Trailer to new Park Chan-Wook movie, THIRST

Shi gan (Time)

Days of open hands.

It's a strange feeling, getting old. I feel the same, sleep the same, I even sound the same. But the mirror in the bathroom disagrees. I have gotten heavier around the middle. My eyes a little darker; my hair a little lighter with gray. My teeth stained from the hundreds of cigarettes and a thousand cups of coffee that I have and will consume.

Time has made me wiser. But also older. And let's face it: More and more less of what I was.

I see this sometimes reflected on my partner's eyes. And it's a painful thing to see.

Kim Ki-Duk takes this pain and creates an admonishing parable in his 13th movie, "Time."

Shi gan (Time)
Written and Directed by Kim Ki-Duk
Starring: Sung Hyun-Ah (Woman is the Future of Man), Ha Jung-Woo(The Unforgiven)

Familiarity breeds monotony, and in the two-year relationship of Seh-hee and Ji-Woo (Ha Jung-Woo) it has resulted in obligatory sex and predictable dates in a cafe. In trademark Kim Ki-Duk fashion, Seh-Hee asks Ji-Woo to think of someone else while they fuck. The sex is hotter. Seh-hee is destroyed. The following day, Seh-Hee disappears and without telling Ji-Woo, undergoes cosmetic surgery to change her face beyond recognition. Six months later, Ji-Woo meets See-hee (Sung Hyun-Ah) in the cafe he frequents and dangerous sparks fly out of the blue and into the black. See-hee is Seh-hee and demands the clueless Ji-Woo to choose between them.

This is definitely Kim Ki-Duk's most obvious work as he (angrily) slaps on the movie his disdain for Korea's, and everyone else's, obsession with physical beauty. After Ji-Woo realizes that See-hee and Seh-hee are the same woman, he also gets his face altered leaving Seh-hee desperately looking for him; the feel of his hands in hers her only anchor. If the hands fit, so to speak. And this is a Kim Ki-Duk movie where the laws of reality are ignored and the fantastic and the surreal exist as truths. In the end, "Time" admonishes too much to be really provoking. The vicious cycle ending comes across as preachy, and not the ambigous catharsis that we've come to expect from the director.

It is withot doubt though that "Time" is visually magnificent. The statue park of Baegumi on the island of Mo which breathtakingly displays the sculptures of Lee Il-ho becomes the only constant in the passage of time and tide. The iron hands that sometimes rise from the depths and oftentimes cradle the lovers is the heart that remains a child. Tarnished, yes, but unchanging.
3/5

Minyeo-neun goerowo (200 Pounds Beauty)

She ain't heavy...now.

Minyeo-neun goerowo (200 Pounds Beauty)
Directed by Kim Yong-hwa
Cast: Ju Jin-mo (Happy End), Kim Ah-jung (When Romance Meets Destiny)

Andy Lau still gets the award for best acting in a fat latex suit in the hilarious and heartbreaking "Love on a Diet" but Kim Ah-Jung does come a close second for playing Hannah, the overweight "backstage singer" of a catty pop star who literally brings the house down with her dancing. A little too much, like most of the fat jokes that roll out mercilessly during the first hour of the movie, but Kim Ah-jung's self-deprecating tics and troubling earnestness keep the material grounded, until she loses the latex and the movie finally moves from sitcom drudgery to genuinely funny. Even as the gorgeous Jenny, a persona Hannah invents, she still acts ugly-awkward. "200 Pounds Beauty" lightly deconstructs beauty: What one can get away with and how one can never run away from an ugly past. It delivers its share of commentary on plastic surgery, not too deeply, but enough to ask weighty questions. Underneath the layers of comedy and Korean culture exposition, underneath the skin and fat, is a desperate search for acceptance and love no matter what the cost. Hannah is too overweight to be wanted; Jenny is too perfect to be touched. After yet another rejection, Hannah/Jenny laments: I endured the pain when they were cutting through my skin and bones. But this hurts more. I'm quoting badly of course. But it did get me to thinking, is love worth the pain of a transformation? If you had the means, would you get rid of the fat around your stomach, the weight that drags your feet, that look on people's faces? Yeah, me too. Funny, huh? 3/5

Epitaph

As ghost milieus go, haunted hospitals have mileage. Spiffy come-on for something possibly classic . . .or possibly a pile of dog poo. Director's a newbie who's done time with Park Chan Wook so we can worry less. Let's just hope those hair strands near the end are just design elements.

