I've managed to catch about half of last year's releases out of South Korea, but now I'm hitting that marker where it's getting hard to prioritise what comes next as I play catch up. If anyone has seen any of the following movies (the remainder of the titles that I haven't seen and am interested from a variety of press in seeing) I would love to hear a little feedback about them...no matter how small, or how lengthy (yes Brian, that means you! Hehe... ):

Barefoot, Gi-Bong
Family Matters
For Horowitz (aka: My Piano)
Hearty Paws (aka: Maumy & Heart Is…)
Holiday
How The Lack Of Love Affects Two Men
Old Miss Diary
Puzzle
Solace
Sunday Seoul
Sunflower

I have deliberately left off the One Day Suddenly series, which is available in a four DVD boxset, as I will inevitably end up buying that one regardless ($50AUD for four new horror flicks is pretty cheap!). I am also wavering on picking up Family Ties at the end of the week, since general consensus reviews all speak quite favourably of it. Oh yeah, I've got a swag of unused Yesasia coupons to get through, so it's not going to be quite the juggernaut spend it appears from above!

Hopefully there'll be more replies with (even modest) feedback than tumbleweeds passing me by...

Do I take the inferrence that perhaps I'm long-winded? Well, I never...!

I have a bunch of the titles in your latest list*, but sadly I must point to varous threads in these here forums for the reasons why I've yet to get around to them.

Ironcally, the only one I can recommend with certainty is the only one you don't appear to need a recommendation of: FAMILY TIES. Granted, I saw this at a festival, so perhaps my appreciation was artificially heightened, but I doubt it.
http://www.koreanfilm.org/dc/dcboard.ph ... 919&page=8
(take note of the paltry responses I got for all my efforts, and you think discussion of new Hong Kong movies is light!)

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*Appropos of nothing, here's what I've got from the list. Perhaps if I hear YOUR thoughts on some of these here or at koreanfilm.org, I might even be persuaded to move them up the priority list.
200 Pounds Beauty
Apartment (aka: APT)
Between Love And Hate
Cruel Winter Blues
Educating Kidnappers (aka: A Cruel Attendance)
Family Ties (aka: Birth of a Family)
For Horowitz (aka: My Piano)
Hanbando
Love Me Not
My Wife Is A Gangster 3
No Mercy For The Rude
Puzzle
Sunday Seoul
Sunflower
Three Fellas (aka: Bar Legend)
Traces Of Love

I haven't got or seen any of them I'm afraid...

Recommendations duly noted and I shall structure my purchases around those forwarded so far...

NB: Yes, the list has shrunk by three titles so far -- The Birth of a Family, Don't Look Back and Three Fellas; there may be another two or three titles struck off the list come the weekend as well. In other words, I'm winging it -- this topic, posted across three forums, has produced zero response thus far...

Anyhoo, as I mentioned in another thread, I watched NO MERCY FOR THE RUDE, and honestly, superb production values aside, this film has a lot of the elements that, when viewed in too many consecutive movies (which can happen), tend to shift me away from Korean cinema for short periods of time. You think you can avoid it by mixing genres, but there's often a streak of emotional violence in many (but obviously not all) Korean movies—including comedies—that takes a toll after awhile, and this film has some of that, in addition to some rather cringe-inducing physical violence.

It's the story of a mute, loner assassin (Shin Ha-kyun, doing yet another oddball like he did in SAVE THE GREEN PLANET) who lives by his own code of "cool" and dreams of becomming a bullfighter despite being a bit of a bumbler in his profession. His best friend is also an assassin and former ballet dancer who is saving up to buy a warehouse to make into his own studio. He picks up and beds a sexy bar girl (Yoon Ji-hye) from a favourite post-kill gin joint, and she comes and goes from his life as she pleases, at least until a little street-urchin attaches himself to Shin, at which point a weirdly dysfunctional family is created. The killer's motto is summed up in the title, as he only kills those who deserve it (of course, the victims are so one-dimensionally sketched that we have to take the filmmakers' word for it that they're really deserving of the grisly deaths they receive). When a hit results in the death of the intended victim's twin brother, the usual volleyballs of revenge start getting served, leading this wannabe black comedy to a typically melodramatic and tragic ending that is almost a foregone conclusion in these kinds of films.

