“Don’t Tell Papa” is a somewhat endearing film about an 8-year-old boy, Cho-woo (played superbly by Seung-ho Yu), who lives with his single father. His father works for a meager salary at a nightclub as an MC. His boss keeps him employed because he is tight-fisted.
Cho-woo has a pretty difficult life. He has never met his mother, whom he believes dead, because she ran away to the United States shortly after he was born. Her parents are wealthy and embarrassed that their daughter was not married when she got pregnant. Cho-woo must spend all his hours after school at the club with his father. Cho-woo and the owner’s son are constantly fighting, causing more problems between his father and the boss.
Finally, Cho-woo’s mother reappears in Korea. She meets her former lover and her son, but the two do not recognize each other. When she finally discovers who he is, and that the boy she has fallen in love with is her son, she decides that she wants to be a part of his life now. Cho-woo’s father knows that he is not perfect, but feels that she has no right, after 8 years, to break in and tell him how to raise his son. The boy, not knowing that the woman is his mother, has fallen in love with her and tries to get his father to marry her. This causes more problems between father and son.
The main problem with this film is that it tries without success to mix humor and drama. If humor was really funny, it could have been a different story. All the jokes are nothing more than a mixture of vulgarity and profanity that do nothing more than detract from the true story, that of an orphan boy looking for answers.
However, on the other side of the coin, we find young Seung-ho Yu doing a beautiful performance as the confused and naive boy whose greatest pleasure in life is pleasing his father. All of his scenes, whether he’s laughing, crying, or just reflecting on the life around him, are memorable and heartwarming. This movie is worth watching, but it could have been so much better without all the unnecessary dirt and smut the viewer has to go through to get to the heart of the story.