Saibogujiman kwenchana

Crazy in love

(Saibogujiman kwenchana) I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK
Director Park Chan-wook
Stars Rain (Full House) / Lim Soo-jung (Tale of Two Sisters)


Not entirely a surprise for PCW. Lady Vengeance already had the funnies, Old Boy the fantastic. But I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK doesn't have the cohesive narrative of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Understandably so, the movie is about a girl who has delusions that she is a cyborg, Terminator-lite with machine gun for fingers, built to decimate the Initiative, well, the home, who took her grandmother. In the institution, Young-goon (Lim) refuses to eat human food and she is dying. Il-soon (Rain) who "steals" itches, ping-pong tricks and memories from the other crazy folks makes it his mission to help Young-goon eat. And this is where PCW takes his time to animate the sagging middle with explosions of surreal quirkiness. Booster socks. Sing-along mirrors. A whole bunch of crazies. I had fun with these, but I did hit the pause button a couple of times to make a sandwich and grab a drink. This is a long movie with a thin plot with too many detours. Still, there are scenes that remind you what PCW is all about. In this movie's case, it's the quiet ones. That bit at the basement, where Il-soon carefully upgrades Young-goon, the confusion of the trembling touch. Love at first byte. ***

Haepi Endeu (Happy End)

High Infidelity.

Haepi Endeu (Happy End)

Starring: Choi Min Sik (Oldboy), Do-Yeon Jeon (No Blood, No Tears)
Directed by: Ji Joo Chung (Sarangni, If You Were Me 2)


The ferocious shagging has grab. Another time and place, it might've amounted to softcore jollies, ticket bait. Here, it amounts to emotive brunt. Here, it means to hurt. And does it. To the soap opera potboiler of meek salaryman Choi Min Sik losing his job and his headstrong careerist wife Do-yeon Jeon getting it on - - -way, way on - - - with her high school sweetheart behind his back, it butters the melodrama with harm, like saltwater to fresh wounds. Infidelity not as moral abstract but as messy object ,the shadowy taboo forming into familiar bodies - - -so yeah, things get sticky and prickly. And makes your belly knot - - -at how much of a dork meek salaryman is,at how much of a bitch headstrong careerist wife is, at how much you want that title to be ironic for her. You grasp the economic subtexts , and the chill of its repercussions , but it's the primal urges - - yours and the piece's - - - that make this throb. The female of the species is more deadlier than the male. Right.
* * * *

Gwoemul (The Host)

Here Be Monsters

Gwoemul (The Host)
Starring : Song Hang-Ko (Memories of Murder, The President's barber)
Directed by: Bong Joon-Hop (Barking Dogs Never Bite)

It's a given that you imprint the monster in monster movies- - - that corrosive interloper that usurps and upsets the status quo and rallies humankind to restore order to the universe - - -with whatever you want its intrusion and threat and carnage to stand in for. The slime-black Lovecraftian reptile here comes encoded with toxic dumping and not a little wary xenophobia for intrusive Americans. But when it abducts a young schoolgirl ,and her bickering family of four - - - grizzly grandpa, buffoon dad , stoic archer aunt, hairtrigger drunk uncle - - - grudgingly coheres into a combat unit , it's the dysfunction of the family dynamic that full-hogs and heightens the drama. It's no crawl , mind, as it's steeped in another monster movie given: set piece upon set piece of rampage - - - glorious, gorgeous and (here's the killer blow) emotionally resonant rampage at that. But this creature feature's ultimately about fatherly love and the lengths blood will go to to keep its own from harm. * * * * *

Chinjeolhan Geumjassi (Sympathy For Lady Vengeance)

Revenge Is A Cake Best Eaten Cold

Chinjeolhan Geumjassi (Sympathy For Lady Vengeance)

