Category: South Korean film
-
The Good, the Bad and the Weird, if the title is any hint, is an homage to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. Kim Ji-woon borrows liberally from all three of the Clint Eastwood films, taking a scene from one then, a little later, one from another. He takes it further than just a cheap reference–at one…
-
There’s something rather deceptive about A Man Who Was Superman. It opens as a comedy drama. Reality TV segment producer Jun Ji-hyun’s disillusioned with her job, sick of people, and longing for her absent boyfriend. In short, she’s basically a female version of any late twenties, early thirties male professional in a movie (well, movies…
-
Mission Sex Control opens as an almost farcical comedy. The Korean President (circa 1972) meets with his cabinet to discuss family planning and its effect on the GDP. The meeting devolves into a screaming match between two cabinet members, then the opening titles splash across the screen. It all seems very comic, even as the…
-
In graduate school, one of my classmates (or is it colleagues in graduate school?) was having trouble figuring out how to convey the fantastic, but not do magical realism. Another of my classmates (colleagues) recommended she watch Field of Dreams. Everyone was a little thrown by the comment, including me, but then I realized it…
-
Thanks to Joint Security Area, I was leery of Oldboy going in. While Park Chan-wook has a large fan base, all JSA did was convince me they weren’t seeing the same movie. Finally, after Oldboy, I can understand why he has the fan base… and it’s unfortunate. Park had his big revelation ending to Joint…
-
A Good Lawyer’s Wife is beautifully directed. Im shot it Super 35 (full frame, then cropping it down to 2.35:1) and he uses a lot of steadicam, creating these fragile, exquisite compositions. Usually when I kick off with a description of the excellent technical filmmaking, it isn’t a particularly good sign. This one is no…
-
The Uninvited is a technically a horror movie, I suppose. There are ghosts and all. With the exception of the protagonist finding a kindred spirit–and her seeing ghosts too–the whole thing could work as a drama about trauma. In fact, as a drama, it would work well. During the movie, when the inevitable dumb horror…
-
Tell Me Something is, for a graphically violent serial killer movie, kind of goofy. It mixes genres–well, but it leads to the problem–starting off a straight cop movie, moving to the serial killer, then bringing in Shim Eun-ha as the damsel in distress. The serial killer aspect slows over time (especially since the killings, all…
-
Bong’s first film is unique, not just of Korean cinema, but of most. It’s a mostly lyrical piece–lyrical in the storytelling sense, not the filmmaking (there are only a couple of stylized moments in the film)–juxtaposing Lee Sung-jae and Bae Du-na. Lee’s a grad student trying to become a professor, Bae’s an office assistant in…
-
Paradise Murdered is particular kind of murder mystery… I’m having trouble coming up with a good adjective. I need something to take various elements into account: it’s uncanny, post-paced, engaging… it’s also laugh-out-loud funny. So I guess it’s madcap. Or zany. I’ve never seen a film so deftly toggle between being funny and being disturbing.…
-
While the Koreans do make the best ‘dying girl with mysterious illness falls in love’ better than anyone else, I’m not sure it’s an honor one would want. The amazing thing about how well they make these films is I don’t have any complaints with the writing of …ing. It’s fine. It’s effective, engaging, occasionally…
-
If the original Godzilla (the Japanese version, before Raymond Burr) was about the United States as a nuclear power, The Host is a metaphor for the United States as a terrorist state. Or maybe it’s not a metaphor. It’s just about a situation involving Americans and they act with complete disregard for the safety of…
-
Here’s a rule: if you’re going to have your three principal characters each narrate parts of a story (the first act, for example), make sure they keep doing it through the rest of the drama. Multi-character, scene-specific narration is a terrible idea, but at least stick with what you set-up. Not surprisingly, Daisy doesn’t stick…
-
Typhoon is the biggest budgeted South Korean film to date. The money’s well spent, as the film looks like any big budget film. If there are any massive amounts of CG, they’d be at the end, during the storm, which happens at night, making things a lot easier. However, the budget can’t fix any of…
