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Chihwaseon

Andrew Heskins — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:27:55 +0000

A beautiful film by veteran filmmaker Im Kwon-taek with a fine performance by Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik, but suffers from covering far too long a period…

Chihwaseon rattles through the lifeof Ohwon (Choi Min-sik, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), a peasant who became one of Korea’s most respected painters in the 19th century. We follow him through the discovery of his talent as a peasant, to finally breaking free of the stigma attached to his class and becoming a celebrated artist.

Throughout his life those humble beginnings come to the surface with a drunken, self-destructive streak that often stands in the way of true success, reducing him once again to poverty. Meanwhile the political landscape of Korea itself is in turmoil as it is fought over for control by China and Korea.

As always Choi Min-sik’s performance is incredible, creating a believable and even sympathetic character out of a man who often acts like a complete bastard. He has able support from actors like Ahn Sung-kee (Musa, Duelist) as his mentor Kim Byung-Moon.

However, like many biopics, particularly those around artists, veteran director Im Kwon-taek (Sopyonje, Downfall, Festival) falls into the trap of trying to tell Ohwon’s entire life, covering an impractical period of time. The result loses depth in Ohwon’s character as a cost – however impeccable Min-sik’s performance is – giving little insight into his motivations, conforming to the template portrayal of the artist as objectionable and self-destructive, though least interesting.

More absorbing is the political upheaval that Kwon-tek sets his lead against. As Ohwon seeks his own path beyond simply imitating the art from China and Japan, Korea itself is being torn apart by those two countries. It’s noticeable how relevant that history feels to a country still occupied but now also divided. Many are still old enough to remember Japanese occupation, and those that are not are all too aware how it they were simply replaced with America and Russia at the end of the Second World War.

Without a doubt Kwon-taek’s film is beautiful to look at, with Jung Il-sung’s cinematography bringing those works to life. It’s as good a depiction an artist at work as there has ever been, getting over the deceptive simplicity of Asian paintings. Kwon-taek exudes a kind of confidence that comes with both age and experience – being 66 years of age when Chihwaseon was originally released and having directed over 90 films by that time. Like the late Robert Altman, there’s a sense of a director making a film solely for his own benefit, without any need to impress anyone other than himself.

Chihwaseon is a fascinating insight into Korea political history, if not quite such a full study of the artist himself.

My Wife Is A Gangster

Andrew Heskins — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:34:09 +0000

Some six years after it was originally released this Korean classic has finally been made available in the UK – but has it been worth the wait?…

It’s hard not to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist where Miramax are concerned, however much you try to be balanced and fair…

Deservedly a big hit with it’s home country of South Korea and throughout Asia, My Wife Is A Gangster joined films like Shiri, Bichunmoo, Musa and Joint Security Area as one of the first films to establish Korea on the international market. It caused such a stir that Miramax became involved in a bidding war, paying almost a million USD for the rights to remake it, as well as obtaining distribution rights on the original film.

All of which should have been promising news, only at the time Miramax’s strategy towards Asian films can only be explained as bizarre. Purchasing the international rights to big budget, successful films like Hero, Shaolin Soccer and Legend Of Zu and then delaying their release – not just months, but years (and some, like Zu, never even made it on to the screen!)

Meanwhile, their rights limited the distribution of the original DVD releases, meaning that these films were nearly impossible to get hold of outside Asia.

The contention has always been that they were protecting their investment made in the upcoming release from their wunderkind Quentin Tarantino, the film that would become Kill Bill Volume’s 1 and 2, that somehow they might have been worried these films might overshadow Tarantino’s more overtly derivative kung fu homage.

Indeed Shaolin Soccer’s ‘Game Of Death’ inspired goalkeeper precedes and beats Kill Bill’s ‘Game Of Death’ inspired biker outfit. And with a little imagination, My Wife Is A Gangster also overlaps some of the themes explored in Kill Bill, but again in a cleverer and superior way… and the proposed remake has never surfaced!

