Deliver Us from Evil (2020, Hong Won-Chan)

The evil in Deliver Us from Evil is specifically Lee Jung-jae’s sadistic villain but generally the entire world of the film, which features drug kingpins, child kidnapping, government assassins turned hitmen, human traffickers, real estate swindlers, organ thieves, and crooked cops. At one point the film gets super-judgy about Park Jeong-min’s cabaret singer complaining about being surrounded by all the, well, Evil. Of course, since she’s a trans woman (actor Park, however, is not; he’s a cis male actor, which is just as shitty a move in a South Korean film as an American), it’s somehow supposed to be her fault. Meanwhile, all the dudes roaming around butchering people, kidnapping kids, and so on… well, it’s just the way it is for them. There’s something more wrong about Park, who’s run off to Thailand because she’s ashamed of being trans and having abandoned a young son back home in Korea.

I’m assuming the source dialogue has all the misgendering (the subtitles sure do), as the film uses Park as a showpiece for various people to discriminate against. It’s a messed up part and Park does all right, but it’s the most exploitative thing in writer and director Hong’s film, which is about kidnapping children and harvesting their organs based for xenophobes. In fact, Hong terrorizes Park’s character onscreen to get out of having to terrorize the trafficked children onscreen. The narrative needlessly tracks Park through a terrified night in jail to the morning where three cops threaten her for information, leveraging her marginalized status as an injury vector. And Hong drags it out to the point I was expecting “hero” Hwang Jung-min to somehow rescue Park from the crooked cops, but, no, it’s just more opportunities to be shitty to Park and terrorize her for sympathy. Except not exactly because Hwang’s super shitty to her too. It’s a garbage move, made even more so when Hong reveals Park to be the only truly sympathetic character in the whole movie (well, adult; well, adult who isn’t a fridged woman).

Of course, there’s an added “(South Korean) Oscar bait” aspect to Park’s performance, which makes it all the more shallow and all the more craven. It’s incredibly insincere, callous, and often mean-spirited.

Hong often tries to veer Evil away from the true meanness he’s setting on film through the outlandish characters. Calling the characters in Evil caricatures is a little too complimentary; they’re cartoonish. Often viciously cartoonish, but cartoonish. Lee’s a terrifying psychopathic supervillain who literally chops his way through crowds of people to get at his target—Hwang, who unknowingly killed Lee’s brother. Hwang spends the first act of the film, outside the hitman sequences, moping around Japan. He’s an ex-pat from South Korea who used to be a happy, well-adjusted government assassin; a bunch of non-murderous people came to power and decided they should stop killing people and disbanded Hwang’s outfit so he had to run to Japan. Where he keeps doing one last job until he can go live on a beach in Panama. Then he’ll be happy.

Except after Hwang does his last hit… someone kidnaps his previously unknown daughter Park So-yi over in Thailand, where she’s been happily living with naive mom Choi Hee-seo. Notice how much the plot hinges on previously unknown characters (Park, Lee) coming to the fore as inciting actions–Hong doesn’t really have a story, he’s got a hero (Hwang) and a villain (Lee) and various set pieces where they interact.

Both Hwang and Lee are capable of infinite violence—at one point someone injuries seem to supernaturally heal because he’s needed for the next action sequence, which involves chasing a car on foot while suffering multiple stab wounds; the leads chop through a legion of fake shemps, having both run afoul of the local crime lords in Thailand on their arrival, invincible until they have their inevitable showdown. Only Hwang’s not in the movie for an inevitable showdown with Lee, he’s in the movie to rescue daughter Park. Hong loses sight of the main plot, too wrapped up in the pretty good grisly action sequences. There are no heroics in Evil, just bloody action scenes—lots and lots of knives; it’s a third act problem because the film sets Hwang up as a tactical genius while Lee’s the bull stabbing everything in the china shop.

Hong does a great job directing Evil, Hong Kyung-pyo’s photography is excellent, ditto Kim Hyung-ju’s editing, and Hwang’s performance is outstanding the lead. Lee’s good but he’s just doing an unstoppable, unpredictable bad guy thing. It’s like an audition reel for another Joker movie or something. The different tones in the adversaries is usually a plus; it craps out at the end, when Hong turns out to have no organic way to bring them together and has to gin one up; Hong gets through thanks to his directing and his crew.

