Superstar / <슈퍼스타> 2012

Directed by: Lim Jin-soon / 임진순
Release date: June 2012

Jin-soo is an unemployed film director, killing time waiting for news on whether his current project, his third attempt, will get funded. His friend, Tae-wook, is a character actors in B-level ganster films. Tae-wook shows up in a fancy rented car, insisting that, as filmmakers, they musto go to the Busan International Film Festival. In Busan, they crash parties, carouse, meet groupies, and even catch part of a film!

An engaging muse on what minor filmmakers and actors might do at film festivals, the film is backgrounded at the BIFF, with a number of stars playing cameos of themselves to add verisimilitude. If watching this film doesn't make you want to book a plane ticket for Busan for October, I don't know what will. If you love film,  you'll love this film!  

My take: 5 stars!

Our filmmakers crash a festival party where the introverted

director Jin-soo (Song Sam-dong) is urged by the garrulous

actor Tae-wook (Kim Jeong-tae) to get out there and start networking.

Glove / <글러브> 2011

Directed by: Kang Woo-seok / 강우석
Release date: January 2011

Kim Sang-nam, a heavy-drinking, hot-tempered professional baseball player on probation, is “volunteered” by his manager to coach a high school team at a school for the deaf in the countryside in order to rectify his bad image and get back into baseball. At first, Kim is a reluctant recruit for the job but the troubles of the star pitcher on the team nudge his interest and he begins to take his coaching position seriously and puts his heart into preparing the team for the Korean high-school baseball nationals. Apparently, the film is based on a true story.

As a film plot, it’s been done before: over-the-hill/in-bad-graces professional must scale down and go help out: at first she/he is unhappy, but then she/he gets with the program and everybody ends up winning. This film was a cross between Radio Star (Lee Joon-ik 2006) and Take Off (Kim Yong-hwa 2009), with a little My Piano (Kwon Hyeong-jin  2006) thrown in. Despite the trite plot, the film works and, for the most part, kept our interest. It was way too long, though (144 minutes) for a feel-good vehicle and could have been edited to tighten it up.

My take: 3 stars

The regular “coaches” get an earful from the

reluctant pro-baseball player “volunteer coach”

the first time he gets to see the team play

(Kang Shin-il, Yoo Seon, and Jeong Jae-yeong).