But whether they were concerned about the similarities or just did not know how to market the films, sitting on them for that amount of time was only an effective way of ‘killing’ their appeal. And the saddest part is that My Wife Is A Gangster abounds in crossover potential. It’s simply a great idea, well told, and more than worthy of a much wider audience.

It tells the story of Cha Eun-jin (Shin Eun-Kyung, The Ring Virus), a legendary and very deadly gang leader known as Mantis who is finally reunited with her sister who she hasn’t seen since she was in an orphanage – only to find she is terminally ill.

Her dying wish is to see her sister married, which is going to be a pretty tall order – even her henchmen are far too scared to offer themselves as groom! Leaving Cha to go to great efforts to make herself attractive, she enlists a beauty therapist to teach her everything a life as a thug on the streets never did. How to wear make up, how to wear heals, even how to act on a date.

None of which actually helps, before a chance meeting with Kang Su-il (Park Sang-Myeon, The Foul King, Hi! Dharma!), who has been on over 50 organised dates without the other party having any interest at all. The perfect candidate then? Kang is besotted, even quoting The Bridges of Madison County when he proposes. But when the wedding itself is interrupted by a rival gang, you can bet it’s not going to be marital bliss.

Then Cha’s sister announces she would love to see her pregnant… and things get a whole lot more complicated!

From the outset director Cho Jin-gyu establishes just how vicious Cha’s gang members are, and how violent their world is, in a wonderfully choreographed fight sequence over the opening titles, all drenched in rain like the end sequence in Nowhere To Hide. The violence in these sequences often seems too harsh – particularly the sequence when Cha is kicked ferociously in the stomach whilst pregnant, juxtaposed with the broad comedy elsewhere, but is necessary in establishing some credibility to the characters.

Indeed, Shin Eun-Kyung is totally believable in a fantastic performance as Cha, masculine and handsome rather than dainty and beautiful, rarely smiling (and even then more of a grimace). From the expression on Cha’s face, her beauty therapist might as well be from a another planet for all her advice means to her.

That Cha has no idea how to ‘properly’ behave as a woman is the core aim of writers Kang Hyo-jin, Kim Moon-Saeng and Kim Moon-Sung’s script. The result is a clever comment on how Korean (and most Asian) women are expected to behave, and how ridiculous it is.

Park Sang-Myeon leads a wonderful ensemble cast as the husband who’ll never be as much of a man as she is, but at least ends up much closer than he began.

The fight sequences choreographed by Yuen Jung are a real treat and again unexpected. The highlight being Cha’s showdown with the rival gang Japanese trained assassin – beautifully filmed against a dramatic mountain backdrop, it could be from a classic old kung fu or Lone Wolf and Cub movie… before Cha stops for a wee!

The changing tone may seem a little awkward, particularly to Western audiences, but don’t let that put you off this thoughtful and very funny movie – it’s a real winner!

Lady Vengeance

Andrew Heskins — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 20:32:06 +0000

Bound to become a flawed, beautiful classic, Park Chan-wook’s final instalment in his revenge trilogy is a master class in the making…

It’s funny how often the name Tarantino comes up in reviews for Park Chan-wook’s final instalment of his loosely themed revenge trilogy, Lady Vengeance. As if it were truly possible to compare the likes of Oldboy or Sympathy for Mr Vengeance with Kill Bill? What’s more significant – Chan-wook’s redefining look at one of cinema, particularly Asian cinema’s most recurring themes, or Tarantino’s tired old retread?

Lady Vengeance finds Geum-ja Lee (Lee Young-ae, One Fine Spring Day) released after spending 13 years in prison for a crime her accomplice had committed. She has been busy, coldly making allies purely on what they could offer calculating her plans to exact revenge on her release. Nothing ever runs smoothly, particularly vengeance, so when Geum-ja is reunited a daughter she’d presumed was dead; things begin to get more complicated. The life she thought she could never have beckons, but is that enough to distract her from her goal…?

