Marrying the Mafia (가문의 영광)
Marrying the Mafia (가문의 영광, Gamun-ui Yeonggwang, literally "The Family's Honor") is a 2002 South Korean gangster romantic comedy directed by Chung Hung-soon, in which the three sons of a legendary crime boss try to force a respectable young businessman to marry their sister after he wakes up next to her one morning1. Produced by Taewon Entertainment with international sales by CJ Entertainment, it opened in South Korea on September 13, 2002, ran 115 minutes, and was rated 151. It became the most watched Korean film of 2002 and launched one of Korea's most successful film franchises, a series that ran from 2002 to 20122 • 7.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 가문의 영광 (Gamun-ui Yeonggwang), "The Family's Honor"1 |
| Release | September 13, 2002, South Korea; 115 minutes; rating 151 |
| Director and writers | Chung Hung-soon, co-written with Choi Hae-chul1 • 9 |
| Lead cast | Jung Joon-ho (Park Dae-seo), Kim Jung-eun (Jang Jin-kyung), with Yoo Dong-geun, Sung Ji-ru, and Park Sang-uk as the Jang family1 • 9 |
| Box office | Most watched Korean film of 2002, more than five million viewers nationwide per KOFIC; a KOBIS-based archive lists 1,605,775 admissions as the year's number one2 • 3 |
| Franchise | First of a series running 2002–2012; a Chinese remake of the first film followed2 • 7 |
| Recognition | Blue Dragon Awards 2002, including Best Supporting Actor; festival screenings at Raindance (2003), FESTASIA (2004), and Fantasia (2005)1 |
Spoilers
Plot
Jin-kyung, the only daughter of the legendary mob boss Jang Jung-jong, accidentally spends a night with Dae-seo, a man she has never met before. When the scandal reaches her family, her three brothers set out to "teach some lessons to the kid". The plan changes when they discover that Dae-seo is a graduate of a prestigious university and a successful businessman, exactly the educated son-in-law a family of money and power but no schooling has always lacked. The brothers then embark on a campaign to hook up Jin-kyung and Dae-seo1.
Korean-language coverage fills in the setup: Park Dae-seo (Jung Joon-ho) is a young venture-company CEO who graduated top of his class from Seoul National University's law school, and he wakes up naked beside the stranger Jin-kyung (Kim Jung-eun), daughter of the "living legend" boss 3J of the Honam underworld. Her brothers, the film's blackmailing trio, threaten him into marriage and even storm his home to make him meet the fearsome chairman11 • 3. Rotten Tomatoes summarizes the same premise: gangsters insist a man marry a mobster's daughter after he spends a drunken night with her9.
Franchise and later revival
The first film's success warranted a sequel and a Chinese remake2. Director Chung Hung-soon, who had made the first film, moved on to direct My Wife Is a Gangster 2 (2003)2. The series continued through 20127, and a 2023 revival, Marrying the Mafia Returns (가문의 영광: 리턴즈), directed by Jeong Yong-ki and Chung Tae-won, was released in South Korea on September 21, 2023, again following a family that schemes to push its daughter and an ideal son-in-law candidate into marriage17.
Genre context: the gangster-comedy wave
The film belongs to a cluster of early-2000s Korean hits that dropped gangsters into "fish out of water" situations: a tomboyish female gangster facing love and marriage in My Wife is a Gangster (2001), a crime boss sent back to high school in My Boss, My Hero (2001), and gangsters versus Buddhist monks in Hi, Dharma (2001)13. Marrying the Mafia (2002) joined this wave, and most of these films, including this one, were reproduced as sequels because producers sought genres with proven audiences16.
A Korean Film Council feature places the film within the broader comedy boom: after the late-1990s diversification of Korean cinema, comedies paired with romance, as in My Sassy Girl (2001), or with crime, producing gangster-comedy franchises such as Marrying the Mafia (2002–2012), My Boss, My Hero (2001–2007), and Mapado (2005–2007)8. A Korea Journal survey of mainstream genres likewise lists the Marrying the Mafia series (2002–2012) among the examples of the period's gangster-comedy strand7.
Box office
The film opened on September 13, 2002, just before the Chuseok holiday, and dominated that season. Within nine days of release it had drawn about 1,937,000 admissions nationwide, and during the three-day holiday it alone sold 265,074 tickets on 66 Seoul screens, pushing the national total toward two million4 • 5. The Korean Film Council's retrospective feature states that it finished as the most watched Korean film of 2002 with more than five million viewers2. A year-end archive drawing on the KOBIS box-office database instead records 1,605,775 admissions for the year's number one film3; the two figures are reported here as given by their sources.
The film's popularity spilled into pop culture. Kim Jung-eun's character sings "Na Hangsang Geudaereul" ("I Am Always to You") in a love-confession scene, and the song reached number one on both karaoke and mobile ringtone charts6 • 12. In a CJ CGV audience poll for the 2002 film of the year, Jung Joon-ho (11.7%) and Kim Jung-eun (25.3%) each placed second in their acting categories14.
Reception
Contemporary Korean reviews praised the star pairing and supporting cast while faulting the plotting. The Kyeonggi Ilbo called it a comedy mixing gangster-film conventions with melodrama, noting the appeal of "CF queen" Kim Jung-eun and box-office regular Jung Joon-ho alongside solid supporting players Yoo Dong-geun, Sung Ji-ru, and Park Keun-hyong, but found the story's flow uneven15. A retrospective review on the Korean Film Archive's user site observed that, unlike its gangster-comedy siblings, the film centers on the civilian couple caught in the marriage scheme and lowers the intensity of profanity and violence in favor of situational humor, while admitting that some episodes feel contrived10.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 64% Tomatometer from three critics' reviews; the Seattle Times called it "an engaging romantic farce with classic screwball overtones, offset by particularly vicious scenes of gangland violence," while the San Francisco Chronicle gave it 1.5 of 4 stars9.
References
- Marrying the Mafia (2002), Korean Film Council (KOFIC) film database
- Stories Too Big for One Movie, Korean Film Council feature
- 〈가문의 영광〉 (2002), 그시절 보관소 (KOBIS year-end box office)
- '가문의 영광' 연휴기간도 1위, Seoul Shinmun (September 25, 2002)
- 〈가문의 영광〉 200만명 육박, Cine21 (2002)
- ［추석특집］ "피아노 연습에 밤새웠지라", Kyunghyang Shinmun (2002)
- From the Era of Melodrama to the Age of the Comedy and the Thriller, Korea Journal
- Is Comedy on the Rise in Korea?, Korean Film Council feature
- Marrying the Mafia, Rotten Tomatoes
- 가문의 영광 review, KoreanFilm.co.kr
- 영화/가문의 영광 - 가방끈 긴 남자, 조폭 사위 되다, Seoul Shinmun (September 5, 2002)
- ［토요명화］가문의 영광, Segye Ilbo (2007)
- Aramchan Lee, PhD thesis on Korean gangster genre film, University of Southampton
- 2002 관객이 뽑은 올해의 영화상 〈집으로…〉, Cine21 (2002)
- 새영화/가문의 영광, Kyeonggi Ilbo (September 13, 2002)
- Jaewook Ryu, PhD thesis on the Korean film industry, Lancaster University
- Marrying the Mafia (2023), Filmmakers.co.kr
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2003 to 2004 › Titles M to Y
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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