The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil

The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is not an imaginative film title, but at least we have a pretty good idea what the film is about. Detective Jung Tae-seok is a tough, cynical cop who has a personal vendetta again powerful gangster Jang Dong-soo. He puts 2 and 2 together when investigating a random killing of guy found stabbed to death in the back of his car. He decides this murder has a similar M.O. to a couple of older crimes in other towns and decides there is a serial murderer to be caught. His wild theory is not taken seriously, even when Jang Dong-soo is attacked when driving home one night. The gangster fights back and survives the attack, thinking he'd been attacked by a hitman sent by a rival starts a gang war and also sends his men out to look for the assassin. The cop notices that both cars had been hit from behind by a white car and realises that Jang Dong-soo is the only person to have seen the serial murderer's face. Eventually, the erstwhile enemies join forces to hunt down the killer who has become more reckless, killing more frequently and not changing location like he used to.

The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is a stylish South Korean action crime thriller. The cops are unkept, the police station dingy and crowded, while the gangsters are stylish, impeccably dressed and vicious. While the presentation is stylish, the scenario and plot are as original as the title. It is best to go along for the ride rather than look for novelty or a deeper message. But this is no different from many Hollywood films that do well at the box office. The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil stands up well alongside those films.

I think that the downfall in The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is the serial killer - "the Devil". Surely the idea of the uber-villain should be confined to cinematic and TV history. The idea that a single man (and it is almost always a man) who can out-think and outmanoeuvre the cops, often depicted as planning things years in advance, setting up elaborate one-off schemes and having limitless resources as his disposal yet having a secret room where he pins pictures of his victims and future victims to the wall along with newspaper clippings and decorated with his primitive art that lays bare his inner thoughts and as a shrine to his evil crimes is completely ridiculous. The serial killer in The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is a ruthless, knife obsessed loner, whose main defence is his anonymity and that his kills have been in different police districts, with long gaps in time between them. Once he starts to kill more frequently and staying in the same area, he should have ceased to be the formidable opponent he was built up to be.

The best scene is a throwaway scene where we are shown a potential female victim only to have our expectations amusingly upended in a unique insight into the idea that one of the protagonists may have a life outside work.

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Ian rating 3/5

The Handmaiden

The Handmaiden is a film featuring deception, betrayal and control amid opulent elegance and plenty of sex. Set in 1930s Korea and concentrating on high production values, most of the action is set in the country mansion of a Korean mine owner, who is an old man pretending to be Japanese to further his social climbing (Korea was a Japanese colony at the time).

The Handmaiden starts with a plot by a young con-man to swindle Lady Hideko, the niece of the old man's dead Japanese wife, who is the heiress to a fortune in Japan (confused yet?). This con job requires an accomplice (a Korean pick pocket called Sook-Hee) to take up the job as maid to the heiress at the mansion. The first part of the film is told from Sook-Hee's point of view. This deception is not the only one operating in the film and all four leads are striving for control over one or more of the others. Sex also plays a big part in the film. The old man's hobby is collecting old Japanese pornography and holding readings for fellow fans followed by an auction of the relevant book. The young man is trying to seduce the heiress. The women also have sex. In fact the relationship between heiress and her new maid is the core of the film with the men hovering around and trying to control them.

Director Park Chan-wook enjoys playing with the audience, leading us up the garden path, undermining our expectations and drawing out the sex scenes longer than some audience members will be comfortable with. Despite the abundance of sex, Park Chan-wook also includes some of the violence and gore that he is famous for.

Trailer

Ian's rating 4/5

Snowpiercer

I enjoyed Bong Joon Ho's comedy monster romp, The Host. I've generally had good luck with South Korean films.

This time Bong Joon Ho has a big budget, a mostly English speaking cast and script from a French graphic novel. In Snowpiercer an attempt to solve global warning goes wrong and all that is left of humanity it trapped on a train endlessly circling the frozen planet. The film starts at the back of the train where people who didn't pay to ride, live in overcrowded squalor. They are starting to get restless.

The inevitable revolt starts with the aim of reaching the engine at the front of the train and overturning the class system. They merely have to fight their way passed armed guards and unlock all the doors between the carriages all the way up the train. We have no doubt that the unarmed plebs will get through the locked doors and defeat the army in the way. If we are looking for subtlety, we got on the wrong train.