Watching this as a double bill with CITY OF VIOLENCE makes for an interesting contrast in styles of onscreen physical carnage. Where CITY is rather cartoonish and winkingly overblown, MERCY marks each kill with the juicy pop of an exit wound or the nauseating (and repeated) chukks of knives thrusting into chests and stomachs—all lovingly and realistically recreated in crispy DTS and effected as realistically as possible. A flashback scene involving a paid hit on an unsuspecting fisherman is a queasy highlight only because the filmmakers cleverly place the audience in the shoes of the first-time assassin, who has (initial) difficulty with the job because he knows nothing about his scared, misunderstanding victim, and neither do we, which makes it all the more difficult to watch. After that, blood flows with an abject realism but in the end there doesn't seem to be a point to anything these self-consciously eccentric characters do! Movies in this genre often take at least some pains to show the pointless and unrewarding nature and inevitable consequences of killing, and I guess this one MIGHT be trying to get that across, but I find some of the more effective ones have at least a believable hero worth rooting for: MERCY'S hero is practically a byproduct of his own imagination, but he's not even a remotely likeable character once you see how viciously he can dispatch targets that usually don't get much opportunity to fight back, nor is anyone he comes into contact with. By the time the movie climaxed with the expected blend of melodrama and spitting blood, I found I couldn't have cared less.


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Also took a peak at a movie that didn't seem to rate very highly on Mike's list (if I'm reading the boldface and asterisks properly).

OH! MY GOD (another retarded English title that has virtually nothing to do with the plot) is yet another Korean movie with a sound premise that goes right off the rails about two thirds in when the filmmakers contrive to add action & incident to the plot when the comedy starts to run dry. Which is almost kinda sad, since this nails a few homers in the first half or so, as an irresponsible playboy (Choi Seong-guk) rescues class dork Shin Yi (a somewhat appealingly homely actress whose affectionate nickname in real life is "Psycho") from her attention-getting suicide attempt during a college class trip and ends up in a drunken one-night stand she orchestrates at a nearby hotel. Desperate for his love right from the start, and therefore a bit of a nut, Shin maintains a presence for awhile but he treats her as little more than an embarrassment. Of course, a couple of years later, he's still in college (delayed due to his military service) when she, now a successful and unscrupulous prosecutor, decides its time he take responsibility for the twin boys he never knew he had! In no time, she humourously weasels her way into his dysfunctional family for herself, their kids, and one hilariously freakish nanny.

The set-up is pretty solid, as they tend to be in all Korean romantic comedies good and bad, and both leads are adept at playing conniving assholes, but this being a Korean film, the gags start to sputter and repeat around the midpoint, and so the writers have Shin stage a ridiculously contrived "kidnapping" scheme to teach Choi a lesson. And then, in an utterly predictable third-act twist, he's actually kidnapped by a vicious lady gangster with a score to settle with Shin. Cue large-scale but unimagintively-shot warehouse brawl. Sigh.

Shin and Choi make wonderful sparring partners, but I spent most of the film waiting for the "montage sequence" that would prove to them how much they really needed each other and sure enough, around the 90 minute mark, there is was: a weepy, surprisingly touching scene involving a scrapbook that would have been magic in a movie that didn't have borderline cartoons for characters.

You probably might have noticed that the list shrank by another three titles in the last few days: Cruel Winter Blues, Educating Kidnappers and My Wife Is A Gangster 3.

Immeasurable thanks to Brian for some feedback on one of my titles, as that offered a completely opposing opinion to what I had had as a response on one of the three other boards I posted this question on (ironic that there's been no response to my Q on Darcy's boards yet, hey Brian?). I have been teetering on purchasing No Mercy for the longest time, but now I'm sitting right in the middle...hmmm...

And yes, the flaws that Brian highlights about Oh! My God are the precise ones whereby I didn't rate the film too highly -- it starts very well, then, as Brian says, goes completely off the rails. If it had've kept up the vibe that it created in the first half hour or so, it would've been something special. As it stands, it is not...

