You may have noticed a long period of silence on my end. This is not one of those websites that loses its momentum and calcifies at its prime, doomed to perpetually haunt the web in a strange, still parody of life, trapped in eternal youth while its creator succumbs to the inevitable entropy of his flawed physical shell. A ghost spawned by the mind of the living, incapable of dying while the internet perpetuates, and forgotten by its own father, just like all his other children (well, that’s not true, I actually managed to delete most of them – I don’t like clutter).
Anyway, you get the point. I’m still here. I’ve just been busy, that’s all.
In large part that’s because I got accepted into university in September, so I’ve been doing all this stuff academically for a while now. Not much to report there on the whole, but I’m sure I’ll be hanging out here a bit more in the near future just to start networking again.
Continuing the theme of crime thrillers, this time I’ll be taking a look at the darkly comic A Hard Day, by writer/director Kim Seong-Hoon (How the Lack of Love Affects Two Men, The Guy Was Cool). In this movie, Lee Sun-Kyun (Nobody’s Daughter Haewon,R-Point) plays a crooked homicide detective whose attempt to cover up a fatal hit-and-run accident leads to an increasingly desperate series of misadventures:
Detective Go Geon-soo (Lee Sun-Kyun) is attending his mother’s funeral when he gets a call from work: Internal Affairs have turned up unannounced, and they’re about to find the stash of bribe money in his desk that he’s looking after for the whole team. Racing back to the station, he swerves to avoid hitting a dog that wanders into the road . . . and ends up hitting a man instead, killing him stone dead. Desperate to get back and deal with Internal Affairs, and to avoid further scrutiny, he shoves the body into his trunk and drives off. Thus begins the titular “hard day”, which quickly spirals out of hand.
A Hard Day is only Kim Seong-Hoon’s third screenplay, and his second turn in the director’s chair, but you’d never guess that. The movie is written and edited to perfection, building from a running start to maintain a powerful feeling of tension and paranoia, dragging the viewer along with Detective Go on his self-inflicted rollercoaster of desperation until the inevitably violent climax. Elements of humour are injected with perfect timing, and at just the right quantity to balance out the darker nature of the main story. There is no wastage or bloat anywhere in the script, and the physicality of the film’s direction contributes perfectly to the storyline and character development. A scene near the beginning, in which Detective Go tries to hide the body in the funeral home, is especially masterful.
The cast are also marvellous. Detective Go has few, if any, redeeming features – he never hurts anyone on purpose unless they deserve it, and he’s fiercely loyal to his colleagues and his family, but he is, largely, corrupt and self-interested. Still, Lee Sun-Kyun manages to elicit sympathy for the luckless protagonist as we watch him flounder, struggle, and survive by the skin of his teeth through increasingly disastrous scenarios. It’s difficult not to feel for him as his own actions, and his terrible luck, drag him deeper and deeper into trouble. In fact, as the only major role other than the villain, Lee almost single-handedly carries the movie.
Almost, that is, except that said villainous role is handled with care by Jo Jin-Woong (The Front Line, Hwayi: A Monster Boy), whose slimy, creepy confidence wonderfully offsets Lee’s twitchy energy. Jo plays the character with such oily charmlessness, and makes him such an unlikeable antagonist, that the hapless Detective Go seems positively heroic by comparison. Parts of his performance are so smoothly confident that they appear to be ad-libbed, and it’s a genuine joy to watch the actor take such ownership of every scene.
So, in summary, A Hard Day is nothing if not excellent. As much as it pains me to give so many high scores in a row, I’m going to have to give it an 8.5/10. I’m tempted to score it higher, but you cynical bastards probably wouldn’t believe me. For what it’s worth, the movie is so perfectly timed that the dramatic beats start to become predictable; the timing and nature of the conflict work largely to an established formula. Like many movies in this genre, the third act – and especially the climax – have to play out in a certain way, and the success of it depends on whether or not this works for you. The execution, however, is flawless.