It’d be nice if Deliver Us from Evil’s biggest problem were just the third act, or just the title, instead of the transphobia and xenophobia. I didn’t even get to the xenophobia but basically the film portrays Thailand as a shithole country full stop. For a transphobic, xenophobic, exploitative revenge and avenge thriller, Evil’s about as good you can get. It’d be nice if it didn’t come with so many gross caveats.

Nomadland (2020, Chloé Zhao)

Nomadland becomes even more of an achievement when you find out the supporting cast is entirely amateur. The film’s a character study of lead Frances McDormand as she adjusts to her life as a modern nomad, traveling the country in her van (where she also lives), working seasonal jobs, and coming across a variety of people. All those people—with the exception of David Strathairn—are amateurs. Their effectiveness (or the outright quality of their performances) is stunning; because while McDormand is potentially an eccentric—the film takes a while giving that information—none of the folks she meets on the road come off as quirky Americana tropes. Director, screenwriter, and editor Zhao hones in on their humanity immediately.

The film takes place in 2011, after tragedy and the recession has ravaged McDormand’s life; after losing her home (she lived in a company town), she moves into her van while working a seasonal job at Amazon. She’s got a good friend at that job, Linda May (starring Linda May as Linda May, as it were). Zhao introduces the nomad lifestyle initially through May, before they both end up at a nomad retreat led by Bob Wells. That retreat might be the longest McDormand stays in one place, long enough to meet Strathairn, who’s immediately smitten with her, deepen her friendship with May, and meet a new good friend in Charlene Swankie.

Those four—May, Swankie, Strathairn, and Wells—will be the supporting cast, even though Nomadland never settles long enough for it to seem like a firm commitment. Zhao employs a lyrical structure to the film overall, with McDormand leading the film into excursions into the wilderness around her, but there’s some epical drama involving Strathairn, where the film—quite frankly—comes the closest to derailing. Zhao pulls it all together again and pushes up and over, saving the best for last as far as character revelation goes on McDormand. During her travels, we find out more and more of her backstory, with sister Melissa Smith doing one of the great character study monologues to explain their relationship, but Zhao and McDormand resist any actual reveals on the character until the very end. Then they knock it out of the park with a perfect finish.

I had been expecting Nomadland to be a depressing piece about the ravages of the Great Recession, but Zhao finds an entirely different story. Not one of resilience or survival but of contentment and wonderment. The way Zhao and McDormand do the nature scenes, when McDormand takes a walk off the beaten path, is divine. Zhao isn’t showing the world through McDormand’s eyes, rather McDormand’s eyes on the world and then McDormand carries through with showing her experience of those sights. It’s breathtaking.

And gets added heft thanks to some of the choice exposition throughout the film, all building—not epically but in energy—towards the conclusion. McDormand’s got an arc, the film hasn’t. If there’s a third act, it’s where Zhao figures out how to delineate between the two. Not because she’s been avoiding it, but because there’s an end to the film even though the entire picture’s about how there isn’t an end. It’s got to be done.

The film identifies some of the locales McDormand ends up, like Wall Drug (dollar ice creams are not a plot point, however), but not expressly. The Where isn’t important, rather the What, and how Zhao showcases that What. Nomadland showcases its scenery separately from how McDormand observes it, with Joshua James Richards’s gorgeous, lush photography—the stuff he and Zhao do with foreground and background is glorious—Ludovico Einaudi’s music, and then Zhao’s exceptional cutting. It’s in the first twenty minutes or so it becomes clear how good the editing is going to be throughout Nomadland; the photography’s the photography, it’s an obvious success, but the editing is simultaneously sublime and bombastic. Zhao does superior work, so even when it seems like they’re going to take an easy route to a traditional narrative in the second half, the editing’s still superb.

But then, of course, Zhao and McDormand figure out how to make that seeming short cut to didacticism into just another place where McDormand wanders off the path to look around on her own.

McDormand’s performance is singular. Nomadland is all her (or her van). The character reveals late in the film line up with the performance we’ve already seen; they don’t inform because it’d be too intentional and Nomadland takes wandering approach; McDormand doesn’t respond well to being constrained. It all comes together in that exceptional finish.