And yes, the flaws that Brian highlights about Oh! My God are the precise ones whereby I didn't rate the film too highly -- it starts very well, then, as Brian says, goes completely off the rails. If it had've kept up the vibe that it created in the first half hour or so, it would've been something special. As it stands, it is not..

If I had to single out one thing that consistently bothered me about Korean films, this would be it. Everything else, from the acting to the production values is largely top-drawer across the board, but when they can't maintain that oh-so-Korean mix of comedy and melodrama—or drama and tragedy—the films just unravel. I often feel like I'm watching two different films.

Fortunately, this isn't always the case, but when the domestic audience seemingly demands and expects a little bit of both in their films, it becomes a fine wire for Korean filmmakers to walk, and they often slip up when they would have been far better off having not tried in the first place. It's almost like some of them are afraid to embrace a more conventional, universal approach to comedy, drama, what have you, and inevitably rely on dramatic shifts in tone to hold audience interest. Maybe it works in Korean theatres, in which case I've probably got no right to complain, but if the poor domestic box-office performance of many of these kinds of films—including OH! MY GOD—are any indication, I have to wonder if even Koreans know what they're in for and stay away. Especially when they can experience vast amounts of the same thing on a weekly basis via countless TV soap operas.

Another movie on Mike's other list that just BARELY survives this flaw is SEX IS ZERO, which I think is one of the all time greats, but it's also a prime example of the thematic duality of Korean cinema (and perhaps the Korean nation?): an engagingly tasteless teen sex comedy that becomes highly melodramatic and sometimes EXTREMELY unpleasant during its third act, where the female lead is subjected to all manner of unimaginable suffering. There's even a scene where the male lead (Lim Chang-jung, one of the stars of my all-time Korean fave JAKARTA) entertains his love interest while she lies in bed...by covering his head in a stocking and bashing himself in the head with a 2" x 2" piece of wood while both of them start crying and the music swells. Damned near had ME in tears, but partly out of anger at how crassly the film had decided to put these winning characters through the wringer. But these characters are much stronger and more realistic than they are in, say, OH! MY GOD, and thus when they undergo these achingly cathartic experiences (another scene with the female lead being visited in the hospital by her mother comes to mind), you come closer to identifying with them, because these incidents stem organically from the love triangle plot between the three main characters. Which is why SEX IS ZERO would likely make my top ten, whereas OH! MY GOD will likely be forgotten by next month, despite its strengths.

Well, as you've probably noticed, the initial list has been gradually shrinking over the past few weeks! I had a bit of a windfall with some extra cash, being at home with this illness also minimises my usual spending (keeping things to bill payments and weekly shopping plus things for my wife), and I was recently paid my quarterly management commission -- so there's some extra money around to catch up on these numerous titles. Since I started this topic I've ordered the following:

200 Pounds Beauty
Ad-Lib Night
Apartment
Between Love And Hate
Cruel Winter Blues
D-Day
Daisy (original Korean cut + International cut)
Dark Forest
Dasepo Naughty Girls
A Dirty Carnival
Don't Look Back
Family Ties (aka: Birth of a Family)
February 29
The Fox Family
Hanbando
Hidden Floor
The Host (I had this, twice over, but the 3-disc set [with DTS-ES audio] came up cheap!)
I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK
Love Me Not
Maundy Thursday (aka: Our Happy Time)
Mission Sex Control (aka: Live Good)
Monday Drive (aka: A Cruel Attendance; Educating Kidnappers)
Moodori
My Wife Is A Gangster 3
No Mercy For The Rude
Once In A Summer
Over The Border
Seducing Mr Perfect
Three Fellas (aka: Bar Legend)
Traces Of Love

A Day For An Affair (2007)
Mapado 2: Back To The Island (2007)
Operation Makeover (2007)
The Perfect Couple (2007)

So, I'm slowly ploughing through them, title by title. Responses over at Darcy's forums have been pretty much zero, so they weren't a lot of help -- but thank heavens for Brian here! Glad there's someone out there on my wavelength, or else this would be a very tough job!

