Yellow Door: '90s Lo-fi Film Club: Bong Joon-ho's Beginnings

The greatest artists don't necessarily come out of the academy: Shakespeare didn't go to college. Nor did Basquiat. Nor did Beverly Sills. As for movie director Bong Joon-ho, he may have been enrolled at Yonsei University but his major was Sociology, not Cinema Studies. For his education in his chosen artform, Bong credits the Yellow Door Film Club, a ragtag group of cinephile students who pirated classic movies on VHS and put out their own humble version of Cahiers du cinema. Bong was a member. So was Lee Hyuk-rae -- the director of Yellow Door: '90s Lo-fi Film Club -- who has graciously orchestrated a heartwarming virtual reunion 30 years after the group's demise.

Three decade is a long time but the Yellow Door Film Club clearly had a lasting impact on all its participants, not just those who went on to become directors like Bong, Lee, and Choi Jong-tae or actors like Woo Hyeon and Ahn Nae-sang. Whether they're describing the viewing of Bong's stop-motion short Looking for Paradise or the pirating of classic VHS tapes like Raging Bull, Breathless, and Bicycle Thief, each former club member clearly sees their time with the Yellow Door as a cherished period of their lives. No one glorifies their part in this shared experience. To the contrary, they giddily poke fun at their youthful pretensions and marvel at their scrappy can-do spirit. The collective ethos that informed their efforts may do much to explain why they all look back at the Yellow Door with such fondness. For me, Lee's documentary is more than a portrait of Bong's indie roots. It's also a tribute to those instances during which nerds come together to share a passion and an obsession, without shame.

Walk Up: An Experienced Cast Takes It to the Next Level

What do you look for in a Hong Sang-soo film? Hypernaturalistic acting? Zigzaggy dialogue that feels wholly improvised? Art about artmaking that gets unapologetically meta? A short list of specific actors whom you recognize as auteurial go-tos? A barely veiled unflattering self-portrait of the prolific director himself? If these are your must-haves then Walk Up is a must-see. This episodic movie sketches the lives of the occupants of a duplex by way of a recipe with those exact ingredients.

As a cougar landlady with a predatory vibe, Lee Hye-yeong turns in an especially riveting performance. She's practically licking her chops as she courts a semi-retired film director (Kwon Hae-hyo) -- with whom she may have had an affair -- to be her new tenant; her disdain for his fretful daughter (Park Mi-so), an interior designer apprentice, is no less visible for being nonverbal. All three of these performers have been in a couple of Hong's previous films and their familiarity with his material shows.

Subtext is what makes Hong's movies work. Actors who realize it's not just a matter of delivering the lines in front of a camera that's unlikely to move and start playing the interior world hard, and piling on motives perhaps not in the script, and being in the scene to the max... these are the type of actors who elevate Hong's material to unexpected heights. Fellow Hong alums like Shin Seok-ho as a boytoy and Song Seon-mi as a floundering restauranteur understand the assignment too. When you're willing to commit fully, you'll creatively creatively thrive on camera in a Hong Sang-soo pic.

Introduction: Hong Sang-soo in Brief

Easily one of Hong Sang-soo's shortest features (running 105 minutes), Introduction nevertheless feels distinct within Hong's oeuvre with its black and white footage, relatively large cast, and slightly more active camerawork. Which isn't to suggest that this doesn't bear his hallmarks. It's just that most scenes despite the single shot POV feature more zooms and pans, and even occassionally splice in other material. Introduction also has a young protagonist: a former actor (Shin Seok-ho) with intimacy issues on camera and relationship issues off.

His girlfriend (Park Mi-so) has problems of her own. She's relocated to Berlin to pursue a degree in fashion, her mother (Seo Young-hwa) is a bit of an underminer, and she's been recently diagnosed with uveitis. Unless that last part is a drunk dream experienced by her beau after too many drinks with his mom (Cho Yun-hee), an old actor (Gi Ju-bong), and a cigarette-bumming best friend (Ha Seong-guk). Neither has an easy road ahead. Maybe his acupuncturist father (Kim Young-ho) can help, although he's been known to forget clients with inserted needles behind the curtain. Better to seek assistance from the new roommate (Kim Young-ho) who -- behind the scenes -- is also serving as still photographer, production manager, and script supervisor.

