Boy Director / <소년 감독> 2008

Directed by: Lee Woo-yeol / 이우열
Release date: October 2008

Sang-gu lives in a peaceful village deep in Kangwon Province surrounded by murals painted by his now-dead father. When the village decides to tear down the decorated buildings so a company can construct a training institute, Sang-gu first protests then heads to Seoul, with his canine sidekick, to find out how to capture the murals on film before they are destroyed and to look for the mother of his good friend, Min-hee, a Russian mail-order bride who deserted her husband and daughter. Sang-gu begins to discover pieces of his father’s past—it’s an unusual one as his father had studied to make documentary films himself.

The director clearly had aspirations of making an art film, along the lines of Why did Bodhidharma go to the East? <달마가 동쪽으로 간 까닭은?> or Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring <봄여름가을겨울 그리고 봄>: with the vague storyline of the first and the grittiness of the second. The first highlight of the film was the dog … what an actor! Spoiler: the dog ends up as boshintong. The second was the repartee between the director of the film school and his assistant, played by veteran actors Yoon Je-moon and Choi Yeo-jin … what a hoot! My take: C

The dog (uncredited), Sang-gu (Kim Young-chan), and Min-hee

(Rhonda Lee Zakutney) watch Sang-gu’s father’s

documentary footage on an ancient projector.

Fair Love / <페어르브> 2010

Directed by: Shin Yeon-shick / 신영식
Release date: January 2010

Fifty-year-old Hyeong-man is solitary by nature and still a bachelor. He spends his time running a camera repair shop and out taking photographs. An old friend who is dying of cancer requests that Hyeong-man keep an eye on his daughter, Nam-eun. When Hyung-man later meets Nam-eun, she is a pretty twenty-something college student but with definite mental and emotional problems. She develops a romantic fixation on him and, with some starts and stops, their May-December romance blossoms. But things will not always go smoothly.

An overly long (117 minutes) and rather purposeless film. The filmmakers were interested in a May-December romance but, beyond that, there was not much plot or much else in the film to catch my interest. The film could be seen as a character study of an interesting person—the reclusive and introspective Hyeong-man—but within the context of the romance, the film didn’t really go anywhere with that. The cinematography was awesome and the music interesting but the song-and-montage sequences went on and on and on. My take: DC

Hyeong-man (Ahn Seong-gi) makes his first

visit to his old friend’s daughter (Lee Ha-na).

Fortune Salon / <청담보살> 2009

Directed by: Kim Jin-yeong / 김진영
Release date: November 2009

Tae-rang has a high-paying job, a plush house, and an expensive car, and she is intelligent and beautiful to boot, but so far she has been unlucky in love. She is the daughter of a shaman and a shaman herself and fate has set for her to marry a certain man, someone who she has not met yet—all she knows is his birthdate. When she finally finds him, Seung-won proves to be ill-mannered and unattractive, and trying to follow her fate does not prove to be easy.

Another film about a guy who is a creep (or creepy, as in Hello Ghost) but, by the end of the film, has the girl fall for him. A depressing film, with little successful humor.

My take: DD

The exquisite Tae-rang (Park Ye-jin) and the

scruffy Seung-won (Im Chang-jeong) go on a date.

The Classic / <클래식> 2002

Directed by: Kwak Jae-yong / 광재용
Release date: January 2003

Ji-hae and Su-kyung attend the same university and have a crush on the same man, Sang-min. At Su-kyung’s request, Ji-hae writes love letters to Sang-min for her friend and, touched by the letters, he takes up with Su-kyung, leaving Ji-hae unhappy and alone. Ji-hae stumbles upon a box of old letters of her mother, Ju-hee’s, and discovers her mother had a first love before marrying. Oddly enough, the mother’s secret love, Joon-ha wrote letters to her on behalf of his friend, Tae-su, the boy her parents had arranged for her to marry. Time and events intervene—student protests, the war in Viet Nam, and Ju-hee’s and Joon-ha’s love is not to be … but it seems fate has something else in store for Ji-hae and Sang-min.

The film is long (more than two hours) and the story is clichéd and only mildly interesting. I got bored and kept thinking, "This scene could have been cut ..." Son Ye-jin's bleating her lines got on my nerves, too. It seems this film was wildly popular among Korean men! Go figure. My take: D

 

Teenagers Ju-hee (Son Ye-jin) and Joon-ha (Jo Seung-woo)

get caught in a downpour and take refuge in a won-du-mak …

shades of “Sonagi”, anyone? Notice Ju-hee’s pink skirt!