So, I'm slowly ploughing through them, title by title. Responses over at Darcy's forums have been pretty much zero, so they weren't a lot of help -- but thank heavens for Brian here! Glad there's someone out there on my wavelength, or else this would be a very tough job!

While Darcy's forums are one of the few places for respectful, mostly pedant-free Korean-cinema-specific discussions, those discussions more often seem to revolve around current trends, directorial styles, industry statistics, etc. There's a goldmine of information there for the casual viewer like myself—especially with Darcy's K-film industry connections and Variety column, as well as a couple of other scholarly types who hang out there—but when it comes to individual films, the well often runs dry.

Two reasons immediately spring to mind: firstly, the pricing of Korean DVDs, particularly new releases, puts mass quantities of them out of reach of a number of people (sadly, myself included sometimes). There's an interesting thread over there where people can introduce themselves by answering four of five questions, and it reveals a lot of the users there to be younger people, students, etc, who very likely can't afford to stay so up-to-date, but do watch what they can and bring some diverse thoughts to the table.

Another drawback may very well be Korean TV shows, which draw bigger audiences domestically and internationally than just about any movies coming out of the country, and when so many people—including, I suspect, a large number at Darcy's forum—are watching dramas running from 16 to 50+ episodes (the latter costing about the same or less than 3 or 4 new movies), it has a noticeable impact on the discussions.

As such, I'll try to chime in here (and there) when I do watch something that meets the 2006 criteria, but I'm afraid I've already stumbled : last night I watched A PUBLIC CEMETERY OF WOL-HA, a ghost movie from 1967. It's the oldest Korean movie I've seen, and it's visually quite stunning, with the kind of lighting and color palette I've been used to seeing in Japanese films of the era. Pretty dark story, too. Not sure if there was a direct influence of Japanese filmmakers on Korean filmmakers, but considering the history between the two countries, I'd have to imagine there was at least some. Still, definitely worth seeing to see some stylistic antecedents to modern Korean horror films.

Brian Thibodeau wrote:While Darcy's forums are one of the few places for respectful, mostly pedant-free Korean-cinema-specific discussions, those discussions more often seem to revolve around current trends, directorial styles, industry statistics, etc. There's a goldmine of information there for the casual viewer like myself...but when it comes to individual films, the well often runs dry.

I pretty much figured that over the last week or so -- but I have to hand it to Darcy; he's got probably the best Korean movie site on the 'net and there's barely a day goes by where I don't swing by and have a read of something there! The reviews are all great and, between his site and my long-distance friend Brian Naas (and your good self, of course), I am getting a decent amount of info to bolster my Korean viewing of late. Thus, it's all good!

Brian Thibodeau wrote:As such, I'll try to chime in here (and there) when I do watch something that meets the 2006 criteria, but I'm afraid I've already stumbled : last night I watched A PUBLIC CEMETERY OF WOL-HA, a ghost movie from 1967. It's the oldest Korean movie I've seen, and it's visually quite stunning, with the kind of lighting and color palette I've been used to seeing in Japanese films of the era.

That's okay...I strayed too tonight and watched my unwatched-until-now copy of The First Amendment of Korea with my wife; unsurprisingly we both loved it! I have actually been mulling over investigating some older Korean films as well, since it's nice to get some historical perspective of various countries' cinema. The film you've just mentioned plus this one...

http://global.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.as ... 004739294/

...have piqued my interest in the last few days. I'll add them to my wish list at Yesasia along with the Lee Chang-Dong retrospective boxset for future purchase somewhere in the coming weeks.

Aww, geez, whaddja have to go and post that link for! Now you're gonna drive me even further back in the K-film timeline . DEVILISH HOMICIDE just looks too intriguing NOT to track down someday!

Is THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF KOREA the one about the prostitute that runs for office? I've probably had that for a good three years now (or more???) and STILL haven't found the time to watch it. Kinda figured a long time ago it'd be a good movie to watch with my girlfriend, but our schedules rarely present an evening where we can just lounge in front of the TV at the same time. That should change soon, which might be a relief for both of us, 'cause there's so many titles we've placed on the "we'll watch this together" list that we figued we'd be in a retirement home by the time we watched them all!