In the supporting cast, while Strathairn’s excellent, Swankie’s the best. She’s prickly as opposed to May, who’s all heart. Swankie’s prickle provides an excellent contrast to McDormand, who’s muted. Swankie challenges McDormand, while May reinforces her. And Strathairn (tries to) tempt her.

Nomadland’s a singular picture, exploring a very specific character in a very specific—albeit wandering—setting. Zhao and McDormand (and the cast and crew) make a very special and decidedly outstanding film.

The Midnight Sky (2020, George Clooney)

The Midnight Sky goes wrong for a number of reasons. It’s too thin, even with phenomenal special effects—half the film is an Arctic adventure tale, half the film is a hard sci-fi but done as a 2001 homage. They’re destined to collide, but the Arctic adventure ceases to be an Arctic adventure by that time and instead has become… well. It’s kind of hard to describe.

A poorly executed character study maybe?

Doesn’t matter. The Arctic adventure stuff and its importance in the narrative is a complete waste of time. The space stuff is where it’s at in Sky, which is a problem since it’s a movie where George Clooney directs George Clooney in an Arctic adventure poorly juxtaposed opposite a space mission’s return to Earth.

The year is 2049. We make big advances in science real fast apparently, but there’s another global pandemic or something about to it, we just know it. So we’re going to colonize a previously undiscovered moon of Jupiter. Clooney has spent his whole life working towards that goal—starting when he’s in flashback and the character is played by Ethan Peck. Oddly, we know what George Clooney looked like thirty years ago and he did not look like Peck. Also Peck’s performance is terrible. Like. Real bad. Just real bad.

The whole flashback thing is a disaster. It doesn’t have to be a disaster. If Clooney were interested in pulling it off—Clooney the director here—it could be fine. Because Sky shows it can be fine, when it’s in space and Clooney gets to do the mechanics of speculative space travel stuff. Then he’s interested.

But when he’s literally the star of the movie… not so much.

Clooney’s the last man on Earth until he finds out he’s not. There’s a forgotten little girl (played by Caoilinn Springall), who’s forecast in the first scene with a jackhammer. There’s no nuance, no subtly. Midnight Sky hangs at least three Chekov rifles on the wall in the first act, with Clooney holding the shot on them about five times too long. Stephen Mirrione’s editing is one of the film’s strongest technicals and the film’s got lots of strong technicals, but the literal physical plot giveaways? Mirrione can’t cut those lingering shots well because they’re bad shots.

So Clooney’s got to warn the last spaceship to turn away from Earth or else they’ll die and now he’s got to bring this kid across the Arctic with him. And there are dangers and so on. There are some great action thriller sequences with it, but since they add up to bupkis with Springall (who suffers the thin writing worst in the cast, which is impressive because there’s so much thin writing), they’re kind of a waste. They’re Clooney padding it out with technical success while it turns out, giving himself this great character study part, he’s got zero interest in acting the role. It’s an incredibly loose performance; Clooney puts no effort into directing Clooney.

And, outside Springall, pretty much no one else either. He just sort of lets them try to figure it out on their own, though Tiffany Boone and Demián Bichir do get some direction and to good effect. They’re on the spaceship with Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, and Kyle Chandler. Oyelowo is the best—and gives the film’s best performance; he’s the captain. Jones is the engineer maybe. She’s pregnant. There’s a bit of pointless tension over introducing the father’s identity, but it’s in the space section so it’s permissible.

Chandler’s the pilot. Chandler gets the least direction. At times you wonder if he literally rejected it. He’s fine though. Jones is fine too. Though with less affability than Chandler.

We’re going to find out—if we can’t guess—Jones is going to be incredibly important only she’s never incredibly important. Quite the opposite. She’s the least interesting character on the spaceship because otherwise the third act twist and turn won’t work.

She also gets all the alien planet scenes to herself and they’re all terrible CGI composites. Like, Martin Ruhe should be reprimanded terrible. Otherwise his photography’s fine. It’s not great. It’s fine.

But the production values are strong, even if Jim Bissell’s production design is 2001 plus Alien plus I think “Doctor Who” plus The Thing plus… you get the idea. There’s not a single original visual in the movie, which is understandable, there have been so many sci-if movies you can’t reinvent the wheel or spinning centrifuge again.