(“Sonagi”, a classic 1953 short story by Hwang Soon-won).

My Mom / <친정엄마> 2010

Directed by: Yoo Sung-yup / 유성엽

Release Date: April 2010

Growing up in the country, Ji-sook sees her father constantly abusing her mother until she goes away to Seoul for college and for work. Her mother’s treating her like a child gets on her nerves but her mother is always there for her, too. Finally married and with a daughter of her own, Ji-sook makes an unexpected trip to the country, is it just because she wants to see her mom, as she claims, or is there something wrong?

This film is a celebration of Korean motherhood, without a whole lot of plot, but I found it interesting in an anthropological sort of way. I found the mother’s overt favoritism for one child over the other disturbing, albeit that Korean mothers most usually have it reversed, favoring their sons and ignoring their daughters. The colors in the film were interesting: warm yellows and golds until Ji-sook delivers her shocking news, then blues and grays take over. The technologies of communication—from pagers to computers—used to indicate the passage of time were interesting, too. The mother’s role was acted a bit over the top, I kept reading things into her words that weren’t there. My take: C

At Ji-sook’s insistence, the daughter and mother

take a day trip to see the autumn leaves and have

a fancy lunch out  (Park Jin-hee and Kim Hae-sook).

My Teacher, Mr. Kim / <선생 김봉두> 2003

Directed by: Jang Gyoo-seong / 장규성
Release date: March 2003

Kim Bong-du is an elementary-school teacher, but he is only in it for the money—pursuing those envelopes full of cash from parents, bribes so he’ll give their child a lot of attention, and mistreating the students whose parents don’t give him a payoff. Getting in trouble for his greedy ways finally, he is banished to a school in the deep countryside for a year, and he hates the place and the students on sight! Life is a lot more difficult than he ever imagined and the parents only give him gifts of local produce, to boot! Somehow (just why was never apparent to me), the students take to him, and their love and affection warms him up to them.

The plot worked up until the students all go nuts over their teacher—he has been so unpredictable, rotten, and cruel to them, it just didn’t make any sense. I’d say that the unwritten rule in Korea of worshiping all teachers, which the filmmaker must be buying into, is really all the guy had going for him. The best thing about this film? Well, I really liked the sound effects of nature in the countryside … lots of neat bug noises and stuff. The scenery was pretty, too. What a spot! I’d go there to live and teach in a minute. My take: DC

“Please take good care of our child!” the mother

says and slides the cash envelop across the desk

to the teacher, Mr. Kim (Cha Seung-won).

Harmony / <하모니> 2010

Directed by: Kang Dae-gyoo / 강대규
Release date: January 2010

Jung-hae gives birth to a baby boy, Min-woo, while serving ten years in prison for killing her abusive husband. She raises her son for the first year and a half allowed by law before having to give him up for adoption. Her cellmates include a couple odd women, a dignified music professor, and eventually the new-con-on-the-block with a big chip on her shoulder. Jung-hae sets out to organize her fellow convicts into a choir, enlisting the help of her cellmates. If she is successful, she is promised a reunion with her son.

A contrived, sloppy tearjerker … but engaging nonetheless. Contrived, in that the group of women assembled to make a choir first create a cacophony that no group of human beings on earth would likely make, all so that they can “improve” during the film into a great bunch of singers. Hey, they could have just been bad and improved, this was over the top. Sloppy, watch the mouths of the singers, they NEVER are in sync with the lyrics anytime in the film. Maybe the director thought it wouldn’t be noticeable but it was and could have easily been prevented. Tearjerker as the sweet little old lady convict gets executed. Still, we got caught up in the story and ran overtime, something we rarely do, but no one noticed. My take: C

One big happy cellblock family: the four cellmates and the baby first

meet the new girl (Park Joon-myeong, Jeong Soo-yeong,

Nah Moon-hee, Kim Yoon-jin, and Lee Tae-kyeong).

My Dear Desperado / <내 깡패 같은 애인> 2010

Directed by: Kim Kwang-shik / 김광식
Release date: May 2010

Sae-jin is a country girl, innocent and optimistic. She has come to Seoul to start her new job, only to find the company gone bankrupt and herself unemployed. Her new basement digs are pretty shabby … and then it turns out her next-door neighbor is a gangster! Actually, Dong-chul is an over-the-hill gangster down on his luck but, as it turns out, with a heart of gold. The two strike up a somewhat uneasy but eventually sustaining friendship while she struggles and finds success and he struggles and finds, well, whatever it is that over-the-hill gangsters end up finding to do.