(although we DID watch THE SINKING OF JAPAN last week and found it immensely entertaining. We're both disaster movie junkies, so there might have been a bias in play, but it's pretty much in the Michael Bay/ ARMAGEDDON mode—handsome hero & tomboy heroine, hi-tech toys, a blaring theme song and phenomenal special effects—only with a little more substance, believe it or not. The next day, I watched THE WORLD SINKS EXCEPT JAPAN and was SO glad I spared her the chore. What a misfire! If this is what the Japanese call satire, I am waaaaaaaay too jaded! But since this is a Korean film thread, I'll say no more... )

Brian Thibodeau wrote:We DID watch THE SINKING OF JAPAN last week and found it immensely entertaining. We're both disaster movie junkies, so there might have been a bias in play, but it's pretty much in the Michael Bay/ ARMAGEDDON mode—handsome hero & tomboy heroine, hi-tech toys, a blaring theme song and phenomenal special effects—only with a little more substance, believe it or not.

Yes, I'd believe that -- as we watched it here about a week after my wife immigrated back in February. We both enjoyed it, though I did probably more than my wife (as I'm the Michael Bay junkie in this household).

And yes, that's The First Amendment! It's a bit raunchy in parts, but my wife isn't bothered by that kind of thing (in fact, she prefers films with a bit more of a sexy slant -- that's what living in a country with strict censorship will do for a person's curiosity!). A good flick, nonetheless.

we DID watch THE SINKING OF JAPAN last week and found it immensely entertaining. We're both disaster movie junkies, so there might have been a bias in play, but it's pretty much in the Michael Bay/ ARMAGEDDON mode—handsome hero & tomboy heroine, hi-tech toys, a blaring theme song and phenomenal special effects—only with a little more substance, believe it or not. The next day, I watched THE WORLD SINKS EXCEPT JAPAN and was SO glad I spared her the chore. What a misfire! If this is what the Japanese call satire, I am waaaaaaaay too jaded

Heh, I think it's fare to say my thoughts on the pair were diametrically opposed to yours SINKING had me close to nausea, and whilst EXCEPT is no masterpiece, it at least had me smiling

On a Korean topic... every time I've tried to order from dvdfromkorea lately I've got as far as checkout then been bounced out with a certificate validation error (along with the devalued US$ appearing to affect Korean DVD prices more than most, the net result being that I haven't seen much of anything Korean this year). Where are other people ordering their Korean DVDs from, and if it's dfk, have you had any issues like mine?

MrBooth wrote:On a Korean topic... every time I've tried to order from dvdfromkorea lately I've got as far as checkout then been bounced out with a certificate validation error (along with the devalued US$ appearing to affect Korean DVD prices more than most, the net result being that I haven't seen much of anything Korean this year).

I'd ordered exclusively from DVD from Korea for a long time...but then they got hacked by some idiot around the beginning of March and they installed some "anti-hacking" software (or so they claimed to me in email at the time), and ever since people have experienced exactly what you've encountered -- or worse; ie: zero access to their site completely.

I sent them numerous unhappy emails about the whole situation and they wrote back alleging that all of my attempts to access my account were triggering "hacking" notices at their end. Being that I run an aggresively secure work station, as well as don't have a static IP address since my ADSL provider have things set up that way for more security on my end, I dismissed the whole thing as a bunch of nonsense.

Yesasia's your best bet for Korean DVDs, though, being HK based, titles don't always remain in stock and go "out of print" due to availability decreasing at an importer's level. Other than that, HKFlix is another good source of reasonably priced Korean DVDs too.

I wouldn't use DVD from Korea ever again, after their "anti-piracy" debacle, and most definitely won't support them any time in the foreseeable future either.