Anyway, I’ve managed to build up a bit of a backlog recently. I’ve got five or six movies floating around my brain right now, including the latest from Lee Jeong-Beom – No Tears for the Dead– which deserves careful consideration. Valentine’s Day is coming up, so I feel I should review something particularly nihilistic for the occasion.
I didn’t know what I was doing when I started this blog. I know – minds blown.
I first started this thing because I’ve been watching a lot of Asian cinema, for a long, long time. My first experiences were with the UK’s Channel 4, way back in the mid to late nineties, when they started showing not only high-quality anime – Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Cyber City Oedo 808, 3×3 Eyes, and a ton of other stuff that seems to be buried beneath an onslaught of bullshit these days – but also the classic kung fu cinema of Jackie Chan and everything else from that era. Tsui Hark, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, and Tony Chiu Wai Leung are just a few of my indelible cinematic influences.
Eventually, though, you see enough of this stuff and you have to start taking it seriously. I didn’t even realise how seriously I was taking it until I started writing about it. I found that I loved movies from different parts of Asia for different reasons, and I started identifying the cultural and stylistic differences between, say, South Korean and Hong Kong cinema, to the point where it felt like I had something intelligent to say about the concept. I’m barely scraping the surface of it all, and I know I’m only just starting to learn any of these languages in a meaningful way, but there’s really nothing like the feeling of opening a window into all of these new worlds.
Anyway, before I start to sound too pretentious, I wrote this post for a reason. I wanted to introduce you all to one of my new favourite bands: the Rocktigers.
Velvet Geena, the lead vocalist (does she know that her nom de guerre sounds like a euphemism for “vagina”? I suspect so) pioneered the Korean rockabilly scene, which has inevitably become known as “Kimchibilly”. I first noticed them when they produced this beautiful piece:
Isn’t that gorgeous?
Anyway, that’s enough for that little interlude. I’ll soon be back to half-baked opinions about movies you’re never going to watch.
And yes, I did just edit this post. It’s my blog, so there.
Thanks to my mother (thanks, mum!) I have just been made aware of the existence of the London Korean Film Festival, at www.koreanfilm.co.uk.
If you’re into Korean cinema – which I assume you must be, otherwise why would you be giving me any kind of attention at all – and you’re in the UK, then you couldn’t do better than to take a look at these guys.
Another recurring stylistic achievement within the current wave of Korean cinema is the filmmakers’ ability to seamlessly blend two or more genres without creating a conceptual or tonal clash. This, apparently, is part of the unspoken ethos that elements of storytelling can (and, indeed, should) be drawn from any genre trope, influence, or other inspiration, depending solely on what serves the story.
While many movies, such as 2004’s Windstruck, use this concept to create a powerful emotional impact through sudden tonal shifts, others achieve their goals through a more subtle blending of elements. In Secret Reunion (2010), director Jang Hoon – in only his second full-length feature since 2008’s Rough Cut – deftly balances the odd-couple buddy-movie genre with the cat-and-mouse spy thriller. What makes this concept intriguing is that the buddy cops in this narrative are each, respectively, both cat and mouse.
Lee Han-Kyu, played by the marvellous Song Kang-Ho – of whom you’ll be seeing a lot more in future reviews – is a high-ranking officer in South Korean intelligence, hot on the trail of a ring of Northern spies led by the infamous assassin known as “Shadow” (Jeon Gook-Hwan). Song Ji-Won – played by the feline-featured heartthrob Kang Dong-Won – is one of Shadow’s men, a loyal yet conflicted assassin with a distaste for unnecessary bloodshed. When Shadow’s other subordinate, Son Tae-Soon (Yun Hee-Seok), gives him up in exchange for amnesty, Lee Han-Kyu orders his team to take Shadow down without calling for backup from a rival department. The result is a bloodbath: Shadow escapes after killing his target as well as several officers, Song is on the run from both sides and suspected of betraying his country, and Lee is forced to resign from the intelligence service.