An odd film, the director didn’t seem to know just what he was going for. The gangster parts were brutal, the comedy parts were funny but not that funny, and the melodrama parts, such as Sae-jin waiting in vain in the first snow of the year for her lover to show up, didn’t seem to fit the rest. There was some odd camera work as well that had me wondering what the cinematographer was trying to say. My take: D

Sae-jin (Jeong Yu-mi) takes her cleaned-up neighbor,

the gangster Dong-chul (Park Joong-hoon),

home to meet her dad and pretend to be her fiancé.

Just Friends? <친구 사이?> 2009

Directed by: Jim-Jho Kwang-soo / 김조광수
Release date: December 2009

Seok-i (Lee Je-hoon) goes to meet his lover, Min-soo (Yeon Woo-jin), at the military camp in the country where Min-soo is completing his army service. This reunion for the gay lovers turns suddenly awkward when Min-soo’s mother (Lee Seon-joo) arrives to visit him, too.

An interesting short, nicely paced, well-acted, and engaging. The film poses some intriguing questions about the problems that can ensue when gays come out of the closet. The song and dance numbers were a lot of fun, too. My take: CCC

Strangers on a bus (Lee Je-hoon and Lee Chae-eun) show each
other the gifts they are taking to their “lovers” both of whom will
turn out to be men doing their army service at the same camp.

Quick / <퀵> 2011

Directed by: Jo Beom-goo / 조범구
Release date: July 2011

Former motorcycle gang member, Ki-su, now works for a quick-delivery service on his motorbike. Delivering a girl-group singer, Ah-rom, to her next performance, she puts on his helmet which turns out to be rigged to explode. She and he must deliver a series of packages in order to keep the bomb from going off.

The film starts off with speeding motorcycles, and some screaming and fighting going on among the riders. Then some policemen screaming. Then there is some speeding around Seoul on a motorcycle, then a concert with a lot of screaming and fighting which follows the girl-group members out to their van where it continues. The next scene has a speeding motorcycle and screaming and fighting both! I’m afraid that that is where we bailed. My take: DDD

Scene with screaming and fighting (in the van)

and a speeding motorcycle.

Green Days: the Dinosaur and I / <소중한 날의 꿈> 2011

Directed by: Ahn Jae-hoon and Han Hye-jin / 안재훈과 한혜진
Release date: June 2011
Better translation of the title: Dreams from a Precious Day.

It is the 1970s and Yi-rang is a high-school student in a country town. Her dream is to become an Olympic athlete but she fakes a collapse during a race rather than lose the race. Her new best friend will be the quirky and precocious classmate Soo-mi who comes from the big city of Seoul. Yi-rang will also experiment with a first love with classmate Chul-su who dreams of becoming an astronaut. They all plan, ponder, and dream of who they will be when they grow up. 

 

I love this film! A thoughtful and sumptuous, yet gentle, animated depiction of growing up in a small town in the 1970s, rich with detail of small town life and high school days from that era, with an awesome musical score as well.

My take: CCC

The dream: a friendly little dinosaur frisks around Yi-rang's legs.
The days and years go by and the dinosaur will grow up
and go where Yi-rang can't follow.

Revolver Gangster’s Gang / <육혈포 강도단> 2010

Directed by: Kang Hyo-jin / 강효진

Release date: March 2010

Three elderly widows dream of visiting Hawaii and work to save up the funds, sometimes by nefarious means. They get the money and take it to the bank, only to get stuck in the middle of a bank robbery, have their money stolen, and get stonewalled by stingy bank officials who won’t make up their loss. In desperation, they themselves begin training to rob the bank to get their money back. Their adventures are hair-raising, including a hostage-taking situation and a high-speed chase. On the way, they strike a blow for “gray power” but will they make it to Hawaii?

I loved this film! The suspense of how the three would get out of each pickle they get themselves into kept me on the edge of my chair and the humor had me falling out of it. My take: CCC

A toast, for a day well-spent earning money

bringing the three friends a little closer to their goal
(Kim Soo-mi, Nah Moon-hee, and Kim Hye-ok).

Suicide Forecast / <수상한 고객들> 2011

Directed by: Jo Jin-mo / 조진모

Release date: April 2011

Mr. Bae is a rising star among insurance salesmen until he falls under suspicion of having helped one of his clients to commit suicide. Thinking back over some of his more questionable insurance sales, Bae hunts down these old customers to make sure that they don’t commit suicide, which could ruin his career.