From the deliberate minimalism of Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, to the meticulous noir of Old Boy, Park’s dexterity as director has left each film in the series almost look as if they could have been made by someone else entirely.

Ambitious, undoubtedly self-indulgent, Park freedom as auteur comes at a price – Lady Vengeance feels messier than it’s predecessors, constantly changing in pace and tone, that black humour so distinctive of Korean films, before dropping to the dark final act.

It’s intentional, of course, and perhaps the one real casualty from Park’s own backtrack over his original ‘fade to black & white’ concept for the theatrical release. The film’s colour would have gradually faded, almost unnoticeably, until the film became entirely black and white, mirroring the purity motif used in the story. But though Park loved both the colour and B&W ends of the spectrum, he was unhappy with the muddy, dull middle.

Without that levelling influence, Lady Vengeance was bound to throw up varying, often derogatory, reviews. Park approach is so audacious, cheeky even, as too require you to have seen its precursors to understand what he’s trying to achieve. True, much has been made of the casting and cameos. Leading lady Lee Young-ae appeared in his first major hit Joint Security Area, Both leads from Mr Vengeance, Song Kong-ho (Foul King, Shiri) and Shin Ha-kyun (Save The Green Planet!) – who also co-starred with Lee in .JSA – appear dimly lit as assassins. Yet it’s Choi Min-sik, who made such an impact in Oldboy, who Park can’t resist but give the pivotal role of Mr Baek.

The original English title, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance gives a clue to Park intentions this time around, both referencing and subverting the first film in the series. Where as in Mr Vengeance we felt sympathetic towards all the characters, all caught in rapidly escalating blunders that lead to inevitably fatal conclusions, here Lady Vengeance is so cold and calculating that it’s had to feel any sympathy for her at all. Even when we find out the reasons for her wanting revenge, which comes over halfway through the movie, it’s still hard to associate her innocence with how she has manipulated all around her.

It’s only when we discover the truth about Baek that director Park pulls his final trick – just how evil does someone have to be to deserve no sympathy at all? And trust me, in a wonderful performance by Choi Min-sik, Baek is all that: outwardly charming, but with depths of malevolence that no one could defend. Inevitably, Park raises more questions than he’s willing to answer, but it’s an interesting meditation on the subject, and a fitting conclusion to the series. It also offers his lead character the nearest thing to redemption in the series, if by no means complete.

The film also manages to take a stab at the media frenzy surrounding Geum-ja, and the strange pursuit of the celebrity that dominates 21st century culture. The narrator tells us, with echoes of scenes from Natural Born Killers, how the style of polka dot dress she wears when she is apprehended becomes exceedingly popular.

As beautiful and stylish as you’d expect, the film has a fairy tale quality, causing Park’s film crew to make comparisons to Alice in Wonderland (though Park himself attributed much of his influence to Edward Scissorhands!) Lady Vengeance is not perfect by any means, it’s too decadent for that. But it is a flawed classic, like Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and like Vertigo it becomes more powerful and influential on each viewing. More than the sum of its parts, there’s plenty here to stay in the memory long after you’ve watched the film. Welcome to Park Chan-wook’s master class – you’d better be taking notes…

A Tale of Two Sisters

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 18:12:06 +0000

Kim Ji-woon (The Foul King, The Quiet Family) directs this intelligent Asian shocker with more than a few surprises…

When two sisters, Su-mi (Lim Su-jeong) and Su-yeon (Mun Geun-yeong), return home from a sanitarium to live with their father and stepmother, family life hardly becomes harmonious. The mental state of their stepmother Eun-joo (Yun Jung-ah) becomes increasingly under question, whilst father Mu-hyeon Bae (Kim Kap-su) appears indifferent to their situation.