Six years later, Lee’s life has taken a turn for the worse. He works as a private detective of sorts, paid to track down runaway mail-order brides and return them to their husbands (this is mildly less sleazy and more ambiguous than it sounds: the brides are part of an organised crime scam in the first place). When he bumps into Song Ji-Won by chance, laying low at his own job as a factory foreman, each of them recognises the other . . . but neither realises that the other has recognised him in turn. Lee shortly hires Song as his assistant, each of them spying on the other: Lee thinks Song can lead him to Shadow and thus restore his reputation (and score him a huge reward), while Song sends secret reports about Lee to Shadow, hoping to regain favour with the North. The empathetic relationship they start to develop is inevitable, as is the ultimate confrontation between the unlikely partners and their respective masters.
The charm of Secret Reunion is in how smoothly the director and the stars navigate the various emotional beats of the narrative, balancing the comedic and dramatic tones perfectly and with natural progression. The heart of the movie grows from the easy charisma of the two leads, both of whom underplay their roles perfectly, allowing the central conflict of their strange relationship to shine through with tremendous realism. At no point do the comedy or the drama seem forced. The script and direction contribute enormously to this, with excellent pacing and exactly the right amount of tension. The buddy-movie and spy thriller elements are in perfect balance, neither one being allowed to overshadow the other. The emergent theme, in fact, is that of the yin/yang interplay of opposite elements: North versus South, violence versus peace, work versus home life, patriotism versus personal interests, and so on. This theme expands almost to a meta-narrative level upon close examination as we watch the movie itself harmonise its own opposite components.
Well, that’s about as pretentious as I’m willing to get, so I’m going to wrap this review up before I disappear up my own, um . . . navel. In conclusion, Secret Reunion is a charming movie with few discernible flaws. The two lead actors remain among the most watchable people in modern cinema, not just that of South Korea, and the story is both charming and thrilling in equal measure. The movie never does anything particularly incredible with what it has, but it doesn’t need to either. It could perhaps have been trimmed down a little in the editing room, but that’s a nitpick. I’m going to give it an 8.5/10, just because Mother and The Man From Nowhere set such a high bar.
That’s it from me for this entry, so thanks for reading.
Following straight on from Mother (2009), Won Bin’s next starring role is in The Man From Nowhere (2010). Lee Jeong-Beom’s (Cruel Winter Blues) acclaimed hit is a thriller of a different type altogether. There are several obvious similarities: both are concerned with the filth and corruption underlying modern-day South Korea; both use minimalism and visual storytelling over exposition where possible; both concern themselves with the humanity of their flawed protagonists. The Man From Nowhere is an action movie at heart, though, and there is never any question as to who is the hero, who are the villains, and who are the innocents.
Won Bin plays the eponymous hero, Cha Tae-Sik, a taciturn loner who runs a pawn shop. His only meaningful contact is with So-Mi (Kim Sae-Ron), his neighbour’s young daughter, whom he reluctantly watches over when So-Mi’s mother – a heroin-addicted stripper/prostitute – is indisposed. When gangsters in search of stolen drugs kidnap both mother and daughter, Tae-Sik’s conscience overcomes his desire for solitude. In order to rescue them he steps back into the life of violence that led to his voluntary isolation in the first place, evading the police while hunting down and killing the men responsible.
The Man From Nowhere is a lean, powerful film that wastes nothing. The opening act establishes just the right amount of character and situational setup before moving on at a cracking pace. Won Bin once again demonstrates a tremendous skill for physical acting, often saying more with a subtle expression of pain or anger than most actors can do with an entire monologue. Thanayong Wongtrakul – who, according to IMDB, has only had one other acting job, in Thai horror movie Curse of the Sun – mirrors this ability as Tae-Sik’s dark opposite, an intense, frightening, and near-silent hatchet-man. When the two meet for their final confrontation, the chemistry between them is electric despite the complete absence of dialogue.