Apparently the film is trying to say something about current social problems—such as social alienation and unethical business practices—but makes heavy going of it and while it is supposed to be a comedy, the film is not humorous either. We bailed half-way through. Furthermore, it was one of the most unappealing characterizations for one of my favorite actors, Ryoo Seung-beom (류승범). My take: DD

Postman To Heaven / <천국의 우편배달부> 2009

Directed by: Lee Hyeong-min / 이형민
Release date: November 2009

There is a mail box in the middle of a field. Jo Ha-na (Han Hyo-joo / 한효주) goes to mail a letter to her dead boyfriend and meets the “postman” (Hero / 영웅재중), a guy who says he delivers these letters to folks who are dead and in heaven. She doesn’t believe him and they go to a café for coffee. She still doesn’t believe him and …

Beyond that, I don't know. We quit watching the film right here, all in agreement that it was a totally uninteresting film with flat acting. My take: DD

Finding Mr. Destiny / <김종욱 찾기> 2010

Directed by: Jang Yoo-jeong / 장유정
Release date: December 2010

Ki-joon loses his job in a travel agency due to his picky personality and launches his own business which is dedicated to finding clients’ lost first loves. Much to her father’s dismay, Ji-woo rejects a proposed from her present boyfriend. She claims she can’t let go of her first love, whom she met while traveling in India, and her father drags her to Ki-joon’s office. Ki-joon and Ji-woo begin their search for her first love, not an easy task as his name, Kim Jong-ook, is a common one. In the end, will love once again triumph? But whose love for who?

An uneven film, with some funny parts and some annoying parts. The interaction in the lost-loves-found office between Ki-joon and his brother-in-law is a hoot. High on the list of annoying, for me, is the theme of one person being obnoxious yet the other person managing to fall in love with them (the same for Hello Ghost and My Sassy Girl). My take: CD

Wish / <바람> 2009

Directed by: Lee Seong-han / 이성한
Release date: September 2009

High school in Busan in the 1990s, apparently a pretty rough time and place. As the third son after a high-achieving older brother and sister, Jjang-goo is the black sheep of the family as he only gets into a technical high school. We follow him through his coming-of-age journey through these high school years. Will he flourish? Will he get bullied? Will he make a success out of his life?

An unusual aspect of the film was being able to overhear the internal dialog that goes on in Jjang-goo's head. He is an average guy who just wants to make a go of life and basically a nice person who is not understood by his cold-fish family members. The film had some very creative camera work as well and the music, a traditional music score that you more often see in a history film, was well done. The word is that this film really resonates with Korean guys who lived through this time and place. My take: CCC

I watched a unsubtitled version of this film and thought: “If this film hasn’t been subtitled yet, I would LOVE to take on this project!

Green in the wood: high school campus roads and students.

Introspective Jjang-goo (Jeong Woo / 정우) follows a different drummer.

Like a Virgin <천하장사 마돈나> 2006

Directed by: Lee Hae-joon / 이해준
Release date: August 2006

High school student Dong-kyu’s idol is Madonna—he believes he himself is a woman born in a man’s body and dreams of emulating her. Hoping to win enough to pay for a transgender operation, he signs up for a ssirim wrestling contest and begins training.

For the most part, I loved this upbeat comedy. A couple scenes were overly brutal and I could have done without the bathroom humor. That being said, the film is replete with entertaining sight gags. I also found the camera work exceptionally well done. Then the main character’s unflappable optimism and cheerful approach to life, in the face of all setbacks, endeared him to me. My take: CC

Neophyte wrestler Dong-gu (Ryoo Deok-hwan / 류덕환)

finds something interesting to do with a ssirim wrestling sash

before beginning training.

 

Our Happy End / <사랑황동의 내구성> 2010

Directed by Seong Il-seok / 성일석
Release date: November 2010

Estranged by his parents' divorce, Joon-seung is back living with his mother after twenty years  apart but the relationship is awkward and they know little about each other. First of all, she doesn’t know that he is gay. Through a series of drunken hook-ups, things get even more complicated between mother and son.

This feature film felt like a TV drama: the camera work, the lack of music for much of the film. It was funny in some parts, but uneven and not consistently funny throughout. There was little background presented for the characters and their motivations remained murky. The only thing clear by the end of the film was that Joon-seung and his mother had finally bonded. My take: C

The “older woman” (Park Kyeong-ok / 박경옥) hits up on Joon-seung (Han Tae-soo / 한태수) for the umpteenth time. How many times does a guy have to reject you before you finally realize that he is just not that into you (maybe because he is gay)?

