Im Kwon-taek's General's Son was such a big hit that the next year, the director slapped together a sloppy sequel that neither furthers the story nor fleshes out its hero. Gangster-activist Kim Doo-han (Park Sang-min) is back after a short stint in the penitentiary and he's fighting mad! Motivated by either patriotism or petty thievery, he's fallen right back into the same behavior that landed him behind bars: He's executing roundhouse kicks on the Japanese and flirting with the geishas at the local bar. Shame on you, Kim! It's one thing to beat up foreign thugs for your country but a little maturity is called for too. You should pick a single prostitute to be your gal and settle down. Didn't all that time in the clink teach you anything? Well, maybe Kim's judgment and his memory (he seems to have forgotten his lineage again) is clouded by all those congratulatory shots of liquor he's always receiving. He's older now. He's more circumspect. But he can't handle liquor like he once could. And since he's also developing a love of literature after two hired students read the novel Pure Love out loud to him, everyone in town knows his days as a kingpin in a double-breasted suit are numbered. That purple prose is deadly.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment