells Jung-woo she doesn’t want to be married to him anymore because he’s become too self-absorbed. In their quickie divorce, Jung-woo loses custody of Si-hoo, but Jung-woo gets unsupervised visitation rights.
Because of the divorce, Jung-woo needs a new place to live. He moves back in to the apartment that he bought for his widowed mother Kim An-ja (played by Oh Min-ae) and younger sister Han Jung-mi (played by Han Sun-hwa), who live together. Jung-woo is still paying the mortgage for the apartment, but he’s too ashamed to tell his mother that he got fired from his job. Jung-woo feels obligated to continue to give this financial support to his mother and sister because he’s grateful that they helped raise him when he was younger.
Jung-woo is dismayed and embarrassed to find out that getting too caught up in hotshot pilot job has come at an emotional cost: His mother has become an obsessive fan of pop star Lee Chan-won (playing a version of himself) and has decorated the apartment’s spare bedroom with posters of Lee Chan-won. Jung-mi tells Jung-woo that their mother thinks of Lee Chan-won as her “new son” because Jung-woo has been neglecting his family.
During his job search, Jung-woo applies for a job at Han Air, which is owned by the same company that owns Hankuk Air. Noh Moon-young is on a panel of people interviewing Jung-woo, who is rejected. A Han Air pilot named Seo Hyun-seok (played by Shin Seung-ho), who is 35 years old and is a jealous rival of Jung-woo, tells Jung-woo that Han Air is giving hiring preference to female pilots. It’s implied that this gender preference is a public-relations move to make up for the scandal that Jung-woo caused with his misogynistic comments.
A dejected Jung-woo goes home and tries to figure out his next career move. Jung-mi is an ASMR beauty influencer who does videos for an unnamed social media platform. One day, Jung-woo gets a call for a job interview as a pilot for Han Air. Jung-mi is shocked to find out that Jung-woo used her name on the job application. Jung-woo then asks for Jung-mi’s help to make him look like a woman for this job interview.
At first Jung-mi refuses to do it. But then, Jung-woo reminds her that he needs to make enough money to continue paying for their home’s mortgage. He tells her if he can’t pay the mortgage, they’ll lose their home. Jung-mi quickly changes her mind and agrees to help. She also promises her brother that she will keep this gender deception a secret.
The rest of “Pilot” has plot points that are a lot like “Tootsie,” the Oscar-winning film starring Dustin Hoffman as a blacklisted actor who pretends to be a woman to get a role on a TV soap opera, he becomes a popular star of the show, and he ends up falling for a female co-star (played by Jessica Lange), who doesn’t know his true gender identity. The main difference in both movies (beside the jobs of the protagonists) is that the protagonist in “Tootsie” is a never-married bachelor with no family, whereas the protagonist in “Pilot” is a divorcé with a family.
Jung-woo uses his sister Jung-mi’s name, and he dresses like a woman when he goes to the Han Air interview, where Noh Moon-young is once again the leader of the interview panel. Several uncomfortable interactions ensue as he awkwardly adjusts to presenting himself as a woman. Despite a few mishaps, Jung-woo quickly gets hired by Han Air.
There are some glaring plot holes that are addressed later in the movie, such as how Jung-woo was able to get hired using a fake name and by misrepresenting his gender. Some of the comedy in the movie is about Jung-woo (dressed as Jung-mi) trying to prevent Hyun-seok from recognizing him as Jung-woo. That’s explained because Hyun-seok was a casual acquaintance of Jung-woo and is too narcissistic to notice the physical resemblance between Jung-woo and the newly hired Jung-mi.
As already revealed in the trailer for “Pilot,” the fake Jung-mi eventually becomes a star employee and a social media sensation after saving 215 passengers from a plane crash. Jung-woo’s mother An-ja becomes a big fan. How could An-ja not notice that this female celebrity pilot has the same name as her daughter and looks a lot like her son? The movie has an explanation for that too.
Meanwhile, cocky Hyun-seok becomes attracted to his new co-worker Jung-Mi, whom he thinks is a woman. Jung-woo becomes attracted to female co-worker who doesn’t know that new employee Jung-Mi is really a man named Jung-woo. Jung-woo’s love interest is a career-oriented pilot named Yoon Seul-gi (played by Lee Ju-myoung), who has the same ambition of being promoted to captain. Seul-gi and the fake Jung-Mi become very close and spend time together outside of work.
Seul-gi thinks of “Jung-Mi” as a sister. Jung-woo, who can’t tell Seul-gi that he’s really a man, wants more than a friendship with her. During a “girls’ night out,” Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) tells Seul-gi that he knows many men whom he could introduce to Seul-gi as potential boyfriends. He asks Seul-gi what type of man is her ideal man. Seul-gi says her ideal man is someone who can understand how much she loves her job and someone who doesn’t lie to her. Uh-oh.
“Pilot” has some exepcted slapstick comedy moments about the lengths that Jung-woo goes to keep his secret and keep up the charade. The cast members’ talent and very good comedic timing are the reasons why some of these moments are laugh-out-loud funny instead of cringeworthy. Jo’s gender-swapping performance is entertaning to watch, even if “Pilot” is nowhere near a classic movie like “Tootsie” that’s worthy of several Oscar nominations.
The most ridiculous part of “Pilot” is the plane crash scene, which has cheat editing. One minute, the plane suddenly catches on fire. Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) and Hyun-seok are piloting the plane, but Hyun-seok panics, and Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) takes over flying the plane. A few minutes later, Jung-woo (as Jung-Mi) wakes up in a hospital. The movie completely skips over showing how the plane landed.
Despite some obvious flaws, “Pilot” doesn’t take itself too seriously—and neither should viewers. The movie could have taken a completely sappy direction in showing the outcome of one particular problem, but “Pilot” instead shows a realistic outcome. That’s not to say that “Pilot” is entirely realistic, but it does have some clever moments that show how a man can learn to better appreciate and understand women if he had to live for a period of time as a woman.
Lotte Entertainment released “Pilot” in select U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024.