Oldboy - The Distraction Blogathon

Thursday Movie Picks: Favorite Cinematography

31 Days of Horror: Train to Busan

The Girl Week Blogathon: Poetry

Thursday Movie Picks: Movies Based on a Graphic Novel/Comic (Non-Superhero)

Oldboy (2003)

The Host

Directed by Joon-ho Bong.

2007. Rated R, 119 minutes.

Cast:

Kang-ho Song

Hie-bong Byeon

Hae-il Park

Doona Bae

Ah-sung Ko

Dal-su Oh

Jae-eung Lee

After being ordered to do so by his American supervisor, a young doctor pours numerous bottles of toxic chemicals down the drain which come out on the other end in the Han River. As a result, a rather large creature is formed that likes to spend its time eating and/or collecting human beings. As you may have heard, this movie has a bit of an Anti-American agenda but its easily enough ignored if you like your creatures sans politics. The special fx are solid as the creature looks believable. There is plenty of depth here. However, it can be enjoyed by skimming along the surface as the movie periodically throws things at you trying to get a reaction. So it's a fairly fun monster flick that doesn't mind trying to make a statement but forgets that just because its monster is grotesque doesn't automatically mean its scary.

MY SCORE: 7/10

A Tale of Two Sisters

Directed by Ji-woon Kim.

2003. Rated R, 115 minutes.

Cast:

Su-jeong Lim

Jung-ah Yum

Geun-Young Moon

Kap-su Kim

Seung bi-Lee

Su-Mi (Lim) comes home from a mental institution to a sister who idolizes her, a stepmother who hates her and a father who's confused by her but hopes she can come to grips with the event that got her committed in the first place.

It starts off like a teenager vs. stepmother melodrama but creepy things start happening, each a little creepier than the last. Before you know it you find yourself trapped within a horror movie that doesn't necessarily want to scare you but to screw with your head really badly. And yes, by the time its all said and done the movie along with your brain has been twisted into a knot. The capper is a wonderfully ambiguous ending, open to all sorts of interpretation. The whole thing would've fell apart if not for two outstanding performances from our leading ladies. Lim as Su-Mi is positively brilliant and Yum as the stepmother ranges from the evil stepmom to a hysterical psycho, to wildeyed and fearful and even a few moments as a reserved professional. It's truly remarkable work.

It may start a little too slowly. Fans used to thrill-a-minute hack flicks with body parts flying everywhere might not give it the chance it deserves. It doesn't help that scaring you isn't really the movie's aim. Disturbing you is, but it works its way up to it rather than diving right at your jugular. Also, that ambiguous ending I love might be too vague for some. It will surely leave some scratching their heads wondering what they just saw.

Whoa...wha...where'd that hand come from?

This is for people into psychological horror flicks, having far more in common with the simmering build-up of Rosemary's Baby than the slice and dice meat-grinding of Friday the 13th. When the movie ends you'll have to decide what you think happened and no matter what conclusion you come to, its twisted. I highly recommend watching this in favor of the American remake, The Uninvited. Subtitleophobes beware, we're speaking Korean.

Thirst

Directed by Chan-wook Park

2009. Rated R, 133 minutes.
Cast:
Kung-ho Song
Ok-bin Kim
Hae-sook Kim
Ha-kyun Shin
In-hwan Park
Dal-su Oh
Young-chang Song

Sang-hyun (Kang-ho Song) is a priest who volunteers for a medical experiment in hopes of helping to find a cure for the fatal Emmanuel Virus. The experiment fails and infects him with the disease. An emergency blood transfusion saves his life but transforms him into a vampire. Director Chan-Wook’s gifts for telling twisted tales is on full display, here. The film never rushes, letting the story and the characters develop. As it becomes creepier and more incredible it slides in the story of a love forbidden in more ways than one. As the object of our priest’s desire Tae-ju, Ok-bin Kim is simply fantastic and steals every scene starting with the first time we meet her. The script calls for her to go from a stereotypically meek Asian housewife, albeit one not particularly in love with her husband, to domineering and bloodthirsty. She is perfect every step of the way and really adds “umph” to the bittersweet ending. Finally, the movie is beautifully shot. Like the best of Chan-Wook, it’s almost like looking at a series of elegant still shots occasionally splattered with magnificent gushes of blood.

Where did this vampiric blood come from? The priest wonders the same, aloud, once or twice but that’s all we get. The simple fact of his infection implies there are more vampires out there but we never see any. Showing us one, or more, could have set up an intriguing battle of good and evil, further tormenting our reluctant bloodsucker. The movie’s meticulous storytelling draws us into a fantastic world and works hard to ensure our suspension of disbelief. The problem is we’re snapped back to reality by some shoddy cgi whenever our vampires are shown performing great feats from a distance. It’s more than a bit jarring, especially considering there are shots of the priest jumping from a building with the camera really close to him that work much better.