The Novelist's Film: Auteur Means Author

Considering how ubiquitous face masks were during the pandemic's early years, how strange that more movies don't reflect that reality. Were filmmakers afraid of normalizing masks or hoping they'd disappear or fearful a mask would date their movie. Well, their unaffected presence in Hong Sang-soo's The Novelist's Film makes this one feel both more real and more historic; his choice to shoot in black and white only furthers that time capsule aspect. And so because of the masks, The Novelist's Film doesn't feel dated. It feels honest, artsy and archival, a moving counterpoint to the head-in-the-sand approach employed by nearly every other filmmaker. In other ways, however, this flick is typical Hong Sang-soo: The action is grounded in awkward reunions, this time between a writer (Lee Hye-yeong) and a bookstore-owning friend (Seo Younghwa) then that same writer and a movie director (Kwon Hae-hyo)then the writer and a poet (Gi Ju-bong) who used to be a drinking buddy.

The film gets most engrossing once the writer meets a famous actress (Kim Min-hee) but Hong also keeps us engaged by repeatedly throwing in a third character: a sign-language student (Park Mi-so); a visiting cousin (Ha Seong-guk); a non-speaking little girl (Kim Si-ha) who stares through a window. Everything's made fascinating by the masks, too. Remember when we wore them below our chins to talk? or when we couldn't decide whether to wear them? or when we were the only ones wearing them in our group? or when we wore gloves? As a snapshot of history, Hong gets these details right. Eventually, things gets pretty meta, thanks to the entrance of a famous actress (Kim Min-hee). But from start to finish, The Novelist's Film an effective reminder that feature films can reflect life without ever pretending to be documentaries.

In Our Day: Actors in Search of Something

Hong Sang-soo's In Our Day has two parallel storylines: in one, an aspiring actress (Park Mi-so) comes to visit a successful one (Kim Min-hee) who's staying with the latter's possibly alcoholic friend (Song Seon-mi); in the other, an aspiring actor (Ha Seong-guk) drops by the apartment of a newly sober poet (Gi Ju-bong) who's being filmed by a young documentarian (Kim Sunghyun) for a school project. But as the poet states himself: "Life seems to go on without any connection to those reasons." Like many other Hong films, there's a lot of loosely connected dialogue delivered in profile by two characters facing off so sometimes having a triangle of players lends itself to more dynamic exchanges and tableaux. Even an early scene between two friends benefits when a big fluffy cat named "Us" enters the frame.

In that first scenario, the drama finally escalates when Us suddenly disappears, sending the two main women into a panicked despair. In the second storyline, the poet descends back into bad drinking habits when his admirer runs out to get two bottles of soju. As in his other recent pics, Hong takes on the roles of cinematographer, director, writer, composer, and editor. Is it my imagination or as a result is there less music, less cuts, and less varied angles? The result lands somewhere between Andy Warhol and John Cassavetes, with maybe a little of Woody Allen at his more philosophical thrown in — a static pseudorealism that's neither antidrama nor heightened naturalism. For Hong, one of the most prolific Korean auteurs, "maintaining a clear vision may be the hardest thing in the world." He's right. Just ask the poet.

Nobody's Daughter Haewon: Some Slices of Life Aren't Filling

At one point in Nobody's Daughter Haewon, the title character (Jung Eun-chae) is perusing a copy of Norbert Elias' The Loneliness of the Dying. And death is a topic that strangely informs Hong Sang-soo's rambling slice-of-life drama about a student actress without meaningful direction. Her mother (Kim Ja-ok) is moving to Canada; her ex-lover (Lee Sun-kyun) is married with a new baby; an American professor (Kim Eui-sung) spontaneously takes her out for coffee. Haewon is basically examing what she's going to do before she dies: Will she see her mother again? Will she continue this farce of a relationship with her former professor? Will she marry a random guy she meets in a park?

An unexpected encounter with the one-and-only Jane Birkin argues for living a free life (especially if you're pretty). Will Haewon too inspire a designer purse? Will she end up in a movie directed by Martin Scorsese? Will she compete in a Miss Korea pageant? When you're young, anything seems possible. And in a way, life truly can go in many directions. Much like a Hong Sang-soo film. Reviewimg his canon, I wouldn't say this one ends up in the most interesting or enlightening place -- or that the performances are as thrillingly naturalistic as they can be despite the long shots in profile and the scenes fueled by alcohol -- but Nobody's Daughter... is nobody's total waste of time. And nothing is a secret.