Starring Lee Yeong-ae (Jewel In The Palace), Choi Min Sik (Oldboy)
Director: Park Chan Wook (Sympathy For Mr.Vengeance)


Parts of this lose me for want of a hook. The key to confronting Park's specific brand of shock cinema is always that empathic nag that sucks you in - - -the politically corrosive murder in JSA, the kidnapped girl of Sympathy For Mr.Vengeance, the captivity a la Kafka of Oldboy. The hook here's old school Charlie Bronson get-even with not much meat in its spindly bones. Lee Yeong-ae's injured ex-con Geum ja's a cipher. Choi Min Sik’s fuming heavy's a cartoon demon. And the narrative fractures until it breaks down to the emotional consistency of a blackly hilarious sketch comedy. The carpet-bombing of the abstract-expressionist eyecandy and ravishing carnage and absurdist sweeteners Park's getting more and more psycho for counts for visceral joy but it removes me even more. All traumas converge on the overextended schoolhouse finale but has to bristle with it to raise crucial hackles. My heart's not in it by then so it's all so much preening designer ultraviolence to me , like a decapitation under neon. * * *

Ssawoomeui Gisool (The Art of Fighting)

The art of posing.

Ssawoomeui Gisool (The Art of Fighting)
Starring Jae Hee (3-Iron) / Bae Yoon-sik (President's Last Bang)
Director Sin Han-sol

Karate Kid on steroids. There's more reason to the punches here than some homoerotic ringside action, it's the survival of the poorest where people risk getting beat up for bread. There's also less mush and more street zen; Bae Yoon-sik's miyagi is gangsta cool and the coin-throwing wrist action is believably fatal. Expecting more though would ruin all the fun. This is engrossing predictability at its glossiest with unpredictable bone-cracking in gravity-defying decibels, and a surprising hint of sadness at the futility of the struggle. With wit that bounces off walls and a subtle handle on irony, The Art of Fighting could have aspired for more but it seems to be content with being just entertaining. ***

Orora Gongjoo (Princess Aurora)

No, I'M Lady Vengeance!

Orora Gongjoo (Princess Aurora)
Starring Uhm Jung-hwa (Crazy Marriage) / Moon Seong-geun (Virgin stripped Bare by Her Bachelors)
Director Bang Eun-jin

Princess Aurora delivers the chops, the stabs to the groin (I kid you not) and more importantly, a furious motive that (partially) eclipses Lady Vengeance's orchestrated arthouse-ready flamboyance. Uhm Jung-hwa seduces and shocks and carries the movie with sheer intensity. The violence seems random at first, from the first blood spray in a mall's bathroom to the ultimate scissor fighting match in a technoposh bachelor's pad, but the movie's last 30 minutes weave the loose ends together toward a logical, but a little too predictable end. If there's anything the movie lacks, it's humor, and some parts are laughable for all the wrong reasons (the breakdown bit while operating heavy machinery is just hilarious). But for every stumble, we are rewarded with moments of brilliant brutality that more often than not even the score. ***

Saedu Moobi (Sad Movie)

Dolls with big heads are my favorite type of women.

Saedu Moobi (Sad Movie)
Starring Jeong Woo-seung (A Moment to Remember) / Im Soo-jeung (...ing) / Cha Tae-hyon (My Sassy Girl) / Sin Min-ah (Volcano High) / Lee Ki-woo (The Classic) / Yeom Jeong-ah (Tale of Two Sisters)
Director Kwon Jong-gwan (S-Diary)

Not exactly a sad movie. With a cast of pretty boys and girls, how can it not be fun? Cute and cuddly puppy pieces --- the romcom parts made me blush and sigh like a school girl, fuck it --- cursed with sobby fates. Anything beyond that is just plain adoration. So let's just talk lighting. Filtering is luminous. Glowy. Mostly shot in available light, this movie's little world is literally bathed in dreamy softness, ultimately making the ending more pointless. More sad. **1/2

Sonnimeun Wangida (The Customer is Always Right)

The first cut is the deepest.

