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.