The Day He Arrives / <복촌 방향> 2011

Directed by: Hong Sang-soo / 홍상수
Release date: September 2011

Film director Seong-joon is experiencing a fallow patch and has taken a job teaching in the countryside (well, actually in Daegu). He is up visiting Seoul and wanders the streets, alleys, and bars there, meeting people he knows, people he does not know, and people he does not want to know – former colleagues, former girlfriends, film professors and film students, bar hostesses, fans – and then he meets them again.

A film that features a number of the things director Hong Sang-su has become famous for: characters involved in filmmaking; scenes acted without scripts; long takes and tracking shots; a slow pace; little to no development, plot, or action; and repetitions of certain themes and tableaus, to name a few. Despite the slowness of pace and sparseness of action, there is a certain richness to the film, especially for cineastes. Hong’s love for the cinematic form, and for classic French New Wave cinema, shows through. My take: DC

A drunken Seong-joon yells at the film students
to stop following him.

The Servant / <방자전> 2010

Directed by: Kim Dae-woo / 김대우

Release date: June 2010

The traditional story of Chun-hyang is totally turned on its head. It is the Chosun Dynasty (perhaps 17th century?) and Bang-ja – former servant, now rich – wants to have the story of his love told. He hires a scriptwriter and relates the story of the beautiful Chun-hyang, the daughter of a ki-saeng. In this version, both Bang-ja and his yang-ban master, Lee Mong-ryong, will compete for her love.

A visually sumptuous but overly long (124 minutes) new take on the old pansori of Chun-hyang. Some of the overly long scenes are sex scenes. The plot is convoluted and somewhat confusing (what is Master Mong-ryong really up to?) and while some of the new plot twists are interesting, the end left me totally cold. I hope no one ever tries to apply the “sex secrets” the old servant Ma imparts to Bang-ja, but then this was just supposed to be comedy. This is a very post-modern presentation of the 17th century as well, with lots of chairs and gorgeously colorful costuming, neither of which are authentic for the period. My take: DC

My favorite film version remains Im Kwon-taek’s 2000 Chun-Hyang.

 In The Servant, Bang-ja (Kim Joo-hyeok) petitions fellow servant,

Elder Ma (Oh Dal-su), to be taught the esoteric knowledge Ma has
about the ways to read a woman’s heart … and get into her bed.

A Little Monk / <동승> 2003

Directed by: Joo Kyeong-joong / 주경중
Release date: April 2003

Three monks live in a mountain temple: the child-monk Do-nyum, a young monk, and the elderly head monk. Do-nyum waits for a mother he never knew, dreaming of her returning to take him home, and chafes at the restrictions imposed on him in the temple, such as not being able to play with the children from the nearby village. SPOILER: When a woman comes to the temple to hold a ceremony for the death of her son, she offers to adopt Do-nyum. The head monk then explodes with the whole sordid story of the little monk’s origins, insisting that he must stay at the temple to atone for the sins of his parents. The woman concurs and abandons the little boy. Eventually, Do-nyum decides to head out into the world by himself in search of his mother.

The filmmaker has created a clumsy mishmash (산만한 줄거리), never quite being clear whether it was a comedy or a drama, or even quite what season it was and why certain scenes were even included. The sound track was hideously overdramatic and intrusive: full-on orchestra crescendos one moment, screaming cicadas the next, sometimes both together. The one redeeming feature of the film was the breathtakingly spectacular cinematography of Chay Chan-gu (최찬규). My take: D

Bath night in the temple (Kim Tae-jin, Kim Min-gyo, Oh Yeong-soo).

Oh Yeong-soo would reprise the role of old monk later in 2003 in

Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, ... and Spring.

Merry Christmas, North! / <량강도 아이들> 2011

Merry Christmas, North! / <량강도 아이들> 2011
Directed by: Jeong Seong-san / 정성산
Release date: November 2011

Children in Seoul pack gifts and send them off by balloon across the DMZ and one will touch down near the North Korean village of Ryang-kang-do. Elementary-school student Jong-soo is banned from a school excursion to Pyeong-yang for his shabby, unpleasant appearance and he is devastated. His mother is a poverty-stricken widow and his little brother is sick in the hospital with an unnamed illness. When Jong-soo recovers goodies—including a battery-powered robot and a Santa Claus costume—from the balloon drop in the nearby woods, things get lively in their little village.