It’s a wonderfully twisted entry into the vampire canon. Park Chan-Wook delivers another masterpiece of the macabre. Though there is plenty of disturbing imagery and somewhat masochistic sex, both help tell the story and don’t feel gratuitous. This makes it a decidedly adult venture into the world of the undead. That means while it is a love story involving vampires, don’t bother if you’re in the Twilight target audience. If you do, bring your reading glasses unless you’re fluent in Korean.

I Saw the Devil

Directed by Jee-woon Kim.
2010. Not Rated, 141 minutes.
Cast:
Byung-hun Lee
Min-sik Choi
Gook-hwan Jeon
Ho-jin Jeon
San-ha Oh
Yoon-seo Kim

Joo-yeon (Oh) is stranded on the side of the road on a snowy night with a flat tire. She is on the phone with her husband Kim Soo-hyeon (Lee) who is also a secret agent of some sort. In fact, he’s at work at this precise moment. A stranger approaches Joo-Yeon’s door, offering to help. Wisely, and with the agreement of her hubby, she only cracks the window enough to tell him she is going to wait on the tow truck she’s already called. Obviously, they’ve seen a horror movie or two. Pretty soon, duty calls and hubby has to hang up the phone and get back to work. Just in case you can’t figure out where all this is going the creepy dude bashes in Joo-yeon’s window, knocks her out in a most untidy manner and drags her, quite literally at some points, back to his place. That’s when he really has his fun. Suffice it to say when the police find her, it’s not all at once. Trust me, this is only the beginning of a very bumpy ride.

Not one to sit idly by, Kim decides he’s going after the bad guy himself. Don’t you worry. This movie won’t bore you with detective work. He quickly learns the police have four main susupects who have been accused of similar crimes in the past. He immediately takes bereavement leave and starts tracking them down where they live and does some not so nice things to them.

Eventually, Kim not only gets to the right guy, but there is no doubt about it. That guy is Kyung-chul played by Min-sik Choi. Fans of Park Chan-wook’s “Trilogy of Vengeance” will remember him from the two best movies in that series, Lady Vengeance and most notably as our hero in Oldboy. Here, he is on the other side of the coin and barely recognizable (that’s him in the pic). He’s a completely amoral merciless homicidal maniac. Much like Javier Bardem’s performance in No Country for Old Men, he goes about his business in an awfully calm manner making him far more menacing than he would’ve been had he been a screaming, raging lunatic. It’s a remarkable performance.

The two men meet rather early in the movie. Because they do, a question presents itself and weaves itself into the fabric of the movie: To truly get revenge on a monster, do you have to become one yourself. It seems Kim does. Whenever our two combatants square off there are considerable fireworks. Kim is not content with merely killing Kyung-chul. He wants to make him suffer as much as possible which involves tracking him down beating him half to death and maiming him in some way then letting him go so he can do it all over again.

Between their meetings there is great tension and, thanks to our villain’s excursions plenty more very nasty happenings. This movie is not for the squeamish. It may be one of the more brutally violent films you’ll ever see. Still, despite the seemingly gallons of blood spilled and dozens of blows to various heads with heavy blunt objects (pipe, fire extinguisher, etc), this is no simple gore-fest. It blends the genres horror, thriller and action to create an unflinching and slyly complex revenge flick. It’s one downfall, aside from the violence if that’s too much for you, is that the end is a bit predictable. However, even then the manner in which it’s handled is brilliantly grotesque. Then we have to decide whether this ordeal was really worth it for the one left standing. As the credits roll bringing our thrilling and disturbing journey to a close we still have one more important question to ponder: Who really won?

Mother

Directed by Joon-Ho Bong.
2009. Rated R, 128 minutes, Korean.
Cast:
Hye-ja Kim
Bin Won
Ku Jin
Je-mun Yun
Mi-sun Jun
Sae-Byeok Song
Gin-goo Kim

A young woman with a tawdry reputation turns up dead and draped over the edge of a building’s roof. In very short order, the police decide that Do-Joon (Won) is the guilty party. Since we’ve already met him, we don’t think he’s capable of such a thing. He has some undefined mental disability which severely hampers his memory. It also renders him socially immature. Autism, maybe? He appears to be fairly harmless. His mother (Hye-ja Kim), whom he lives with, agrees with this assessment and takes to the streets to do what O. J. Simpson vowed so many years ago: find the real killer.

Mom soon finds herself in all sorts of dangerous positions, dealing with shady characters and getting no cooperation from the cops who insist they have the right person. Regardless of the risks she must take or the potential futility of her quest, she drives on, undeterred.

This sounds like a pretty typical murder mystery where someone close to the accused takes up their cause and tries to find who’s really responsible. It’s more than that. In fact, by the time we reach the end, the crime’s perpertrator is of secondary importance. Of primary concern is the unfolding of a mother’s relationship with her son. A revelation late in the movie surprises, possibly even upsets us. Though its something she already knew, how this is brought to the surface surprises and upsets her, also. An action she takes later not only gives herself those same feelings, it irrevocably changes her. For us, our perception of her changes with the revelation. The question then becomes does the action change it back, or worsen? In answering that question, the movie leads us to an interesting debate. Knowing what we’ve just witnessed, would we be proud to say she were our mother?

3 Extremes