Su-mi begins to suspect her stepmother of abusing her younger sister Su-yeon, but all is not as it seems. And the house itself hides a terrible family secret that will remain hidden no longer…

Since his debut film The Quiet Family, a black comedy in the tradition of Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry, Kim Ji-woon has revealed rather a dark, almost sinister aspect to his work as a director. It’s apparent even in the riotous fun of his wrestling comedy, The Foul King. he previously had the opportunity to delve into the horror genre with his segment of Three, Memories. A Tale of Two Sisters has allowed Ji-woon to explore it further.

The result is a more intelligent psychological drama than many other Asian horrors around at the moment, building more on an increasingly unsettling atmosphere rather than relying just on shocks. As with Memories, it’s only in the final revelations that the story becomes clear, subverting everything you’ve seen before them. This time, though, around the outcome is far less obvious. Like The Sixth Sense the device opens itself up to repeated viewing, rather than prevents it, as you reinterpret the film when you watch it again.

As with Aledjandro Amenabar’s The Others, it’s the house itself that becomes the most domineering character of the piece. Seemilngly wrenched out of the Victorian age, it’s mix of fantastically mismatched loud, gaudy wallpaper, textiles and furniture. Like William Morris on acid. This menagerie of colour should clash, yet under the art direction of Jo Geun-hyeon it all works perfectly. Such extraordinary set design hasn’t been seen since Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Inferno. Like those films Ji-woon uses the extremes of colour and patterns to help set the mood.

Based on a famous Korean folk tale, ‘Janghwa Heungryeonjeon,’ Ji-woon’s contemporary interpretation seems more concerned with how the family unit deals with mental illness – how they repress their problems rather than face them and worry how they might be perceived from the outside than horror. Or is that the real horror? In fact it’s his depiction of a fractured family unit hidden under a picture of domestic bliss that is the one theme that unites his work. The family united by a terrible secret in the Quiet Family. The strained father son relationship in The Foul King, where dad is rather embarrassed by his boy. The seemingly perfect marriage that turns out not to be in Memories. Perhaps he has a point?

It’s a well executed horror that will obviously bring to mind Asian horrors like Ringu and Audition, but this is a really strong contender in it’s own right. Especially if you happen to be an interior designer!

Oldboy

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 17:02:45 +0000

Director Park Chan-wook’s follow-up to Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is an even better twisted tale of revenge…

Ah, the vengeance flick, that fundamental building block of Asian films, and many Western ones too. A tired genre with nothing to offer? Well, if you’d made it through both volumes of Kill Bill that’s probably what you’d expect. Tarantino’s film did no more than perpetuate and reinforce every cliche in the book.

But that’s not how director Park Chan-wook deals with the theme. Bringing a genuine inventiveness to the genre he turns each cliche on its head, undermining everything you’d expect. In Sympathy for Mr Vengeance revenge becomes almost an unavoidable infection, contaminating everyone that come into contact with it through accidents and mishaps. Each of the leads becomes both perpetrator and victim of the crime, to the point where you sympathise with all of them. Actual malice doesn’t even come in to it.

Unlike Oldboy, where it’s all about malice obtaining a perceived justice at any cost. All told it’s a far cry from Joint Security Area (JSA), the warm hearted cold war drama that made his name as a director.

In the story, a drunken evening for Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik, Chihwaseon, Failin, Shiri, The Quiet Family) ends in more than a spell at the local police establishment. Abducted from outside a phone box he awakes in a flock papered prison cell, a television his only contact with the outside world.

With no idea who has done this to him or why, and framed for his wife’s murder, Dae-su vows vengeance on his tormenter. He begins to train himself physically to achieve his goal as the days turn into months, the months into years. Then, suddenly, 15 years after he was originally imprisioned, he is released. Sushi chef Mido (Kang Hye-jeong) his only ally, Dae-su has only five days to uncover the truth, but will he be able to handle it…?