Heh, well it's always good to know your order would be secure if you could place it :-p

I guess I'll order from YesAsia... got some other stuff saved in a cart there I want to pick up too, but the process of placing an order at dfk usually satiates my obsessive-compulsive shopping tendencies enough even when the checkout doesn't work that I think "it can wait a while longer". If only DDDHouse and CD-Wow would fail the checkout, say 2/3rds of the time, my retirement plans would probably look a lot more... existant

Heh, I think it's fare to say my thoughts on the pair were diametrically opposed to yours SINKING had me close to nausea, and whilst EXCEPT is no masterpiece, it at least had me smiling

Yeah, I seem to recall your comments from the Scrounge thread when I first picked these up. I can see how someone would find SINKING to be a bit ripe based on its familiar Hollywood construction, but as that seemed to be the intention right from the start, I guess it didn't bother me as much. I actually though it was better than the original, even accounting for the advancements in filmmaking technique and technology since 1973, because it told the same tale considerably less time, though I think they both handle the "what if?" angle quite realistically.

But I found the "satire" in EXCEPT to be painfully one-note. I mean, I got the whole "world leaders mooching off Japan" the first time, and yet they kept returning to these unfunny characters time and again (possibly enamoured of the fact they could speak fluent Japanese? I don't know). Same with the Hollywood actor "Jerry Cruising" (that's the best they could come up with??) and his girlfriend, who take nearly the entire film to reach rock bottom, when such a situation would have been far funnier as a throwaway gag. In fact, the whole "spoofing" of western popular culture just wasn't strong enough to sustain the film right through, though clearly the filmmakers thought it was. And those Bruce Willis and Arnie impersonators? I must admit, I did giggle out loud when the Arch de Triomphe went under via deliberately cheap-looking effects. And what was the point of the ending? Might as well have made it a serious film if they felt the need to end on such an unfunny down-note.

But hey, I've seen some positive reviews of the piece, so perhaps I'm in the minority on this one!


As to Korean DVDs, I use Yesasia, HKflix (on occasion), Poker (when their codes are working, which they still are, I might add!) and, of course, the Koreatown rental shops and DVD bangs here that frequently sell off used titles after a modest number of rentals (luck of the draw in those places, though). I used to order from CD-WOW when they're prices were pretty cheap thanks to the parallel importing they were doing, but when they got nailed for that and raised the prices, I sorta drifted away.

Yesasia may be based in Hong Kong, but they've got offices and distribution centres in the U.S. and here in Toronto, so as long as you've got enough to qualify for the free shipping, they're not a bad option as your parcels don't have to come through customs. At one point, they closed the Canadian centre, which cost them enough business—including my own—that they had to reopen it!! Since you're in California, you shouldn't have any trouble. I do wish their prices were a bit cheaper though, but Korean stuff is always a bit steep. Perhaps your city has a Koreatown nearby?

Well, now I'm into the finally stretch of catch-up with the Korean flicks from 2006 that I wanted to see and this is the revised final list:

Barefoot, Gi-Bong
Family Matters
For Horowitz+
Hearty Paws
How The Lack Of Love Affects Two Men+
Lost In Love
Old Miss Diary
Puzzle
Radio Star
Solace
Sunday Seoul+
Sunflower

These are what's currently available on DVD, or will be by May 10th (*), and I'm getting into VERY hard purchasing decisions now. Additionally, I'm looking at getting upgraded editions of Arang, The City Of Violence and To Sir, With Love...as I'm not super thrilled with the versions I have (they're all good, but some are lacking DTS tracks whilst one stalls on the layer change). The titles marked with a plus sign (+) are all budget titles, so they're cool.

Oh, and for Mr Thibobeau, I finally watched Dasepo Naughty Girls today and found it most amusing -- not laugh out loud hilarious, but amusing and engaging enough to hold up as a decent cartoon-inspired comedy. Far too many bizarre things going on for it not be enoyable! Be it cyclopean students, hermaphrodites, cross-dressing advertising execs, dragons diguised as high school principals, or the literal representation of Poverty; it was all highly entertaining -- not deep nor an instant cult classic, but entertaining. That's all I usually look for in a movie!

Oh, and for Mr Thibobeau, I finally watched Dasepo Naughty Girls today and found it most amusing -- not laugh out loud hilarious, but amusing and engaging enough to hold up as a decent cartoon-inspired comedy. Far too many bizarre things going on for it not be enoyable! Be it cyclopean students, hermaphrodites, cross-dressing advertising execs, dragons diguised as high school principals, or the literal representation of Poverty; it was all highly entertaining -- not deep nor an instant cult classic, but entertaining. That's all I usually look for in a movie!