The lighting in the spaceship itself is always good.

The real star ends up being Alexandre Desplat’s music, which seems to be from that better movie Oyelowo is acting in. Seriously, by the third act, it’s incredible Desplat was able to come up with such good music to accompany such insipid narrative.

So.

The Midnight Sky is a technically excellent sci-fi outing—also, the 2049 thing, seriously, if they’d bumped it another thirty to fifty years it’d end up making the movie at least ten percent less silly—but otherwise it’s a well-acted stinker. Though, cut all the Clooney stuff and add some more space stuff and the story’d probably be good.

But with the Clooney stuff? It is not good. It’s not even disappointing, because when Sky crashes, it does so proudly under its own hubris. It has it coming, which is a disservice to the better performances and the quality production.

Clooney maybe should’ve found a better lead for it; someone whose acting he was interested in watching would’ve been a good start.

Punisher: Soviet (2020)

Punisher soviet

No question, Garth Ennis has still got that old Punisher magic. Soviet is a change from most of Ennis’s post—Punisher MAX limited series, which have been military historical fiction with the Punisher inserted, filling out the character, peeling the onion of his tragedy. Soviet’s not about Frank. Soviet is about Frank’s Russian alter ego, one Valery Stepanovich. Stepanovich has tragedies, both familial and military, in the ballpark of Frank’s history—obviously in Afghanistan, not Vietnam—and for a good portion of the series, Soviet’s going to be Ennis’s Afghanistan story.

At least, it’s going to be a Soviets in Afghanistan story from Ennis. Maybe not “the.” I’ve always assumed his trajectory with his war comics writing—it’s been twenty years since he started—was to get to Vietnam without Frank Castle. Soviets in Afghanistan is a stop along the way. But Valery’s backstory is just right to fuel a righteous mission, out to get a Russian crime boss who’s slowly been getting more and more powerful and now seems to be going straight. The boss comes on Frank’s radar because he’s rushing to the legit finish line. The first issue’s got a lot of exposition—Frank interrogating a bad guy, a cop passing Frank information—but once Valery shows up and the erstwhile buddy flick starts… Soviet is a run downhill towards destiny for the cast.

Except not Frank.

Soviet is Valery’s story, it’s the story of the crime boss to some degree, of his kids, of his wives. But it’s not a Frank Castle story. There are occasional acknowledgements of MAX continuity, but new-to-Ennis-Punisher artists Jacen Burrows and Guillermo Oretgo visualize Frank somewhere in his forties or fifties, not seventy-one or whatever. It doesn’t not work out but it’s also an incomplete on whether Ennis can ever get the Frank Castle character development machine running again. At their best, Burrows and Oretgo make it feel like homage to a serious Ennis and Steve Dillon Punisher, which I don’t think ever actually happened. I certainly hope they keep Burrows with it. There’s an interesting contrast in his clean art and Ennis’s quagmire situations.

It does end with an interesting observation about Frank, which is just right for a Punisher comic where he’s just along for the ride. Outside the first issue, everything he does is with his new best friend.

Valery and Frank don’t get a lot of buddy scenes together because Ennis is trying to keep it serious–there’s a truly hilarious joke but then they’re off to talk about Valery’s past and things get serious again. Their buddy arc’s resolution is appropriately sanguine, given the circumstances, and Ennis clearly likes pairing Frank with a capable partner, especially one with a sense of humor.

I didn’t know much about Soviet going in (not the Russian alter ego, not the Afghanistan flashback, not Burrows) and it all turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Well, not pleasant, obviously, but a very welcome success. I didn’t think Soviet would be bad, but I also didn’t think it would be quite so good. Ennis and Burrows make a great team and, while I want for an “older man Frank” series from Ennis, an intentionally indeterminately timed approach clearly works as well.

Post Americana (2020) #1

Post americana 1

Post Americana takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, in what used to be the United States, some generations after the bombs went off. The comic opens with the terrifying sight of a buff Reagan-type President giving a speech as two rebels try to escape in a stolen jet amid explosions. It’s a lot of action, a lot of characters—we know there’s something wrong with the future before the rebels set off their explosives (from the President’s speech plus some visual indicators). Creator Steve Skroce does a fantastic job on the intro, but it’s nothing compared to what’s next.