Broker: How to Pick a Good Movie

When people are struggling to pick a movie, they often default to the algorithms as calculated by Netflix or ChatGPT. The wiser cineastes focus on a director, and if you were looking for a great Korean movie, you'd be well served by defaulting to the ouevre of Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho or, for the artier among you, Kim Ki-duk. But a better method yet is to zero in on an actor -- specifically, Song Kang-ho who must have one of the most consistently rewarding filmographies in cinematic history. That he's paired up with Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda (Shoplifters) for Broker may come as a surprise; that he's delivering a beautifully nuanced and heartbreaking performance in this one too is not.

For Song, Koreeda has crafted an intricate tale about human trafficking, chosen families, self-sacrifice and forgiveness. Song plays an estranged dad involved in an adoption scam operation with a former orphan (Gang Dong-won). Their shady business gets complicated when the mother (IU) of an infant they've stolen from a church's baby drop wants a cut of any potential profits. In hot pursuit of the criminals are a pair of cops (Bae Doona and Lee Joo-young) who find themselves caught offguard by the poignancy of their trio under surveillance. It may all tie up a little too neatly at the end but Broker is excellent for nearly it's entire two hours. I laughed, I cried, I'd recommend.

The Woman Who Ran: Post-Marital Research

I haven't seen a Hong Sang-soo film for awhile so it's a bit of a readjustment getting into his rhythm and flow. I know from past experiences, however, that sometimes what looks like a meandering improvisation adds up to something quite substantial. I knew to be patient! Yet what to make of the initial conversations in The Woman Who Ran re: the beauty of a cow's eyes, the bullying by a neighbor's rooster, or the ethics surrounding the feeding of stray cats? Before you've figured that out, Hong has shifted to a completely new scene: gone is the divorcee (Seo Young-hwa) who appears to be in a lesbian couple; in her place is a Pilates instructor (Song Seon-mi) navigating the challenges of dating in middle age. The topics shift from animals to money: a rent deposit, her million-dollar-savings, her successful business... See a connection yet? I didn't.

Which brings us to the final reunion at Cafe Emu where our protagonist (Kim Min-hee) has one more "girl talk," this time with an old friend (Kim Sae-byeok) who now runs a movie theater. This last encounter has the least amount of dialogue but it's also when the movie comes together. For each of these reunions finds our drifting diminishing her feelings from her unseen husband. The random meet-ups suddenly register as a testing of the waters for a possible future, always with an awareness that the men in these other women's lives are uniformly irritating: a demanding neighbor, a stalking poet (Ha Seong-guk), and a self-important author (Kwon Hae-hyo).

KPop Demon Hunters: Gonna Be Golden

Serious question: Why hadn't I heard about the famous names associated with the global sensation that is KPop Demon Hunters? Why wasn't my social media feed flooded with mentions of Daniel Dae Kim (Lost), Lee Byung-hun (I Saw the Devil), and Joel Kim Booster (Fire Island)? I realize they're not the point — and certainly not the stars — but I might've streamed this animated musical sooner had I known the talent providing the voices to the supporting cast. I'm loyal to actors I like that way. And since nobody did clue me in, I'm awfully late to this Netflix and chill party. Well, better late than never.

For KPop Demon Hunters justifies its status as the most-viewed original film in the history of Netflix and you won't have a hard-time understanding why its break-out tune "Golden" has been nominated for a MTV Video Music Awards in the category, Song of Summer — Korean lyrics in tact. It's plot is pure popcorn: Three gal pals (Arden Cho, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo) who are rockstars by day, demon-slayers by night find saving the world getting harder when their enemies take the form of an impossibly irresistible boy band, helmed by a dreamy lead singer (Ahn Hyo-seop). Troubled pasts, forbidden romance, catchy tunes, a three-eyed magpie, a clumsy tiger, and some seriously tested loyalties... KPop Demon Hunters has all that while it telling a sing-a-long tale of redemption. You're my soda pop. My little soda pop.