The idea of an overtly rigid class system feels alien in our current world with its all pervasive propaganda about (theoretical) class mobility. Though it works well with the linear nature of a train.

From the dirt and rags of the windowless carriage at the back of the train the scene changes carriage by carriage. Once we reach carriages with windows we can see the frozen wasteland outside. In this carefully ordered world each carriage has a purpose and is decorated accordingly. Similarly the occupants of each carriage dress according to their caste and purpose. It is obvious that the people designing the sets and costumes had a lot of fun. Though it feel like their brief was make this bit look like Blade Runner or the original Total Recall and that bit look like Stepford etc.

The graphic novel origins of Snowpiercer shows through, not only in the setting, but also the visual humour, simplistic characters (particularly the cartoonish villains), and the holes in the premise.

Unfortunately I didn't care for any of the good guys and their strategy is reminiscent of HAMAS's one in Gaza. The repetitive nature of get through a locked door into the next carriage, fight the bad guys, rinse and repeat began to feel like an unchallenging computer game where the main interest is seeing what the next level looks like. Some South Korean films have spectacular fight scenes, but in one of the Snowpiercer fight scenes, Curtis is leading the good guys against the better armed baddies, but as he moves forward he keeps passing good guys who were massed behind him at the start of the fight! Don't get me started on the avalanche! Once you begin to notice things like this, you know that the director has lost you. There are plenty of good movie scenes shot on trains and it is pity Bong Joon Ho wasn't inspired by them. Tilda Swinton is Snowpiercer's one redeeming feature.

A quick look at the reviews of Snowpiercer shows that the audience either loved it or hated it. I expect Snowpiercer will become a cult movie, but I won't need an intervention.

Ian's rating 1.5/5
Anne's rating 1.5/5

Other views: The Lumière Reader, Forbes and Vulture

The Man from Nowhere

I've generally had a good experiences with South Korean films, and The Man from Nowhere is no exception. While there is a tendency towards the violent end of the spectrum in South Korean cinema, there is also focus on the human element of story telling.

In The Man from Nowhere the core of the story is the relationship between a lonely little girl and a reclusive young pawnbroker living next door. So-mi is bullied at school and ignored by her stripper, drug addict solo mother. She is much cuter than but just as stubborn as Marcus in About a Boy. As in that film the relationship between the lonely child and the reluctant man ends up involving him in the complications of the mother's life. And those complications involve a drug deal gone wrong and two warring gangs, with the police closing in.

In many violent thrillers the baddies mostly exist to charge towards the protagonist and die in a flailing of arms and legs and fountains of blood. Lee Jeong-beom (who wrote and directed The Man from Nowhere) has made the effort to give his baddies personalities, albeit relatively thin ones; with varying attitudes to our hero ranging from fear to contempt to admiration. But of course it is the audience attitude to the hero that matters. It is difficult to get the audience on side when the hero is a silent loner, hence the crucial importance of So-mi.

Overall this is a film with Quentin Tarantino's flair for violence and Steven Spielberg flair for pathos, with a sprinkling of humour. If you want to see a crime thriller done well and packing an emotional punch this should be on your must-see list. That said there is a lot of violence and the crimes go beyond drug dealing and kidnapping.

Ian's rating 5/5

The Housemaid

Last year we had a Chilean view of the master servant relationship. This year we have the South Korean view. This Korean view centres on exploitation of servants and the dangers posed to powerless servants by malicious employers. The story is about a young maid hired by the very rich Hoon family. The Hoon household consists of the piano playing Mr Hoon, the very pregnant Mrs Hoon, their little daughter and long time servant Mrs Cho. When things go wrong the extremely vicious mother in law joins the family.

Like The Maid, The Housemaid is about a world that will seem odd to most Kiwis, but whereas the Chilean film is about a middle class family we can identify with, the Korean film is about a family that is too rich to identify with, and who's casual arrogance is jaw dropping.