What’s next is the wasteland, with a reluctantly reformed cannibal trying to flirt with the new mercenary in town, Carolyn. Carolyn’s going to be important, even though she doesn’t say a lot on her introduction. It’s more about establishing the setting and the important supporting cast members for the issue. There’s the cannibal (Rudy, who’s hilarious) and the big boss, The Flying Fuck. He flies around in armor stuff, which is important later but without any warning. F.F. doesn’t trust Rudy around Carolyn (probably because he’s going to eat her) and eventually they go to investigate the shuttle from the opening crashing.

We get a wild crash sequence, with Skroce going for absurd and gory in just the right combination, then we get the two story threads coming together and a big twist for the finish. Even after the big twist, Skroce makes time for another big action sequence and it’s outstanding. Such a good sense of detail and movement in Skroce’s art. It looks so good.

There’s a big cliffhanger and the promise of a great resolution—turns out Carolyn’s the best at what she does, which includes coming up with funny nicknames for her new sidekick (one of the escapees). So it seems there will be lots of great Skroce action.

Post Americana’s off to a super start.

Ginseng Roots (2019) #7

Ginseng Roots 7

There are some things only comics can do. There are some things only comics memoirs can do. This issue of Ginseng Roots mixes the two into something even more singular and rare; it’s a truly exceptional reading experience, far and away the best issue of the series so far; it’s going to be very hard to beat given the content, which is sort of the point of the content; Craig Thompson is a very impressive cartoonist. Like, I don’t know how he pulled it off. I spent the entire issue waiting for him to leave the subject—the story of a Hmong kid who grew up parallel to Thompson as a Wisconsin ginseng farmer’s kid—and sticks with it.

The first few pages are setting up the Hmong from Thompson and his family’s perspective. It starts with a harvest season MacGuffin but Thompson spends enough time on it while building towards the main subject, it’s not really a MacGuffin. It’s just the quickest, most edifying way get to go. It’s never hurried (and doesn’t skip things—bringing up racism right away); Thompson’s really good at efficiently setting the ground situation, which is going to play in pretty soon in the juxtapose—but when he moves on to the kid’s story, which starts with the Hmong dad’s story being a Hmong teenager in Laos and the Vietnam War. I turned back a page to make sure, but while I don’t know how Thompson could maintain the intensity of the issue, his segue is observable and worth reading thrice. First, second to confirm, third to appreciate. It’s stunning start to finish. The best comics.

So we get Thompson telling this kid’s story as first person, but with him—Thompson in the comic—listening. Now, the story is an adult’s story, but it’s coming from the fifteen year-old comics version. And it’s about the dad. There are all these layers to it and then Thompson’s already an additional couple comics artifice things goin on (which refer back to previously established ground situation to create a particular reference and effect). It’s just incredible work.

The story comes up to the modern day (so past where we were initially hearing the story in the nineties or whatever when they’re fifteen), with Thompson not just taking the time to cover the Hmong in Wisconsin but also their involvement in the Vietnam War (and the CIA’s involvement in the Vietnam War). And he’s still got time for a sincere, aspirational twist. Thompson tells this story with appropriate reverence. Like I said, it might just be impossible to beat because the historical content is the historical content.

It’s even higher level stuff from Thompson than I was expecting and I’ve been expecting greater and greater things from Ginseng Roots.

Ginseng Roots (2019) #6

Ginseng Roots 6

It’s such a dark issue. How is it such a dark issue. I mean, it’s clear why it’s a dark issue—creator Craig Thompson juxtaposes the seed process of ginseng with he and his siblings going into high school, getting baptized, and suffering serious abuse, so there’s simultaneous this literal expansive life thing for the seed (and the kids) along with accompanying traumas.

Very dark. But bright and full of amusing moments. Also petrifying ones (Thompson says a lot about being raised by religious parents without saying much about religion).

The art is stunning from the first page, with these intricately composed pages, the “narrative” flowing from page to page as he describes the complicated, years long process of getting from ginseng seed to ginseng plant. In addition to the growing process, there’s also the accompanying work the farmer has to do to plant the seeds, which of course gets covered. There are also some nice textual asides, but it’s mostly a lesson on the seeds.

