Korean movies

Korean movies have gone from strength to strength over the last fifteen or so years and I can think of dozens that have enchanted me, from period epics through quirky policiers, from fantasy sci-fi through effective horror. Therefore when we noticed that a Korean Film Festival was scheduled for London this month (incidentally the 9th and the largest and most ambitious of all the Korean Festivals staged around the globe), we thought 'let's book some tickets'. After studying the very diverse programme which featured the 102nd(!) film from director Im Kwontaek and a retrospective of the movies of talented 'outsider' Kim Ki-duk, we settled on two films from a short-list of seven or eight. They were, as it turned out, not necessarily the best choices we could have made and short reviews follow below.

Coincidentally -- or perhaps in support of the Festival -- Film Four also scheduled five television premieres for recent Korean movies five nights in a row. I thought 'super-duper' and set the hard-disc for the very late night showings of "In Another Country" (2012), "Like You Know it All" (2009), "The Day He Arrives" (2011), "Oki's Movie" (2010), and "Hahaha" (2010). However, I had to literally force myself to sit through these five which were largely very slow and tedious and occasionally confusing.. Ironically each of them had a main character who was either a film director or critic (or in some cases both).

The generalisations I can tell you by distilling the five movies are that Korean film-makers all look like late teenagers (presumably not the bloke who has just shot his 102nd film), drink to excess, are always unfaithful to their wives, and are given to sprouting would-be profound but actually idiotic inanities at the drop of a hat. The weather is either freezing cold, rainy, or boiling hot -- and umbrellas are essential accessories. The films were all surprisingly well-rated on IMDb, but I couldn't tell you why. The first actually starred French super-star actress Isabel Huppert rabbiting away in English to the otherwise Korean cast who were forced to reply in occasionally pigeon English. How peculiar! The classic 'groundhog day' scenario seems to have been adapted by the screenwriters of these movies and all of them featured repetitious scenes, dialogue, and characters. Something of a big yawn and not super-duper at all. 

To return to the Festival itself, our first selection was Kim Ki-duk's latest "One on One". I referred to him as an outsider above since while he is well-revered overseas, he is not particularly popular in his home market; his films which have won major prizes at the top international film festivals have received scant praise among Koreans themselves. They tend to focus on society's own outsiders and on the cruelty meted out by man to his fellow man; his main themes are isolation, death, suffering in silence, and the need for revenge. None of this holds instant appeal for the average Korean movie-goer, whereas we foreigners treasure his movies as so-called 'art-house gems'.  His latest film is somewhat more conventionally constructed than many of his others. We follow a mismatched vigilante group, who dress up in varying costumes and uniforms, who seek to avenge the murder of a high school girl by the minions of some branch of the government. As is often the excuse for evil-doing, the perpetrators who are picked up and tortured one by one into signing confessions, claim that they were only following orders. Some of them begin to regret their actions -- others can't understand the fuss. The director seems to be asking where does responsibility stop? Can we ever satisfactorily correct society's wrongs? He does not provide us with any simple answers.

Our second choice "Cold Eyes", based on a 2007 Hong Kong thriller, was in contrast a huge hit in Korea. It is something of a rather atypical police procedural and I personally found it a little on the mechanical side. The lead actress Ha Yoon-ju plays a rookie policewoman with uncanny observational skills assigned to Hwang Sang-jun's surveillance unit; their job is to trace and pin down high-profile criminals rather than actively engaging with them. Their main target here is a ruthless criminal and bank-robber played by pretty-boy actor Jung Woo-sung (the 'Good' in 'The Good, the Bad, and the Weird'). The latter is apparently something of a major heart-throb back home and his appearance for a Q and A at the cinema yesterday attracted a throng of cooing, lovesick Korean ladies both in the audience and outside. I had no idea there were so many young Koreans living in London.

While the above reviews may come off as a little dismissive -- particularly of Film Four's selections -- I have not been put off seeking more Korean movies to view in the future. On balance the good ones I have seen in the past more than compensate for the seven seen this week, and certainly the two Festival choices were both of some minor interest.   

A couple from Korea...

My film festival festivities continue apace. On Thursday we had planned to watch some free open-air silent screenings celebrating London as imagined from the past. However after a droll short, "The Fugitive Futurist" from 1924, the heavens opened. Discretion proved the better part of valour and I therefore did not stay to see "High Treason" from 1929. Neither a cold bottom from sitting on stone steps in Trafalgar Square nor soggy clothing mix well with moviegoing appeal!

Hansel and Gretel (2007): It was back to a great cinema treat with this Korean fairy-cum-horror tale. A distracted young man wrecks his car and lies dazed until he is found by a strange girl. She takes him back to a handsome house deep in the woods where she lives with her older brother, younger sister, and superficially cheerful parents amidst a riot of colourful toys and succulent cakes. Not only do the telephones not work, but when our hero tries to find his way back to the main road, all paths lead back to the enchanted house. Then the parents disappear and other adults arrive to fill out the family or so it would seem. The movie plays with the power of wish fulfillment and the fractured dreams of childhood in strange, mysterious, and occasionally bloody ways. This is not a film where logic can be used, but if one gives oneself to the fantasy, it is both moving and surprising.

I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK (2006): As luck would have it, I found this film in my needs-to-be-watched backlog and decided to make it a thoroughly Korean day. It was director Park Chan-Wook's follow-up movie to his fantastic vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance), but it could not be more different. Our heroine here, who comes from a long line of neurotic females, is committed to an institution after slashing her wrist and connecting herself to the electric supply in the factory where she works. She is convinced she is a cyborg and her only source of nourishment is licking battery acid, while a roly-poly fellow inmate wolfs down her meals. She is surrounded by other colourful "loonies" (I use this word advisedly since this seems to be what the director intended), one of whom befriends her and finds a way for her to take in nourishment. The one thing this movie does share with the previous three films is that she yearns for her new friend (a consummate thief) to steal her sympathy so that she can gun down all of the "men in white" -- a recurring fantasy throughout the picture. The movie is wildly imaginative and colourfully rendered; however I did feel that Park was trying just that little bit too hard to give us this fey story.