Based on a manga of the same name, this is one twisted tale. From Dae-su’s incarceration that turns him steadily into a monster bent on revenge, to the unpleasant revelation of an underworld organisation that makes it’s business doing just that as the ultimate revenge on the enemy you can’t kill. (Not unlike the underworld revealed in Sympathy for Mr Vengeance.)

As with Sympathy Chan-wook has an eye for the capturing that moment before the frenzy. Often having the effect of capturing his characters in a looking distorted still life. It’s beautiful – in a gritty, nasty, Christopher Doyle (Rabbit Proof Fence, Infernal Affairs, In the Mood for Love, 2046 and pretty much anything else by Wong Kar-wai) sort of a way.

For an actor who hasn’t put in a performance less than brilliant, including his uber-terrorist in Shiri and his hapless third rate crook in Failin, Choi Min-sik has really excelled himself this time. His on-screen transformation is spectacular, from an overweight drunk to a single-minded athletic monster. For Min-sik, much of that transformation is for real as he went into training for the film, performing his own stunts.

It doesn’t get any better than the much-lauded one take corridor scene, as Dae-su takes on a dozen of his ex-captors, beating them not by superiority, but by shear dogged endurance.

But Oldboy isn’t as violent as it’s reputation. Sure, some of the things that happen are VERY unpleasant, but Chan-wook has an old fashioned approach, keeping most of it off screen. Mind you, unless you have no imagination at all this film is best suited to those with a strong stomach.

The plot recalls David Fincher’s The Game, as Dae-su slowly realises every move he makes has been calculated, manipulated by an oppressor who’s always one step ahead. The difference being that Chan-wook pulls none of his punches, there’s no Hollywood happy ending. But with a US remake on the cards for 2006 (now theres a surprise) it’ll be interesting to see what concessions will be made to a less, um, demanding audience.

For Chan-wook, the last part of his vengeance trilogy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, will be released later this year.

With an excellent score, at it’s best reminiscent of the Dust Brothers work for Fight Club, this is a superb thriller. Unmissable!

Barking Dogs Never Bite

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 17:01:37 +0000

Biting social satire meets hilarious black comedy. Laugh or the dog gets it…

Korea. Dogs. I know what you’re thinking. And no, (In South Korea at least ) you’re not allowed to eat dogs. (At least not other peoples.)

Barking Dogs centres around two occupants in the same set of apartment buildings, both of whom desperately want to escape their surroundings. One is Yun-ju (Lee Sung-jae, Attack The Gas Station), a part time college lecturer with aspirations of becoming a professor with his own department. The other is Hyeon-Nam (Bae Du-na), a secretary in the super indendant’s office she spends her spare time getting mashed with her best friend in the local shop (which fortunately rarely has any customers), daydreaming of becoming famous.

Yun-ju spends most of his time in the apartment, being driven crazy by the yapping of a small dog in a flat nearby. His relationship top his very pregnant wife becoming increasingly strained. One day he decides to take out his frustrations on the animal, finding it and locking it away in the buildings basement. Only it’s not the right dog. In fact, it can’t even bark. Yun-ju realises his mistake too late, the dog has already become victim to the janitor with a taste for dog stew.

Still bothered by the barking, Yun-ju decides to get it right, only this time he’s witnessed by Hyeon-Nam throwing the dog off the roof of an adjacent apartment building. Could this be her chance for 15 minutes of fame, if she can be the hero and catch the dog murderer?

With Korean movies, perhaps more than with other Asian countries, it’s the similarities rather than the differences which surprise. The films themes have much in common with ’slacker generation’ movies from the states like Trees Lounge and Ghost World. It also has much in common with Mike Leigh’s films, not only in its social commentary but the full blooded way each character is portrayed. Not just the leads but each cast member is a real three dimensional character – due a great script by director Bong Joon-ho (Memories Of Murder, The Host), Song Ji-ho and Tae-woong Derek Son, and also a wonderful ensemble cast. Meaning the dramatic edge can be played with as conviction as the comedy, again much like Leigh.