Mantis: A Deadly Game

You can see from the earliest, elaborately choreographed fight scene that Lee Tae-sung's Mantis is beholden to video game violence: the neatly severed hand, the neatly severed head. Neither has the visuals of realism. Even the looks of the various players are costume-y: Head honcho Cha Min-kyu (Sul Kyung-gu) wears thickly framed architect glasses; star hitman Han-ul (Yim Si-wan) wields two scythes in homage to the titular insect; and female rival and romantic interest Jae-yi (Park Gyuyoung) has tomboy energy and a slacker-rocker hairdo. So when one character claims that "we're not fucking characters in a fucking game," I, for one, did not believe him.

Especially since the central start-up company of assassins is getting sponsored by a video game company called Blood High School, run by prepster Benjamin Jo (Choi Hyun-wook). Naturally, everyone hopes to be King of the Hill -- including former martial arts mentor Dok-go (Jo Woo-jin). Unlike a video game, however, there's no Replay button. The game that's started is the only game in town. Fighting is a way of expressing love, of showing competence, of making friends, and of making money. Sad to say, per the movie's script, "Corporate style murder businesses rarely turn a profit." Mantis may make money, sure, but is it worth your time? Kill Bookson, this is not. (Although it is a spin-off.)

The Devil's Deal: Take the Lead

Has Cho Jin-woong been miscast in The Devil's Deal? I'd say so. That's too bad as I've seen him play an untrustworthy cop in The Policeman's Lineage and a wannabe Sam Spade in Bluebeard, a well-meaning mobster in My Paparotti and a singleminded detective in Believer 2. So why shouldn't he play a disenfranchised politician resorting to crime to rescue his failing career? It may be that Cho does best with a single clear objective and this part's too full of contradictions. Instead of offering a schizoid performance, he keeps avoiding the potential extremes. Whether he's matching wits with Mr. Moneybags (Lee Sung-min) or cajoling a small-time hood (Kim Mu-yeol) into loyalty, Cho is strangely out of his element yet never overwhelmed. Confusing. He's not fierce or scared or sly. He's neither completely out of control nor momentarily in total control. It likes he can't commit.

Writer-director Kim Mu-yeol's script is likely part of the problem. Kim introduces an unhappy wife (Son Yeo-eun) then gives her nothing to do; starts a subplot with a reporter (Park Se-jin) only to have her disappeared; roughs up a doublecrosser (Kim Min-jae) without having him spill the beans. He neither allows Cho's aspiring assemblyman to outsmart the bigwigs nor to land in a Kafkaesque hellscape. Indeed The Devil's Deal can't figure out how to get its protagonist out of one unsuspenseful middleground. Here's an amoral guy with neither exceptional smarts nor an intoxicating drive. Will he win or lose? And what does winning mean when you were never a serious contender?

Love Untangled: A Knotty Proposition

Whether to go straight or not has some dramatic, even comic, possibilities in it for a movie if you're talking about sexuality. But if you're talking about hair (like should it be straight or not), the potential for being interesting drops exponentially. In the high school soap opera Love Untangled, the curly hair that curses the ingenue Shin Eun-soo (Park Se-ri) doesn't really seem to matter to anyone. It doesn't prevent the new-boy-in-town Han Yun-seok (Gong Myoung) from developing a crush on her. It doesn't mean the most popular boy in school Kim Hyeon (Cha Woo-min). And she's got a cadre of friends. So where's the obstacle?

When Eun-soo invites Yun-seok into her dad's storage facility does anyone not predict that the sharing of comic books and the folding of origami eggs is going to bind these two together in perpetuity? So what's the point? And yet, as one character says, "Does it have to be useful to mean something?" With movies, sometimes the escape is enough. And Sun Namkoong's Love Untangled isn't a total wash. The homeroom teacher — as played by Jo Bok-rae — could have been given an entire movie all his own, what with his strangely slow delivery and unexplained vibe of light menace. This is the kind of performance that would've fit right in for a Richard Foreman play. Instead we get a dodge ball game, a field trip, an abused mom, and the realization that the cutest boy might not be the ideal boyfriend and the nice boy needs your help.

Escape: You Go, Girl!