I have to admit, I was never really bored with the film, but I really felt like the filmmakers were restraining themselves for no reason other than, perhaps, to draw a wider (and yonger) audience. Plenty of bizarre, potentially deviant behaviour that just felt so...clean. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, as far too many Korean movies play it safe when they're dealing with source material that's designed to push boundaries (in this case, I found out later, the comic version is far more outrageous in dealing with largely the same characters and subject matter). If anything, my biggest beef with DAESEPO was that I could actually feel the filmmakers trying to be "cult," but not pushing the boundaries enough to be memorable. It's a movie that absolutely could have been an instant cult classic. Instead it's just quirky fun. Not bad, not great, as you say.


On a related note, I've still got about 30 minutes left to go on FATHER AND SON: A STORY OF MENCIUS, a typically high-concept (read: tired) Korean comedy about a poor, single-father fishmonger who moves to a more trendy part of town so that his teenage son can supposedly get better grades and get into Seoul University (the ultimate goal of any Korean worth his salt, according to this film). Turns out their new neighbours are a bunch of half-wit gangsters looking after one member's niece, who also goes to the same school as the fishmonger's son. And they fall in love. And they resent the increasing warfare between their families. Etc. Etc. Beautifully made, as always, but I can't say for sure yet whether this isn't just more U.S.-courting remake fodder. More thoughts when I get some time to wrap it up...

Well, I finished FATHER AND SON, and while it's not a 2006 release, I'm bringing it up here because I doubt many people have bothered to track it down. Korean movies (and, worse, TV shows) are notorious for wringing emotion out of the most blatantly manufactured of scenes, and this one's no exception. First two thirds: typical Korean comedy with the usual "funny" scenes of abusive teachers, abusive parents and abusive Koreans who all, down deep, have hearts of gold and really just want the best for their children (which of course, pays dividends down the road). Last third: time to get serious as those hearts of gold lead grown men to trade fists, bond and realize they're not so different. Not one, but TWO hospital scenes in this one, and several rounds of third-act crying are capped off with that most hoary of cliches, a concert in which someone sings about a loved one who shows up in the audience at just the right moment as the music builds to the big chorus and everyone cries some more. I'd say I shuddered, but I was touched. But then I realized how phony it was, and shook it off like a man. The film does score points for name-dropping Mencius in the title, and actually being structured (somewhat) around a famous adage from his early life that has probably influenced many Asian parents down through the centuries (including those of my own girlfriend, I suspect). Passable entertainment with the usual gloss, and certainly more pleasing than something like OH MY GOD, which becomes a completely different movie in its second half.

Brian Thibodeau wrote:Well, I finished FATHER AND SON, and while it's not a 2006 release, I'm bringing it up here because I doubt many people have bothered to track it down.

That's cool - I've changed the topic header accordingly!

I'm not so close-minded (nor so self-important) that I mind a thread wandering off topic, or evolving beyond its original form -- and I like that our last couple of topics evolved the way they did. Gives people a little more to read than just a singular subject...

Additionally, I'm looking at getting upgraded editions of Arang, The City Of Violence, Daisy and To Sir, With Love...as I'm not super thrilled with the versions I have (they're all good, but some are lacking DTS tracks whilst one stalls on the layer change...

Just out of curiosity, is it safe to assume you've watched CITY OF VIOLENCE and TO SIR WITH LOVE? I'd probably upgrade the former myself (probably the first Korean movie I've seen UNDER 90 minutes—what a relief!!! ), but the latter didn't strike me as overly worthy of repeat viewings, although the trick ending was clever, even if it reminded me structurally of a certain Kevin Spacey movie from the mid-90's. I'm guessing you liked it though? Any thoughts?

