Believer 2: Repeat Crimes

Let's assume it's a given that most sequels are made because the originals earned too much goddamn money. Greedy producers see more cash ahead! Nothing will stop them from getting it either — not talent, not logic, not the passing of years, certainly not merit. With Example 1, Believer 2, that means hiring a new writer (Jeon Cheol-Hong) and a new director (Baek Jong-Yeol) who, in turn, serve up a convoluted plot finessed with torture porn and a final dedication to an actor from the first installment who died in car accident in the time in between. So what's up this time around?

• A dispirited lead detective (Cho Jin-woong) so obsessed with ones drug lord (Tzi Ma) that he'll fund his own flights to Thailand and Norway
• The return of two deaf-mute "cooks" (Kim Dong-young, Lee Joo-young) whose love cannot be stopped by blindness or mutilation
• A ventilated, wheelchair-bound, disfigured drug lord (Cha Seung-won) whose hospital gown remains spotless regardless of nearby blood splatters
• The lead villainess (Han Hyo-joo) — what used to be called a "psychobitch" with daddy issues — who constantly sticks her tongue in her cheek to alert us that... it's all tongue-in-cheek?

Are Bake and Jeon aiming for camp? If so, not everyone got the directive.

Shark: The Beginning: Training Gloves

Bully culture is a real phenomenon. So how do you challenge it? Do you meet might with might? Punch back? Stab in the eye? Kick in the nuts? Or do you form an alliance with someone stronger? Ideally someone with a knockout right hook? The question becomes even more pressing if you find yourself in a juvenille detention center where over half the convicts are adults. (I guess sometimes "a crime is a crime, a punishment is a punishment.") Still, my heart goes out to Cha Wo-sol, the painfully shy nerd who finds himself behind bars after being provoked by a sadistic student. He's learned early on that "Retreat" is a strategy of limited value.

And so Wo-sol (Kim Min-suk) and Mixed Martial Arts loner Do-hyun (Wi Ha-joon) forge a friendship — by way of a physical training intensive — below the barbed wire and within the chained link fence. Both understand what it means to be dealt a bad hand in life. Wo-sol was a victim throughout school; Do-hyun was incarcerated after his mother and sister were killed and he murdered their assailants in revenge. Hence they're primed to bond over pushups, pull-ups, and sit-ups performed under a "don't try, do" ethos. It all leads up to the sweatjacket being shed to reveal the ripped torso underneath. That's the end of Part 1 at least.

Part 2 inevitably puts all the lessons to the test. In Chae Johnny's Shark: The Beginning, the path to redemption or revenge or self-actualization won't be easy. In other words, there will be blood. Blood spills from the lips, the nose, the knuckles, the forehead ... If you're doubting Wo-sol's chances, keep his mentor's comments in mind: "That's your talent. Persistence." And leopard print — no matter who (Jung Won-chang) wears it — is definitely not his kryptonite.

Diva: Diver's Delirium

Diver Lee-young (Shin Min-a) has clearly bumped her head hard in that car accident leading up to the Olympic trials. She's having visions of her dead/missing best-friend/synchronized-partner Su-jin (Lee Yoo-young), both in and out of the water and hallucinating high dives that end in a pool without any water. Ouch! I mean, you know that scratch above her eyebrow goes deep because despite all the time she's spending in chlorinated water, that gash will not heal. Is it a psychosomatic symptom if something that's real doesn't get better? You better your gold medal it is.

So what is it that's driving our neurotic aquatic to the brink since her hospital discharge? And is her new synchronized partner (Oh Ha-nee) going to be safe doing multiple flips with a twist from the same high dive? For that matter, is the performance-enhancing drug "Ju" part of the problem? What about the coach (Lee Kyoo-hyung)? Or the guy who may have sold her friend a pair of incompatible jellyfish at the petstore? I can tell you this much, someone associated with the human aquarium looks like they're going down. In Jo Seul-yeah's Diva, head injuries are practically contagious by the end. Doggy-paddling will get you nowhere. And the cops will throw up their arms as if they were doing the butterfly stroke.

Night Journey: She's Had Enough

I've never been able to fully own the idea that time isn't linear. I believe it. But it's hard to pind down. Because, the occasional deja vu aside, life feels like we're moving in a straight line from past to present towards future unknown. From hour to hour. Or minute to minute. Yet I also acknowledge that when I get caught up in a memory, moments often get interspliced or loop around each other. Which is basically a good way to describe director Kim Soo-yong's technique in constructing the slippery psychodrama that is Night Journey. Kim's portrait of a dissatisfied bank employee (Yu Jeong-hie) who's dragged for her unmarried status flashes back and forth in time, as nostalgia and past traumas act as imbalancers for her melancholic, present-day woes.

Sex with her co-worker/flatmate (Shin Seong-il) is dissatisfying. A rape comes out of nowhere then disappears just as quick. A trip home takes a strange turn when she puts on her high school uniform (still fits!), triggering recollections of a former teacher/soldier/suitor who died in the war. But sometimes, you're not sure whether what's presented is real or fantasy. Which somehow relates to the nature of time, too. Yet despite the inner chaos, our heroine is guiding her destiny — whether she's turning down offers from men in alleys, cajoling an old schoomate for a motorcycle ride, or acknowledging the lustful glance of a military officer on the street. Because of that, Night Journey is more grit than grim.

Doctor: Surgical Insanity

The pursuit of beauty: Who has it worse? The cosmetic surgeon or the patient compelled to go under the knife? In Kim Sung-hong's Doctor, the craziness for perfection definitely goes in both directions: For the scalpel-wielding maniac (Kim Chang-wan) — I mean medic, the drive for perfection can send him into a rage whether he's choosing which tie to wear or catching his wife (Bae So-eun) in the midst of an affair. Admittedly, that last indiscretion could lead many to see red. But you can't blame her for straying. Her gym trainer (Seo Gun-woo) is hot; her controlling husband is not. Plus she's maxed out on all the physical upgrades her physician-esthetician might provide.

Once she's set her husband off, however, no one is safe: not her mom, not her lover, not the homeless man in the street. Even the nursing staff at his clinic is going to have a tough time escaping his bloody bedside manner which includes bludgeoning, throat-slitting, hammer-weilding, and poisonous injections. Oddly, the scariest part of Doctor didn't involve him going after any of his victims with a tool of torture. For me, it was the scene in which he preps to perform eyelid surgery on a woman using only local anesthetic. I didn't know this was even possible. Now I'm thoroughly scared.