-
Welcome to Dongmakgol is about an idyllic village in the midst of the Korean War. Two soldiers from the South, three from the North, and an American flyer end up there. Obviously, they learn people are just people and wars are a bad idea, but Dongmakgol revels in itself so much, it’s impossible to dismiss…
-
I saw the director’s cut of Aliens when it first came out in 1991. I didn’t have my own laserdisc player (and going downstairs was too far), so I probably didn’t watch Aliens again for quite a few years, if ever. Once you’ve seen the director’s cut, there’s no point in going back to the…
-
The film’s title, Art Museum by the Zoo, suggests some geographic awareness–or at least, recognition of a geographic relationship–but there’s never an establishing shot of the art museum or the zoo. There are shots of the intersection leading to either location and there are shots in the museum and at the zoo, but never any…
-
So all Song Kang-ho needs is a good movie… Well, not quite. In my Foul King post, I accused Song of being the weak link in Korean cinema and maybe he’s not. Maybe he just makes some bad choices. Still, in Memories of Murder, he plays a well-intentioned buffoon of a detective facing a rural…
-
Sorum’s approach makes the film singular. While the DVD cover certainly suggests a ghost story, the first half of the film does not. Instead, it’s a film about urban apathy, just one with an uncanny style. Director Yun really does know how to make a film–one scene in the film had me ready to proclaim…
-
The Foul King is supposed to be a comedy, but I only laughed once, about an hour in. It’s not about South Korea’s leading stand-up comedian (which I thought it was). It’s about a wrestler who cheats (and gets fouls for that cheating). The film’s structured not around a traditional sports movie, instead it’s about…
-
Often excellent, deliberate drama about forty-ish Lee Mi-suk having an affair with much younger Lee Jung-jae. Lee Mi-suk is phenomenal throughout, but the film’s very uneven between the first and second halves. In the first half, the film could just as easily be establishing Lee Jung-jae as a stalker while cuckold Song Young-chang seems like…
-
Not exactly romantic comedy or drama about school teacher Park Hae-il perving on and manipulating colleague Kang Hye-jeong into dating him–the film goes from being a cringe-y “sexual harassment comedy” to a cringe-y “sexual harassment drama.” Really strong performance from Kang and some potentially good dramatic developments in the plot get flushed for the pat…
-
Spectacular comedic, romantic drama about Korean Lee Jung-jae falling for a Japanese webcam girl (Tachibana Misato) and because it’s the movies (and the year 2000), he’s not a creep and she likes him. Great script from director Lee, phenomenal performances from the leads. Tachibana probably wins if its a contest but actor Lee is great…
-
Rookie cop Go Soo already has his hands full with drug dealers then comes across TV reporter Song Ji-hyo, who may or may not be able to tell the future, and the two find themselves trapped in increasingly dangerous (and ominous) situations. Cute and occasionally lighthearted, the film still manages to be violent and threatening.…
-
Ineptly executed decent idea–soldiers on either side of the Korean border becoming pals and how wrong things go. Director Park sentimentalizes more than directs. Some of the acting makes it bearable, though far from all of it. DVD.Continue reading →
-
Middling but inoffensive Korean supernatural thriller about an Antarctic expedition; pretty soon expedition members start dying off one by one. Beautiful New Zealand locations, fine direction, and okay plotting can’t overcome weak characterizations or the script’s emotional cheapness. The acting is better than the writing needs or deserves. DVD (R3).Continue reading →
-
Well-made but predictable romantic melodrama has Son Ye-jin as a college student who finds her mom’s old love letters. Son also plays Mom in flashbacks. Good performances all around, but it just doesn’t work out. Writer-director Kwak can’t do the melodrama. DVD (R3).Continue reading →
-
Lee Jung-Jae starred in the first Korean film I watched, Il Mare, and I’ve seen another one with him in it. Some bad one that was half-gritty cop movie and half English Patient. I probably did I write up, I remember typing that slight before. Over the Rainbow is, therefore, his first good film. You…
The Stop Button 