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).