The issue’s also a lot more lyrical in structure than usual. Even with the long cycle for the seeds, Thompson doesn’t stick too much to the set timeline, sort of easing in and out of it, skipping ahead nine months in as many panels then slowing down to a halt and zooming in to inspect something going on either with the seed or he and his siblings. His parents get to be active (fretting over evil secularism or worse) in a few panels and it’s always part of the flow.

The sister gets a lot more to do than usual (though usually she’s not even present); here, she’s a full sidekick, complete with her own observational asides. But Thompson even distances himself (as a teen), zooming out to look at himself in comparison to his siblings. It’s not until after the home schooling decision Thompson really zooms back in on himself, but it’ll be a story for another issue (or maybe not). Because the story of the seed, and therefore the issue, is coming to a close. It’s incredibly successful and I guess not too bold a move given Ginseng Roots knows its audience; the end comes abruptly but the issue doesn’t feel abrupt. I keep waiting for some zinger as I read the last few pages, fingertips feeling the end near with every page turn, but no. Thompson just does the issue and ends it.

It’s maybe the best way to finish a heavy chapter in a serial.

So good.

Ginseng Roots (2019) #5

Ginseng roots 5

Maybe half the issue is the fascinating world history of the ginseng trade—it was actually an American export to China hundreds of years ago too—while the other half is a more colloquial info dump on how pesticides affect ginseng crops. At one point I remembered something I’d learned about ginseng growing from the previous issues and paused to appreciate how incredible creator Craig Thompson is with the exposition. Ginseng Roots never feels like a lecture, never feels like a TED Talk, always feels like… well… Ginseng Roots.

We get to meet some more of the neighbors as Thompson and his brother continue visiting people and talking Shang. There’s a bit about the brother getting into guns as the first hobby he had to himself (creator Thompson wasn’t interested) and then there’s an incredible moment when the sister pops up for a panel and comments on it. I can’t wait to read the comic in a sitting someday and seeing how that subplot perturbs.

Just because there’s so much history—the discovery of American ginseng in the 1700s came from a Jesuit priest who read an article written by another Jesuit priest in China who thought maybe there’d be some there if the climate was similar. It’s nimbly executed but Thompson manages to convey the worldwide scope of it, not to mention how tied the ginseng would end up being in relations between China and the eventual United States.

The only part where Thompson loses some ground is when China goes Communist. All the understanding Thompson’s had for the inevitable Wisconsin Trumpers he’s been lionizing goes out the window and the text all of a sudden feels like it’s out of a CIA fact book.

He never really has to recover since the history’s almost done, but it’s almost pointless. And is a missed opportunity to look at how ginseng production and consumption changed.

But a small (though not insignificant) gripe.

Ginseng Roots (2019) #4

Ginseng roots 4

It’s been almost a year since I last read a Ginseng Root and I’ve been lallygagging on getting back into reading because I was worried I’d be lost without a reread. But this issue’s a nice concise look at creator Craig Thompson and his brother’s experience picking rocks for comic book money.

So, while ginseng itself grows fine around rocks—in fact getting by rocks gives the root some personality—those same rocks will break the farming machinery and need to be cleared from the field. Thompson, his brother, and a couple friends they make at school do it summers to great success. The farmer who used to employ the kids has since given up farming—he couldn’t compete with wages (there’s an implication Wisconsin McDonald’s pay fourteen dollars an hour, which isn’t true at all, they don’t even make nine, so the continued subtext of all Thompson’s interviewees being QAnon-ready is even more potent reading it now)—and is now selling ginseng by mail to reasonable success.

Amid the ginseng industry exposition, there’s also some humor, particularly—at least at the start—with Thompson getting a cyst from drawing too much. He never really gets into it, but there’s this palpable fear his parents would make him stop drawing, along with the more unspecific fear they’re going to make he and his brother give up the worldly comic books (they’re Evangelicals). The cyst leads to some bullying, which leads to Thompson making friends with another kid who’s got a same-aged younger brother. Both families are poor and more religious (the friends are Jehovah’s Witness) and they become good friends.

The brothers cameo in the present day and they all go to a ginseng festival and reminisce. There’s nothing particularly amazing about the conversation but Thompson finds the weight in all the aging and all the changes and so on, so it turns into a very nice conclusion. There’s a little more with the farmer as an epilogue and segue to the next issue.