Sonnimeun Wangida (The Customer is Always Right)
Starring Seong Ji-roo (Super Family) / Seong Yeon-ah (The Intimate) / Myeong Ke-nam (Address Unknown)
Director Oh Ki-hyeon

A dark past is a bitch if you're a middle-aged barber who has a wife who would rather sell insurance than sleep with you. Especially if that deep dark secret involves screwing a minor and running her over at the end of the evening and a stranger struts in and bitch slaps you with blackmail. In turns funny and excruciatingly desperate, "the Customer is Always Right" rolls along interestingly enough --- with a few Park Chan-wook splices along the way --- until it reaches a satisfyingly surprising, twisted roundabout end. You know the razor will cut and the blood will spurt but the wait in between the sharpening and shaving is priceless. *** 1/2

Juemogi Unda(Crying Fist)

Fists of Fury

Jumeogi Unda(Crying Fist)

Starring Choi Min Sik (Old Boy, Happy End), Seung Beom Ryu(Sympathy for Mr.Vengeance)

Director: Ryoo Seung-Wan(Arahan, Die Bad)

Treading pugilist tearjerk maneouvers lightly but getting a perverse delight from indulging them- - - that frail grandmother evicting her sickbed for a ringside seat is the working definition of pushing it - - - this fighter melodrama was prone to ickiness from the get-go. It succumbs eventually - - - pulling its punches because Ryoo knows better not to. But sap laid on thin is still sap - - -that's my nit. Granted, there's a charge to its coarse sheen. And lower your defenses a bit and making friends with the movie becomes effortless. You don't come away empty-handed either. It makes enough of a case for both its underdog protagonists - - - Choi Min Sik's over the hill champion whoring himself out as a human punchbag for grub and coin while his family disintegrates and Ryu Seung-Beom's hothead punk languishing in jail who finds vent for his rage boxing in prison - - - so that when their parallel lives converge in the ring (you knew that), you not only feel for both , you root for both.
* * *

Salinui Chueok(Memories of Murder)

Good Cop Bad Cop

Salinui Chueok(Memories of Murder)
Starring Song Kang Ho (The President's Barber), Kim Sang-Kyung (Turning Gate)
Director: Bong Jun Hoo (The Host)

It’s the Korean Jack the Ripper. Just as gruesome, just as unsolved. Knowing that won’t muck things up. City cop and country cop partner to crack the case and it's their story mostly. And the serial killer they dog is a lash of panic that welts this investigation into smalltown hysteria , this tweaking of odd couple dynamics , this slapstick upending of the police procedural, this many things beyond dull roman a clef , with the throb of sinister goings-on. Soon, scenes achieve grace, some crackle and one - - - a set piece in the dead of a rainy night - - -had me picking my jaw up from the floor. Delicate balances are struck. Between placid milieu and seething underbubble. Between foreboding creepiness and broad comedy. Between truth and embellishment. Between invisible solution and tantalizing mystery. * * * * *

Jageop-ui jeongseok (Art of Seduction)

Slut machine.

Jageop-ui jeongseok (Art of Seduction)
Starring Son Ye-jin (April Snow) / Song Il-gook (Red Eye)
Director Oh Ki-Hwan (Last Present)

More like the art of Son Ye-jin's smile. She's purty but a seam-splitting seductress she isn't. Given that this movie aims for the funny more than fanny but still, light sweating should still be encouraged. Ye-jin's content with being cute and any licking of the lips (her own) is mechanical. Il-gook's suave grace dominates, the trophy practically handed over to him, in this lopsided battle of the sex machines which is too polite, too skittish and almost too charming. Everything a good roll in the hay should never be. Kid stuff. *1/2

Na-ui gyeolhon-wonjeongki (Wedding Campaign)

Odd couple. Odd place.

