Ra Mi-ran and Lee Re front Park Bong-seop's family-friendly fantasy, the latest in a string of Korean live-action takes on Japanese IP "Mysterious Sweets Shop Jeoncheondang" starring Ra Mi-ran (PlusM Entertainment) Japanese manga and anime have spent the last decade quietly winning over the normies, and the live-action gold rush is now in full swing.Hollywood's got Taika Waititi's long-gestating "Akira," Jim Mickle's Netflix-backed "Gundam," and Lee Isaac Chung's adaptation of Makoto Shinkai's "Your Name" cued up. Major studios are betting big that Japanese storytelling can carry tentpoles.Korea, despite a troubled history with its former colonizer and a long stretch of state-led restrictions on Japanese content, has been at this for a while too. The results, frankly, have been spotty at best: Kim Jee-woon's "Illang: The Wolf Brigade" (2018) took on Mamoru Oshii's "Jin-Roh" and flopped, while Yeon Sang-ho's "Parasyte: The Grey" (2024) fared better on Netflix. Earlier this year, the teen romance "Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight" leaned into the weepie premise of the source material with rather shameless conviction.All of which is to say that live-action adaptation is inherently a tricky business, especially when the source leans on the gravity-defying flourishes and over-the-top expressions that animation is uniquely well-equipped to handle. The upcoming "Mysterious Sweets Shop Jeoncheondang" — based on Reiko Hiroshima's bestselling children's novel series and the anime that followed — sits squarely in the tougher end of that challenge. It tells of a magical sweets shop that grants wishes through enchanted snacks and treats, for better or worse depending on who walks in.The Korean version transplants the setting and rechristens shopkeeper Beniko as Hong-ja (Ra Mi-ran) and her rival Yodomi as, well, Yomi (Lee Re). For what it's worth, Japan already produced a live-action version in 2024 from "Ring" director Hideo Nakata, to a fairly tepid reception."There was definitely some pressure, taking on something this beloved," Ra Mi-ran said at Wednesday's press conference at Megabox Coex in Seoul. "But I figured we could make a Korean-flavored version of it. I've done a lot of grounded stuff, dramas and films rooted in reality, so I wanted a crack at fantasy. The story's so warm and lovely. I had to do it."The cast brings two of the leading character actors of their respective generations. Ra, 51, is one of the industry's most dependable players, who came up as a scene-stealer in supporting roles ("Reply 1988," "The Himalayas") and has since moved into leading turns with "Honest Candidate" (2020) and "Citizen of a Kind" (2024). Opposite her is Lee Re, 20, the former child actress of "Hope" (2013), who's grown into one of Korea's more interesting young performers — see "Hellbound," "Shin's Project," and last year's solid indie feature "It's Okay!"For director Park Bong-seop ("The Uncanny Counter") the project came with personal stakes. "My daughter's an elementary schooler, and she loved the original book series," he said. "I've done a lot of genre stuff with heavier edges, and I wanted to try something completely different, something I could actually sit and watch with my kid." 'Mysterious Sweets Shop Jeoncheondang' starring Lee Re (PlusM Entertainment) Ra admitted the visual difference between herself and the anime character gave her pause. "I thought there'd be a real disconnect between how she looks in the original and, well, me," she said with a laugh. "But the moment they put the white-hair wig on, I thought, 'Oh, this works.' Honestly, white hair kind of suits me. I might just let it go gray for real."Lee, who plays the villainous Yomi, leaned into the character's mischief. "I had this thing for fantasy growing up, and the script struck me as fantastical but also grounded," she said. "I wanted to play up the bratty, hard-to-hate charm, the kind of unsettling energy where the second she shows up, something's about to go sideways."The film is built as a series of stand-alone vignettes, each centered on a grade-school-aged customer with a different wish. The end product is an off-the-rack G-rated kids' movie, plain and simple — a cinematic equivalent of one of those amusement park dark rides or a kid-themed escape room. The special effects have a somewhat tacky, made-for-TV feel that seems well past its sell-by date, while the cosplay gets ridiculously literal: Ra's Hong-ja, in particular, comes saddled with ornate purple robes and a wig so massive you wonder if her neck is holding up okay.The whimsy and the moralizing — basically, be nice to your friends — tag in and out across a drawn-out 90-minute runtime. Children under, say, the age of ten who somehow haven't been hooked yet on the dopamine hits of "Demon Slayer" or "Jujutsu Kaisen" might sit through it with an occasional giggle.And their parents, likely dragged along on a hard-earned weekend, may find themselves dragged further back to the hokey early-aughts kids' programming like "Fairy Commy" (2000) or "Magic Kid Masuri" (2002-2004), wincing through every minute of it."Mysterious Sweets Shop Jeoncheondang" opens May 29.