Also discussed—but not thoroughly—is kid Thompson’s young Earth creationism, which he presumably gave up.

But seriously… Wisconsin McDonald’s employees make 22% less than the national average. It’s disgusting.

Thompson does present it all objectively, I suppose, just not correctively.

The Swordsman (2020, Choi Jae-hoon)

Many years ago, Val Kilmer talked about how the original Tombstone director got replaced and one of that guy’s crimes was making the actors wear accurate textiles, which doesn’t matter on film. You can have a lightweight poncho and it’ll look the same on screen.

Welp.

I don’t know if it’s the benefits of shooting in 8k or whatever, but even though The Swordsman is not a cheap movie, it looks like a cheap movie because you can tell the costumes are very modernly produced. It’s very distracting because it never stops. There’s always something else onscreen to wonder about. To be fair, of course, it’s not just the costumes. The movie looks so hyper-real the sets look like a renaissance faire; so if Korea has Joseon Faires… Swordsman looks like they filmed it on the off-season.

Some of that responsibility falls on cinematographer Son Won-ho, who shoots Swordsman way too flat. Director Choi is going for un-steady Steadicam for reality’s sake or whatever, but Son shoots it documentary-reality. Like, I would much rather watch the movie where pseudo-costar Jeong Man-sik figures out Mr. Big villain Joe Taslim is a comically bad actor and then Jeong talks about it in an interview segment, but unfortunately Swordsman is a historical action movie and Taslim’s supposed to be serious.

Even though he really adds to the Joseon Faire thing because he’s like if the owner had a talentless but good-looking enough kid who made a movie in the summer. Or winter. Whatever. Offseason. Oh, and for no reason at all brought along his white wife (Angelina Danilova). Everything except a couple times it appears Taslim laughs out-of-character with Taslim and Danilova (who, to be fair, isn’t in it much but is cringe whenever she’s around) is appallingly bad.

Swordsman runs an hour and forty. When Taslim shows up, it seems like he might just be a cameo.

Nope.

Half the movie is laughably bad thanks to Taslim. While the whole movie raises an eyebrow thanks to costumes and sets.

The other half of the movie, about former king’s guard Hyuk Jang now raising the dethroned and presumably decapitated king’s daughter, Kim Hyeon-soo, in hiding. She’s a teenager now and she wants to go into town to the mall or whatever and so Hyuk finally takes her. Oh, and Hyuk’s blind, which is entirely unimportant and just how they get him to town.

So Taslim’s dad is ruler of the Chinese Qing dynasty and they’re forcing the Koreans to give them their daughters so the Koreans have to buy them back or else. Swordsman never gets darker than when it’s fairly callous about the whole kidnapped women in cages being sent to China to be sex slaves. It’s arguably glib about it.

But Kim’s charming and Hyuk’s not bad, he just hasn’t done his returning hero arc yet so we don’t know if he’s going to be good as the Korean Zatoichi.

He’s middling?

The sword fight choreography is pretty good for a lot of Swordsman, just not like… the beginning or the ending.

For a while it seems like the film might be able to get over some of its problems for a satisfactory resolve—the second act gets good—but it does not. It’s a bummer.

Especially since everyone interesting disappears in the third act. Instead it’s Jeong not paying off in his extended cameo, lots of bad Taslim, lots of middling Hyuk, and a little bit less sword fighting than you’d want. They’re saving up for the disappointing final battle.

Gong Sang-ah is good in a small part as the shop owner of the Joseon Faire tchotchke shop who apparently wet-nursed Kim as a baby and is majorly into Hyuk. Lee Na-kyung is less good as the big city shop owner who gets duped into human trafficking because… I mean, she’s a woman and Choi’s script isn’t very good. Lots of bland misogyny.

There are also Taslim’s three goons who Hyuk has to fight his way through in the game. They look very silly because of the costuming and photography, but they’re still better than Taslim.

Having Taslim as the bottom really does make even the worst supporting performance a delight because it means the camera isn’t on Taslim.

So, lots of solid sword fighting action—even though it doesn’t seem like there will be—but nowhere near good enough to make up for the rest. And, lastly, if you do see The Swordsman, opt for a low resolution. It might help.

Not sure what would help with Taslim though. Maybe the dubbed version.”