Not that Bong Joon-ho lets the story get in the way of style. Together with cinematographers Cho Yong-kyou and Jo Yeong-gyu, Bong films quirkily and imaginatively, playing much of the humour from a distance and more quietly, rather than in broad in your face farce (much like the other recent great Korean comedy, The Foul King) – and ultimately it’s funnier.

A great, thoughtful comedy. Even if you’re a dog lover!

The Foul King

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 16:11:47 +0000

Let’s get ready to rumble! Song Kang-ho stars in Kim Ji-woon’s (The Quiet Family, A Tale of Two Sisters) hilarious comedy about wrestling…

Dao-ho (Song Kang-ho) dreams of escape from his mundane existence. His boring job as a bank clerk, unproductive, perpetually late and bullied into submission by his monster of a boss. An unrequited love for his work colleague, Miss Jo. Chased by street punks. Still living at home with his disparaging father. After being grappled by his boss in the toilets and held in a head lock, completely helpless, Dao-ho obsesses on how he could possibly have broken free. Even asking a martial arts friend, complete with neck brace, what he would have done. Then he stumbles across a run-down wrestling gym tries to join, living out a childhood dream.

Initially uninterested, the coach takes up Dao-ho when he offered a lucrative competition that needs a stool pigeon to take the fall. Particularly as this requires a real stinker of a cheat to make the headlining wrestler look good, a foul king. Slowly, painfully, Dao-ho trains with the coach’s daughter (Jang Jin-Young) and his two other rather pitiful wrestlers. Even after a successful first contest (despite a grisly fake/real fork mix up) he still seems a rather sorry affair. He might scare the living daylight s out of the local punks, but that doesn’t stop him embarrassing himself in front of his work colleagues at a karaoke evening, lamenting Miss Jo’s new choice of boyfriend. Worse of all he doesn’t even notice that the coach’s daughter is beginning to take a real shine to him.

When he discovers that his coach used to be his hero, Ultra Tiger Mask, Dao-ho decides that he is not happy to simply follow the choreographed script. Instead he dons Ultra Tiger’s old mask, and what begins as a spectacle quickly descends into a messy scrap were the contestants use chairs and even the round bell itself. But can Dao-ho finally defeat his boss? What do you think?

There are no easy answers in writer/director Kim Ji-woon’s work, no miracle overnight solutions. Dao-ho starts and ends an everyman, though perhaps with more confidence. This grounded quality pervades the film, a sense of reality that makes the outrageousness of the comedy all the funnier. Kim’s distant, almost Japanese style of photography allows it to come from the characters. Rather than slavishly follow each event, his allows it to unfold on and off screen. Despite the farcical nature of some of the humour, this is a film first – and beautiful at that. A style shared with other impressive Korean comedies like Barking Dogs Never Bite and to a lesser degree My Wife Is A Gangster.

Kim has a wonderful eye for the bizarre. Such as when Dao-ho disturbs punks busily beating someone up, one of them freezes in exactly the same position as the Football mural behind him. It’s declaration ‘Fighting! Korea!!’ taking on a whole different meaning when it’s protagonist is kicking something other than a ball. Or Dao-ho’s dream of being dressed as Elvis complete with jump suit in the ring, fighting his boss who grows vampiric fangs. It’s also an eye for the gruesome, as with the fork incident, that Kim has more recently exploited in the first segment of horror trilogy Three.

A world away from his first major role in action blockbuster Shiri, Song Kang-ho plays his role with impeccable comic timing, bringing both a Keaton-esque physicality and an amiable pathos. Dao-ho is a gonk, but a lovable gonk, never overplayed. And he has great support, not least Park Sang-myeon (My Wife Is A Gangster, Hi! Dharma!, Nowhere to Hide) as one of his fellow wrestlers.

Hilariously funny but also quite touching, this is one of the best comedies in years!

easternkicks.com » Korean classics

Chihwaseon

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