Quiz King / <퀴즈왕> 2010

Directed by: Jang Jin / 장진
Release date: September 2010

A pair of gangsters with their victim locked in a car trunk, a man who visited his coma-stricken wife in the hospital and his engineering-student son, a wife furious with her husband’s gambling, a support group for depression sufferers – these disparate groups of people will all become involved when a woman committing suicide throws herself on the freeway and a pile-up ensues. When the whole crowd is assembled in the police station, they will find out she has given them the key to the final, million-won question of a quiz show. The group sets themselves to prepping to become contestants on the show.

In a signature move for director Jang Jin, a widely (and wildly) varying group of people end up all assembled in one place, with madness ensuing. With an all-star cast (rumor has it stars leap at the chance to join the cast on a film directed by Jang), the humor and gags are exquisite and they just keep on coming. Jang Jin is, without a doubt, my favorite director. Jang himself appears in the film as a police detective. 

My take: 5 stars... no, 6 stars! I LOVE this film!

The whole chaotic group involved in the suicide

and resulting four-car pile up hits the police station.

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).

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.

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).

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

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.

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).

Poetry / <시> 2010

Directed by: Lee Chang-dong / 이창동
Release date: May 2010

Sixty-six year old Mija is just managing to scrape by on a pension and the money she makes taking care of a disabled man. She is raising her grandson, a surly high-school student, with no help from her divorced daughter who lives far away. Mija has always followed a different drummer and now decides to take a class in writing poetry. The instructor’s advice on learning to really see and to appreciate the beauty in the everyday all around will serve her well as life is about to throw some major troubles her way. My take: CCC

Mija (Yoon Jung-hee / 윤정희, right) enters a world of blue and gold in this sequence when she visits a café for amateur poetry-reading night. For her, poetry is an entrée into another world, one that is sustaining.