This penchant for silent, physical storytelling is representative of the film’s ethos as a whole, and is one of the traits it shares with Mother. When compared and contrasted side-by-side, in fact, these two films effectively symbolise the whole of the genre. Whereas Mother is concerned with how even the innocent can be corrupted, The Man From Nowhere demonstrates the counterpoint that innocence itself can be a force of redemption. The setting of Mother is necessarily grimy and powerfully real, whereas The Man From Nowhere takes place in the world of exaggerated, though plausible, action-thriller archetypes. The protagonists of each film personify these qualities, as do the polar-opposite performances by Won Bin in his consecutive roles. Between them, the two movies also manage to include just about every storytelling trope typical of modern Korean thrillers. If you’re looking for an introduction to the oeuvre, you couldn’t do much better than watching both as a double-bill.
I couldn’t complete this review without giving special mention to Kim Sae-Ron as So-Mi, the little girl at the centre of the story. I don’t know how old she was at the time of filming – she couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven at the most – but she gives a performance that stands up alongside every adult around her. She’s been quite busy with TV and movies since The Man From Nowhere, so her career might be one to watch. It would be interesting to see if she can maintain this level of talent as she enters her teens.
Okay, on to the score. My overall feeling about this movie is that it’s a superb example of the genre, doing exactly what it has to and showing admirable restraint where necessary, while excelling in every detail. Its only real flaw is that it doesn’t do anything particularly original, but in context that isn’t a flaw at all – it’s only really in the synopsis that it lacks any particular standout qualities, while the execution itself is truly exemplary.
All in all then, I’m going to give The Man From Nowhere an easy 9/10.
So, that’s two reviews so far. I have no idea what I’m going to do for the next entry. I’ve seen a lot of Korean movies recently, thrillers especially, and I have thoughts on all of them. I might shake things up and do a comedy next. I may even watch something new and write about it while my ideas are fresh, or perhaps try something from Hong Kong or mainland China instead. Hmmm.
Okay, I lied. I said I was going to review The Man From Nowhere first, followed by Mother. Mother is one of my favourite films of any genre, and my thoughts on the artistry of it are complex. I need something of a running start to do it justice in a review, so my plan was to start with The Man From Nowhere. Though equally superb, it’s a far simpler movie on almost every level, so reviewing it is a far less daunting task.
However, this would be doing a disservice to the enigmatic star of both movies, Won Bin. His transformation – from mentally-handicapped adult in Mother, to lone-wolf action hero in The Man From Nowhere – is nothing short of astounding. These two films should be watched back-to-back, or at least in the order they were made, as I did before I even knew that it was the same actor. It’s only right that I review them in that order too, so here goes. I’m going to avoid spoilers as much as possible, but I can’t really get into analysis without spoiling minor details, so be warned.
Despite its title, Mother – directed by Bong Joon-Ho (The Host, Memories of Murder) – is not really about the titular protagonist (played by the marvellous Kim Hye-Ja). The subject of the story – and the source of the film’s central conflict – is her mentally-disabled adult son, Do-Joon (Won Bin). Trapped in the unfortunate limbo between the life of an adult and the mentality of a child, Do-Joon is incapable of being fully one or the other. When the police arrest him for the murder of a schoolgirl, his doting mother is the only person with the inclination to defend him and find out the truth. Her investigation doesn’t just reveal the nature of the murder, but also throws light into the murky corners of everyone else’s lives, including her own.
This film is truly incredible. It thrives on careful characterisation: everybody is in some way tainted by their flaws, but no one person is genuinely evil. Every sinful act is either a tragic mistake or a moment of weakness. The mother’s willingness to do anything to exonerate her son – who by anybody’s standards exemplifies the notion of diminished responsibility – is just the tip of the iceberg.