Bravo! Jazz Life / <브라보! 재즈 라이프>

Directed by: Nam Moo-sung / 남무성
Release date: December 2010

In the 60s and 70s, a small group of musicians, out of passion for the form, dedicated their lives to playing jazz. Now mostly in their 70s or 80s, they reminisce about the hard times they lived through and speak of their love of jazz in this documentary. For the culmination of the film, they will all appear on stage together for a Korean Jazz Master’s Concert—to honor them and their music and to encourage a new generation of jazz musicians and enthusiasts.

I’m not much on documentaries. Korea seems to produce a lot of them, though, so I thought I’d give this one a try. It was well-done (though a little long at 105 minutes) and if you are interested in jazz and Korea, it’s well worth seeing. My take: C

Percussionist Ryoo Bok-seong (류복성) discusses the early

days of jazz in Korea with the documentary makers.

Take Off <국가대표> 2009

Directed by: Kim Yong-hwa / 김용화
Release date: July 2009

It’s 1996 and the small Korean town of Muju hopes to host the Winter Olympics only to be turned down as there are no Korean teams in any of the official winter sports. A group of misfits are assembled to form a ski jump team—and they are a totally unlikable bunch. But they will prevail and go on to do Korea honor.

A jingoistic vehicle, this film. The film follows the typical underdog-makes-good line, which I was hoping to enjoy as I did Bend It Like Beckham or Bang the Drum Slowly or Like a Virgin <천하장사 마돈나>. For my tastes, Take Off's characters were so utterly unappealing that I really didn’t care what happened to them and I got tired of watching the film.
My take: DD

Bob, a Korean-American adoptee who will reluctantly become the team captain, is some sort of misfit, though the film never makes it clear why … maybe just being an adoptee makes one a misfit? The portrayal of the American ski jump team as a bunch of anti-Korean hoodlums and the repeated rulings against the Korean team by the International Olympic Committee would warm the heart of any anti-American, anti-foreign zealot. The film, in places, is also blatantly misogynist and racist.

Choi (Kim Dong-wuk /  김동욱) , the drug addict (and soon to be

Olympic athlete), sends his fellow workers away so he can

molest an unconscious female nightclub patron. Ha? Ho? Hee?

Bob (Ha Jeong-woo / 하정우), the Korean-American adoptee,

is embarrassed, and all the participants on the tv-show panel horrified,

when a photo of his sister with her husband and child are flashed on the

screen. Worst ultra-nationalist nightmare: a Korean female with

a black husband and a mixed-race child.

The Good, The Bad, and Weird <좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈> 2008

Director: Kim Ji-woon / 김지운
Release date: July of 2008

This film had major problems for me. It was way too long and could have used a lot of editing or deletion of scenes—the scene in the brothel, for example. I took a liking to the philosophical Chinese warlord, with his pipe and Buddhist prayer beads. I thought his whole multi-national troop were a hoot—Easterners and Westerners; riding horses, motorbikes, and jeeps; dressed in a riot of clothing styles—they were a funny and appealing bunch … but then they all get slaughtered in the big chase/shootout scene! The film was an all-male romp pretty much, okay it’s a Western, they tend to go that route, but the way the two women on the train were abused—the one used as a storage container, the other terrorized, forced to shovel coal, and shot when she whimpers too much—left a bad taste in my mouth.

The Weird brutalizing a female passenger

during a train robbery.

Hello, Ghost / <헬로우 고스트> 2010

Directed by Kim Yeong-tak / 김영탁
Release date: December 2010

All alone in life, Sang-min (Cha Tae-hyeon) tries to unsuccessfully to commit suicide, only to find himself haunted (and sometimes possessed) by four eccentric ghosts. He must fulfill a wish for each one in order to get rid of them. In the meantime, he meets and falls for a young woman but puzzles her with his strange behavior while “possessed”.

I did not find this comedy amusing. The tone was uneven: the ghosts were, for the most part, over-the-top obnoxious or even hostile for most of the film, then suddenly turned nice when the film reveals who they really are at the end. An annoying (and recurring!) sight gag was of Cha, his mouth and cheeks stuffed with food. My take: D

The first three ghosts come to haunt Sang-min

(Lee Moon-soo, Ko Chang-seok, Jang Young-nam).