Brian Thibodeau wrote:Just out of curiosity, is it safe to assume you've watched CITY OF VIOLENCE and TO SIR WITH LOVE? I'd probably upgrade the former myself (probably the first Korean movie I've seen UNDER 90 minutes—what a relief!!! ), but the latter didn't strike me as overly worthy of repeat viewings, although the trick ending was clever, even if it reminded me structurally of a certain Kevin Spacey movie from the mid-90's. I'm guessing you liked it though? Any thoughts?

Well, To Sir, With Love was the disc that stalls -- it gets to the layer change unhindered, but there's a fair bit of remote control trickery involved to get it past that point (handy hint for young players: never buy inferior versions of films while holidaying in SE Asian regions when you can buy the original for a fair price online); though I didn't think the film was anything special, as well as guessed the twist about five minutes into the film, I'd like the opportunity of watching it without having to mangle my remote or have to stop and start my player half a dozen times just to watch the thing in its entirety.

As for City of Violence...ahem, erm, um...when I discovered mine was missing the DTS track I decided not to watch it over essentially buying the original -- a double-dip, if you will. Yeah, I've got more money than sense...

Watched a double-bill of Korean horror a couple days back.

Started with CINDERELLA, which I see made Mike's list of un-notables in the "prequel" thread, but which I found somewhat refreshing in light of all the cookie-cutter Korean horror movies I've seen in the last two to three years (see below, sort of). It's underwhelms in a few too many spots, but there are moments of gruesome brilliance throughout, and I like the fact that the largely female cast—played with an unusual authenticity across the board for this type of film—doesn't need handsome romantic interests or macho cops to help solve the mystery that surrounds them, in this case a series of bizarre suicides of young girls who went under the knife of a prominent female plastic surgeon, whose daughter uncovers some unpleasant secrets about her own past in the basement of their home. I also like the fact that the director doesn't utilize the standard ratchet-up-the-tension pacing and overblown orchestral scores often associated with this genre in Korean cinema, instead keeping the proceedings infused with a sense of dread nearly all the way through. The cheap scares are there—violin shrieks to make you jump when people run into ghosts, etc.—and some of the gore scenes are effectively cringeworthy, and the fact that they unfold in a film infused with such low-key dread, rather than high-concept flash, makes them that much more effective when they hit. Not a classic, but rather unique among latter-day Korean horror thrillers.


Finished with APARTMENT, which is on Mike's list at the top of this thread, although the official English title in the subs is A.P.T., with the Korean translation of the title reading like Ah-pah-teu) which is slightly above average horror-thriller from Ahn Byeong-ki (BUNSHINSABA, PHONE and NIGHTMARE MOVIE). Whenever I see his "Toilet Pictures" logo before a feature, I know I won't be let down in the cheap scares and slick visuals department, even if the movie isn't likely to hold up to close scrutiny, and A.P.T. is par for the course; a fun ride, but don't think about it too hard afterwards. To be fair, it's a little stronger than PHONE, and much, much stronger than the wacky BUNSHISABA or the confusing NIGHTMARE MOVIE. It's about a single window display designer, already haunted by the memory of a girl who leapt to her death from a subway platform right in front of her, who notices an odd flickering of the lights in the apartment building across from hers at 9:56 pm on several consecutive nights, a flickering inevitably followed by a bizarre, gruesome death for one of the buildings tenants. She comes to suspect the deaths are related to the wheelchair bound girl whom she often sees being helped, and increasingly abused, by the other residents, and whom she befriends. Ahn's one of those directors who apparently ate horror films as a child, and never met a cliche he couldn't revive, particularly the creepy, stumbling, hair-obscuring-the-face, bone-crack-noise-making ghost girl so prevalent and overused in Asian horror these past several years, but he throws a lovely second-act sucker punch at the concept when his grizzled cop character (Kang Seong-jin, the one guy from ATTACK THE GAS STATION who should have had as big a career as his three-costars, but is turning out to be a solid character actor who may outlast them all) has a confrontation with the ghost that cleverly rejiggers the story in an unexpected direction. Definitely worth seeing, especially for those who've seen and enjoyed the director's other films in spite of their overly complicated nature. The pieces hold together a little better in this one!

Look for comments on many of these new Korean flicks as I see them in the below thread...

http://hkmdb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=46841

...and thanks for the feedback thus far.