Na-ui gyeolhon-wonjeongki (Wedding Campaign)
Starring Jung Jae-young (Welcome to Dongmakgol) / Yu Jun-sang (Tell Me Something) / Soo-ae (A Family)
Director Hwang Byung-guk

Who looks for love in Uzbekistan? Apparently, Korean farmers. Desperate Korean farmers. (There's a short spiel at the beginning of the movie which explains why there are illegal Korean immigrants --- known as Koryo, I think --- in a far-flung Eastern Europe country, so believe it.) Man-taek's (Jung) naivete in women starts out funny, but in an alien land with cold art deco gold-leafed edifices, it's heartbreaking. The general rule: farmers play the rich man card and the Koryo play along for a visa back to motherland. But Min-taek falls for his handler, a North Korean who wants to defect to the South. I know it sounds complicated and too soap opera-ish but in the hands of the brilliant Jung, Min-taek's unraveling is a mosaic of flaws and shy first-steps that refuse to be anything but a man stubbornly fighting for his last chance at true love. ****

Sarangni (Blossom Again)

Swept away.

Sarangni (Blossom Again)
Starring Kim Jeung-eun (Marrying the Mafia) / Lee Tae-seong
Directed Jung Ji-woo (Happy End)

Love moves in mysterious ways. And it can go all Star Trek on you. Parallel universes overlap and asks you: would you love the same person all over again? A woman about to hit her thirties suddenly meets a younger reincarnation of her first love, a high schooler who doesn't know his math but oh boy, can he kiss (see above). Just like the way she remembers him. She believes. She insists. She loves. And there's no fighting that. When the real guy shows up for dinner --- all grown-up, forgetful and disappointing --- sideways glances do the talking. No explosions here. No Happy End irony. For those of us praying for that second chance, a possibility, small or miraculously obvious, is good enough. ****

Dalkomhan Insaneng (A Bittersweet Life)

Hurts so good.

Dalkomhan Insaneng (A Bittersweet Life)

Starring : Ro Ha Kim (Memories of Murder)
Director: Kim Ji Won (A Tale of Two Sisters)

It's fed the genre countless times before: henchman gets personal, gets backstabbed, gets even. Heroic Bloodshed jackpots when it regards itself as an apotehosis of pain. More blood shed, less heroism. The pain of impossible love. The pain of a knife wedged in your back. The pain of vendetta against friends. Pain - - - all makes and models - - - is the metatheme of the action movie. The chickenshit ones - - - hi-ho Joel Silver! - - - pull punches, strike poses, sugarcoat. The gutsy ones deconstruct the machismo, count the costs, lance the boil, let it bleed. The gutsy ones hurt. Like hell. Like this. * * * *

Yasu-wa minyeo (Beast and the Beauty)

Pretty on the inside.

Yasu-wa minyeo (Beast and the Beauty)
Starring Shin Min-a (Volcano High) / Ryoo Seung-bum (Arahan)
Director Lee Gye-byuk

A comedy of errors that has all been done before but with the comedic punch of Arahan. Blind Hae-ju (the effervescent Shin) is about to undergo eye surgery and can't wait to see Dong-gun (Ryoo). When there's not much to see, really. In desperation Dong-gun gets a couple of surgeries himself, which result in painfully funny bits --- the missing eyebrow, the sketched eyebrow. The drawn eyebrow over the drawn eyebrow. When a dashing cop enters the scene, looking exactly the way Dong-gun described himself to Hae-ju, desperation turns to pathetic. Laughing with tears in your eyes is always the best kind. ***1/2

Welkeom tu dongmakgol (Welcome to Dongmakgol)

Err, I hope that's a gun in your pocket.

Welcome to Dongmakgol
Starring Shin Ha Kyun (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) / Kang Hye Jun (Old Boy) / Jung Jae Young (Someone Special)
Director Park Kwang Yun


Storyline's a predictable yarn tangled in the barbed speculations of JSA and Shiri, but director Park speculates with delicate magic. North and South Korean soldiers stumble onto Dongmakgol, a mountain cloistered village straight out of Miyazaki's wonderworking head. Arming the usual suspects with charming oddities --- butterfly armies, raging bulls, a kind American --- Dongmakgol earns reverence, almost too beautiful, too benevolent to touch. And when the bombs threaten to fall like rain, you guiltily wish for deus ex machina. Or Totoro to make everything better. ****