The film builds up from a chaotic, almost plotless beginning, focusing itself through the series of event that lead to the climax. Technically the film is very stylish with arty shots of the Hoon's house and lifestyle, and clever touches of humour. But I think it largely misses in engaging a Kiwi audience (though it may play better at home), and it finishes with a confusing scene that seems both unnecessary and out of place with the rest of the film.

Ian's rating 3/5
Anne's rating 2.5/5

Daytime Drinking

Have you ever been surrounded by apparently well meaning people who badgered you into doing things you didn't want to do, and if you tried to refuse they got angry and offended? Are you familiar with the phase "Just one more"? Have you had friends who enthusiastically made plans and included you in them and they didn't show up? If you haven't experienced what I am talking about then you won't "get" Daytime Drinking.

Our hero/sucker finds himself on a trip to the country enthusiastically organised by his three pals who fail to show up. He discovers the countryside is populated by wierdos who are either unhelpful or too helpful.

Actually the title is a bit of a misnomer as the drinking goes on day and night. Daytime Drinking is a funny and sad tale of the dangers of being accommodating and letting friends and strangers have too much control over your life ... and over your drinking.

Note: this is a video or DVD and hence doesn't look good on a big screen (trailer)

Ian's rating 3/5

Thirst

Pretend that you are a humble Catholic priest who nobly volunteered to be a test subject for a new vaccine. It goes horribly wrong, and you are the only one of the batch of test subjects who survives (due to a blood transfusion with some dodgy blood). While trying to live down your miraculous survival, you go back to your life of service in a hospital when you are struck by an urge to drink blood. Luckily a hospital is not a bad place to do this, given you are not into killing people. But then unfortunately you run into one of those school chums you'd prefer never to have met again. You know the the sort: runny nose, awful laugh, no social skills, but between him and his mother they know some embarrassing stuff about your childhood. To top it all off you begin to have trouble controlling your most unpriest-like lust for this dude's cute wife.

That is basically the synopsis for Park Chan-wook's vampire film Thirst. He keeps to the general conventions of vampire movies but throws out some of the mumbo jumbo such as fear of crucifixes. This idea of vampirism as more of a medical condition than an anti-Christian evil makes it feel much more plausible and a better fit with modern South Korea. Most vampire movies follow Bram Stoker's model and are told from the point of view of the potential victims or vampire hunters, but Thirst takes the point of view of the vampire. This tends to limit the opportunities for shock but increases the angst for our priest vampire.

Though there is no angst for the other vampire in the film, unrestrained by being a priest or even vaguely religious she relishes the power and opportunities that she didn't have in her prior life. She is out to have much more fun, leading to a show down with our protagonist.

This film is 130 minutes long and several times just when you think Park Chan-wook is tying the plot threads together for a conclusion he goes off on a fresh direction. That aside Thirst is modern view of vampirism that doesn't depend on pseudo religious Gothic hokum.

Ian's rating 4/5

The Host

What makes a good monster film? A menacing monster, scary encounters with the monster, bumbling authorities, a group of misfits with whom we can identify to do battle with the monster (when they aren’t fighting each other or battling the authorities), some funny bits to relieve the tension in between action scenes, a damsel in distress and finishing with a climactic action scene.

The Host ticks all these boxes with style.

The monster looks like a beached whale when sleeping, but with its big mouth gaping as it bounds along the river bank and its prehensile tail grasping victims as it goes, its a different story! And you’ve got to love those swan dives.

The protagonists are a dysfunctional family centred around a river side snack seller, his dozy son and grand daughter who quickly becomes the damsel in distress. Joining them are an alcoholic son and a flawed athlete daughter. The adults form a bumbling rescue squad and comedy routine.

Being a South Korean film we get two sets of authorities for the price of one. In the foreground over reacting but behind the 8 ball are the South Korean police and other government officials. And hovering behind them the menacing, uncaring and all powerful U.S. authorities. Who of course are also responsible for kicking the whole thing off in the first place.

This film unashamedly borrows from lots of great monster films. There are political and ecological digs that owe more to Godzilla than Alien. The monster itself owes it pedigree to both Jurassic Park and Alien. The girl is a, well a normal teenager. I could go on but it is not necessary, ‘The Host’ is great film and you should grab your favourite squeeze and go and see it at a cinema with a really good sound system.

Ian’s Rating: 5/5