Tag Archive for 'korea'

Aachi and Ssipak (Achi-wa ssipak)

Published
by
James McNally
on October 21, 2007
in After Dark and Film Festivals
. Closed

Aachi and Ssipak (Achi-wa ssipak)

Aachi and Ssipak (Achi-wa ssipak) (Director: Jo Beom-jin): There’s not much point in trying to analyze a film about a dystopic future world where the source of energy is human feces, but I can say that this animated feature from Korea was loads of fun. Our titular characters are a couple of lowlifes trying to get by in this miserable future by stealing juicybars, the government’s reward for each citizen’s, uh, contribution to the energy supply. The fact that these druggy popsicles are highly addictive has created some problems, not least of which is the emergence of a whole swarm of addicts whose bodies can no longer produce the required material. These smurf-like creatures band together to form the Diaper Gang and terrorize the police and anyone else trying to control the supply. The plot is a little more complicated, but this basic premise means lots of action scenes between the police, the Diaper Gang and our heroes. Ssipak’s infatuation with a porn star with prodigious pooping abilities leads them into a rescue mission, since she’s been kidnapped by the Diaper Gang. If it all sounds ridiculous, it is, but you have to give the filmmakers some credit for originality. Some of the best parts of this film (and any film which satirizes the future) were the mock ads and public service announcements telling people how to maximize their poop. This foul-mouthed, politically incorrect, scatalogical and gleefully violent film is probably not suitable for actual children, but it will appeal to the stunted adolescent that lives within most of us.

Trailer (no subtitles)

English subtitled DVD available from YesAsia.com (Region 3 NTSC)

7/10(7/10)

Secret Sunshine (Milyang)

Published
by
James McNally
on September 8, 2007
in Film Festivals and TIFF
. Closed

Secret Sunshine (Milyang)

Secret Sunshine (Milyang) (Director: Lee Chang-dong): Jeon Do-yeon gives a breathtaking performance as Shin-ae, a recently widowed young mother who takes her son to live in her late husband’s hometown, hoping for a fresh start. Instead, a new tragedy plunges her further into grief. Although to some, this may sound like just the sort of “film festival” film to avoid, it was never less than compelling, despite its 142 minute run time.

Possible Spoiler Alert: Despite the fact that every review I’ve read discusses the plot points I’m about to reveal, I thought it would be fair to warn you.

It’s clear that Shin-ae is already an isolated figure even before she moves to a new town. Her husband’s death in a car accident doesn’t seem to be the only reason she wants a fresh start. She leaves without telling her own family, to whom she seems estranged. Her only joy is in her young son, Jun. As she establishes herself as a piano teacher in her new surroundings, we learn a bit more. She had married young, presumably to get out of her family’s household. Her husband had cheated on her. Her brother seems to want to stay in touch. And then there’s Jong-chan, the goofy local mechanic who’s developed a major crush on her. Despite his sincere attraction, she tries to keep him at arm’s length. He’s 39 and unmarried, which makes him a figure of fun to his friends. But touchingly, he continues to watch over Shin-ae, and when her son is kidnapped and later found dead, he’s there to offer support. But she doesn’t seem to notice.

The film is really a journey into the hell that is grief. Though the first loss seemed only to stagger her, the loss of her child threatens to sweep her away. In a desperate attempt to hold off the full force of her grief, and the pain that is physically weighing her down, she joins an evangelical church. God and the believers are offering her comfort, even healing, and she snatches at the chance. It seems to work for a little while, and she decides to visit her son’s killer in prison, to offer him her forgiveness. But when she arrives, she finds out that he too has found faith, that God has already forgiven his sins, and that jars her tenuous belief.

At this point, we begin to surmise that Shin-ae’s relationship with her father may have been one of abuse, and her anger at God seems to become entwined with her feelings for her own father. In her sudden disillusionment with Christianity, she lashes out in ways both funny (her sabotage of a prayer meeting’s sound system) and cruel (her seduction of a church elder). Several times during these desperate acts, she looks up to the heavens and asks, “Can you see me?”

All along, the comfort and love she’s longing for are under her nose. Jong-chan (played with wonderful gentleness by The Host’s Song Kang-ho) waits patiently, picking up the pieces at every turn. He even joins the church for her, which leads to several comic moments. It might be tempting to think that the film is criticizing Christianity, but in hindsight, the devotion and selflessness shown by Jong-chan is probably the closest thing to the ideal of Christian love in the entire film. Which is not to say he’s a saint. He’s lonely, too, but his determination that they are right for each other is touching and in the end, we hope, convincing.