There is little or no politics or ideology in this film (something I feared before watching it): the director tells a story of innocent childhood and a fascination with new toys. The director himself was born in North Korea, and studied film in the North, in Russia, and finally, after making his way to South Korea, at Dongguk University. My take: CC

Jong-soo and his friends cheer up his sick younger

brother with the antics of the toy robot. 

Blades of Blood / <구르믈 버서난 달처럼> 2010

Directed by: Lee Joon-ik / 이준익
Release date: April 2010

It is the late 16^th century, the court in the capital is sunk in corruption, rivalry, and ineptitude while rumors circulate that a Japanese armada is poised to invade. Certain men of vision have formed an alliance to force the court to prepare to fight the Japanese, but nobleman Lee has his own vision: that of putting himself on the throne, no matter who he must betray. The legendary blind swordsman, Hwang, goes after Lee, accompanied by a young sidekick orphaned by Lee’s treachery.

Lee Joon-ik is one of my favorite directors (The King’s Man, Radio Star, Once Upon a Time on a Battlefield) but this film seems like just a squandering of his considerable talents. It’s a swash-buckling, sword-action film, and while the fight scenes are well done, they are interminable and just keep coming. The film has little plot, seems to have been made with no particular vision or inspiration, and is way too long. My take: DC

Another sword fight, this time the young sidekick faces off

against the nobleman Lee (Baek Seong-hyeon and Cha Seung-won).

Ordinary Days / <평범한 날들> 2011

Directed by: Lee Nan / 이난
Release date: September 2011

Director Lee presents three vignettes connect by an array of images—look for, for example, an E.T. watch, goldfish, a sprig of evergreen. In “Between”, Han-chul is not a happy guy, but why he is so tormented is not exactly clear. Maybe it is the pressure from his job selling computers? Maybe because he is sexual dysfunctional? Maybe it’s because he keeps attempting and failing to commit suicide? Or maybe it is because is mourning members of his family who died, perhaps in a fire. In “Among”, Hyo-ri gets dumped by her boyfriend and gets hit by a car and seriously injured. Or not. Was it all hallucinations? Finally in “Distance”, Su-hyuk’s grandfather was killed in a worksite accident. He goes after the boss responsible but ends up (SPOILER) beating the first guy, Han-chul, to death by mistake instead.

Director Lee Nan seems to have the cinematic skills to presenting a story well … if he ever got around to including one. The film presents glimpses into the lives of three people who seem to be suffering depression after the death of a loved one, but never gives the full storyline, leaving the spectator to guess (intuit?) what is supposed to be happening. I confess I am a minimalist: I don’t care how experimental a film is, if I at least can pick up what the filmmaker is trying to say, this film I could not, not even with the obscure hints—goldfish, E.T. watches—along the way. My take: D

Director Lee really likes extreme close-ups.

This one represents the chaos in Han-chul’s apartment

and, we might guess, in his life.

Ae-ja / <애자> 2009

Directed by: Jeong Gi-hoon / 정기훈
Release date: September 2009

Ae-ja has always been a 청개구리 (green frog, ask a Korean) and she is in constant conflict with authority, including her high school teachers and her mother. Part of her rebelliousness may be because of her mother’s favoritism for Ae-ja’s brother, who has a slight disability. Ten years go by and Ae-ja is now a struggling writer living in Seoul and is as contrary as ever. When she comes home to Busan, she disrupts everything, including her brother’s love life and wedding. When her mother collapses and ends up in the hospital, Ai-ja and her mom are thrown together again and must now re-define their relationship, but it is not a smooth road as her mother shows her chung-kae-gu-ri side as well.

Ae-ja and her mother make amusing characters to watch, especially Ae-ja who constantly shoots herself in the foot but just can’t stop being the head-strong individualist that she is. The hospital scenes got a little repetitive. My take: C

Matchmaker, friend Hyeon-jin, and Ae-ja’s mother peruse

photos of potential candidates for groom for Ae-ja, while Ae-ja sulks

(uncredited, Sa Hyeon-jin, Kim Yeong-ae, and Choi Kang-hee).