This concept of Do-Joon’s lack of responsibility is, in fact, the driving force behind the entire film. His specific condition is never named – it resembles autism, and the possibility of physical brain damage is hinted at later on, but the filmmakers wisely leave it ambiguous – but it afflicts him enough that he is at the mercy of not only himself, but the opinions and actions of everyone around him. Although he is physically an adult, he is mentally trapped at that awkward developmental stage of trying desperately to be a man: drinking too much, showing off, and talking about girls. He is further impaired by severe memory problems – both short-term and long – and an inability to control his temper when others call him “retard”.
All of this allows others to manipulate him, whether intentionally or otherwise: his only friend, the delinquent Jin-Tae (Jin Goo), lets Do-Joon take the blame for a minor crime while at the same time protecting him from danger; the police, while not exactly corrupt, get him to sign a confession that he doesn’t understand. To reveal more would spoil the ending and several twists, but the fundamental theme of the film is that nobody around him has any real idea how to treat Do-Joon, or how to account for his affliction, and this inevitably leads to more than one horrible tragedy.
That’s it for the analysis. I could go on for another thousand words about this film, but if I dug into it any more I’d risk spoiling it for you, and that would be another tragedy.
I’d like to talk briefly about the craft of the movie, though. In my last post I mentioned that it’s a superb example of the current Korean cinematic zeitgeist, and I stand by that. Several of the themes are exemplary of modern Korean thrillers: cops who aren’t exactly dirty but are willing to bend or break the rules in order to secure a conviction; wealthy elites who consider themselves above the law, the poor struggling to survive in slums, and the way both groups survive using a network of graft and favours; corruption versus human frailty.
Stylistically, this is all delivered with the kind of careful minimalism and visual acuity that turned Park Chan-Wook‘s Vengeance trilogy into breakout hits. In fact, at first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that Park had a hand in this movie. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Bong Joon-Ho admitted to some influence by Park in his directorial style, which has evolved noticeably since The Host. These qualities are increasingly commonplace in Korean cinema, though, which leads me to wonder in which direction various ripples of influence actually travel. There’s one moment in particular towards the beginning that screams “Korean director”, in which a simple act of urinating against a wall – the purest display of unapologetic warts-and-all humanity – is turned into as perfect a piece of characterisation, of both mother and son, as any exchange of dialogue could possibly achieve.
As for the performances of the actors involved, every single one is sublime. Kim Hye-Ja’s eponymous (but nameless) mother is never once anything less than utterly convincing as the kindly, slightly pitiable, entirely average middle-aged mother of a disabled son. Her performance is nothing but realistic throughout the film – she comes across as actually being her role, maintaining the character of an ordinary mother who accidentally wandered into the reality of a bleak crime thriller. The supporting cast are admirably solid, even the smallest of bit-part actors doing just enough to sell the scene and create a character without drawing any more attention than is necessary. Nobody tries too hard to stand out, or underplays their role too hard.
The real star, though, is Won Bin by a country mile. As Do-Joon he moves, talks, and looks like a child. His mastery of body language and facial expression is so incredibly thorough, and subtle, that it’s difficult to believe he could ever be anything other than an awkward, ugly nerd in real life, let alone a thirty-year-old man who works as a model between acting jobs. The work he must have done to master the movements and mannerisms of a mentally-impaired adult . . . it really is astonishing. If you’re not convinced of his talents after watching this movie, just watch The Man From Nowhere afterwards so you can see just how much he isn’t like Do-Joon in real life. Truly an actor to watch.
So, I should probably give this movie a score. Much as I’d like to give it a perfect ten, it does suffer very slightly from the one flaw that’s common to this genre: enough of the story is told through implication that it can be slightly hard to follow, putting a lot of work on the viewer to keep track of the plot. Some small elements of ambiguity remain that may or may not be intentional, which keep it from being a truly perfect film.
Mother, then, gets a solid 9/10 from me.
Up next is The Man From Nowhere. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
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