The film could very well have been entitled “A New Life,” for that’s what Shin-ae is seeking all along. At the end, it’s not all resolved. She’s gone through hell, and might have to go through more, but there is a little bit of hope. The name of the town, we’re told early in the film, is derived from the Chinese for “secret sunshine.” By the closing frames, we’re hoping Shin-ae can see it.

Trailer
Official Site

8/10(8/10)

The Host

Published
by
James McNally
on September 11, 2006
in Film Festivals and TIFF
. Closed

The Host

The Host (Korea, director Bong Joon-ho): A huge box office hit in Korea, The Host is a good old-fashioned monster movie, and a lot more. The director introduced the screening by saying that the film isn’t really a monster movie at all, but an emotional Korean family drama, and he’s right, mostly.

The family in question is a strange one. There are no mothers and no spouses, just a grandfather, his three unmarried children, and the daughter of his eldest son, whose mother abandoned her shortly after she was born. The grandfather and eldest son run a food stand next to the Han River, and one day, a gigantic lizard-like monster emerges from the water and attacks the people picnicking along the riverbanks. In the process, 13-year-old Hyun-seo is carried off before the horrified eyes of her father Kang-du. The family grieves together in the hospital to where they’ve all been quarantined until Kang-du receives a staticky cell-phone call from his daughter, who is alive and begging him to come and rescue her from the monster’s lair, somewhere in the sewer system.

The reason for the quarantine is that the government believes the monster is carrying some sort of virus and are trying to limit exposure to the rest of the city. The problem is that they’ve called back all the troops that they’d first sent to capture the monster, and now it falls to this dysfunctional family to find their child. After breaking out of the hospital, the whole group embarks on a search and rescue mission armed only with a couple of rifles and sister Nam-ju’s bow (she’s a bronze medal-winning archer). They’re all ineffectual in unique ways. While Nam-ju (Bae Doo-Na, so great in last year’s Linda Linda Linda) is an excellent archer, she’s slow to take aim, which cost her the gold medal. Brother Nam-il is a university graduate who can’t find work, so he’s turned to booze. And Kang-du is just generally lazy and a bit dim-witted.

There is quite a bit of humour in the way the family members interact, as well as a fair bit of social and political satire at the expense of both the Korean and U.S. governments (the Americans are blamed for dumping toxic waste that created the monster in the first place). This was amusing, though pretty heavy-handed.

The cinematography made use of lots of rain and cloudy skies to convey the claustrophobic feeling of the sewers even when we weren’t actually there. In fact, the only sunny skies in the film occur just before the monster’s first appearance.

While I did find the film enjoyable, I felt it ran a bit long, and stretched credibility a few times too many. It’s a monster movie, after all, so maybe I shouldn’t have had such high expectations. The effects are well-done and it was certainly fun to watch, but it’s not an art film by any stretch of the imagination. The theme seemed to be that even dysfunctional families are still families, and that we need to take care of each other and not expect our governments to protect or rescue us.

7/10(7/10)

They Chose China

Published
by
James McNally
on May 1, 2006
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. Closed

They Chose China

They Chose China (Canada, 2005, Director: Shui-Bo Wang, 52 minutes): An utterly compelling look at a forgotten group of US prisoners of war who refused to be repatriated to the United States after the Korean War. At the time, these 20-odd soldiers were branded “turncoats and traitors’ by red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. In archival films, we see them making statements against Senator McCarthy and the current political climate in America, and although many of these archival films seem to have been created for propaganda reasons by the Chinese, the men claim that they were never mistreated in the prisoner-of-war camps. In fact, we see them organizing games and sports, even an “Inter-Camp Olympics”! Of course, having these men stay in China was a huge propoganda coup and they were quickly sent for “education” on the history of socialism and the Chinese Communist Party. Despite that, some stayed and even married in China. Gradually, most of the men returned to the United States, where they faced courts martial and scorn from the media and public.

It was a strange and almost forgotten episode in the Cold War and there is still a lot of ambiguity about what really motivated the men to stay. At the time, the American media speculated that they had been brainwashed (like in The Manchurian Candidate), but it didn’t appear that simple. It was just as clear that when the men returned home, the media used them in its own sort of propaganda war. One man’s interview with Mike Wallace was painful to watch, as Wallace continued to use the term “turncoat and traitor” over and over again. They were very different times.

The director’s voice over, in Chinese-accented English, was sometimes a little difficult to follow, but he did make clear that he considered these men heroes for trying to build bridges between enemies, and I’d tend to agree with that sentiment, even with so many questions left unanswered.

More information on the film from the National Film Board of Canada

8/10(8/10)

EYE Weekly: *** (out of 5) (review)