You remember the movie trope of the diabolical homosexual? Well, that all-but-obsolete evil gay man is back in Lee Jong-pil's delicious North-Koreans-on-the-run movie Escape. This time he's taken the form of Ri Hyun-sang (Koo Kyo-hwan), a queeny major who we first observe when he's putting on a layer of chapstick with his pinky extended. The stereotype doesn't end at shiny lips either. He's got pomaded hair and high cheekbones, a bottle of hand lotion in the jeep and a backstory of winning international music contests with his flawless piano playing. Naturally, there's a young vaping pretty boy (Song Kang) who's part of that painful past, too.

Right now, this fabulously femme villain -- who never has a hair out of place -- is in mad pursuit of a pair of soldiers looking to escape North Korea's totalitarianism. One is Im Gyoo-nam (Lee Je-hoon) for whom Ri likely has a crush. The other is Gam Dong-hyuk (Hong Xa-bin), his lazy-eyed sidekick who is obviously doomed to die from the very start. Will the cute one make it to South Korea though? It certainly seems possible when a gang of nomadic, pistol-packing women exiled from town show up in the woods with artillery and attitude. Then again, hell hath no fury like a gay man scorned! Plus who wouldn't like the skin-enhancing properties that come with a quicksand mudbath, conveniently located at the 38th parallel.

Missing You: The Legacy of Serial Killing

I think it's safe to say that Korean cinema has an obsession with serial killers. Hit movies like The Chaser, I Saw the Devil, and Memories of Murder have become iconic while others like Tell Me Something, Save the Green Planet, and Monster arguably should be. Add to that evergrowing serial killing catalogue of excellence, the heart-pounding Missing You, Mo Hong-jin's warpedly effective thriller which features two mass murderers pursued by the lunatic child of a long-dead victim. (This mentally deranged survivor is racking up a string of killings all her own, thank you very much.) Indeed, everyone in Missing You is violently unwell: recently released madman Kim Kee-beom (Kim Sung-oh) who favors stabbing, his insane childhood buddy Jung Min-Soo (Oh Tae-kyung) who prefers slicing, their primary threat, hyperfocused vigilante Nam Hee-ju (Shim Eun-kyung), and the not-so-brightm police officer assigned to the case Dae-yeong (Yun Je-mun), a man so obsessed with fingering Kim for every crime that he overlooks a lot of clues pointing in another direction.

Is the cop's fixation on the ex-con understandable? I think so. Kim's performance as Kim is supercreepy. Who wouldn't want to see him put back in the slammer for whatever? Yet Kim's hardly the craziest character on screen. That honor belongs to Shim's Nam, who's covered one wall floor-to-ceiling with yellow post-it notes of Nietzsche quotes while her inherited basement apartment's floor boards are carpeted with articles and images related to a series of unsolved killings dating back to her traumatic childhood. Her choice to knit scarves for every member of the precinct where she serves as a mascot isn't simply redirected obsessive-compulsive behavior energy, it's also one small part of an elaborate plan leading up to the day when the courts will sentence whoever eventually gets caught. Will she be there for the trial? And if she does, will she be dressed once again like the Morton Salt Girl? Watch Missing You and see.

Queer Korean Cinema: An Introduction

South Korea has yet to sanction gay marriage. But you wouldn't know that necessarily from watching their movies. Repeatedly as an American fan of this country's cinema, I've been startled by how often queer characters are portrayed sympathetically. Gay, lesbian, and trans alike. Don't believe me? Below is a list of a dozen films that I've watched which reveal a spirit of inclusion. Some have won major awards (The King and the Clown, A Frozen Flower, The Handmaiden); others date back over 50 years (Seashore Village, Starting Point). All are worth watching. And in case you think I'm scraping the barrel, I promise you there's plenty more beside the ones listed below. I just figured you've gotta start somewhere.

1. Seashore Village (1965): A pair of cohabitating lesbians in a fishing village may not be the focus of Kim Soo-yong's black-and-white classic but their acceptance by the larger community defies expectations of Korean culture of the day. The real scandal -- and cause of shame -- is adultery.
2. Starting Point (1969): The homoerotic tensions between a Japanese officer and his Korean subordinates are so perverse. Which isn't to say Lee Man-hee's strange war pic condemns the gays. It's highlighting how homophobia twists familial and military relationships. Box office sensation Shin Seong-il stars.
3. Like a Virgin (2006): In this enchanting dramedy, Madonna serves as a secular icon for a trans youth struggling to maintain their dignity while pursuing a sex change operation. (Not sure how well it's aged since I first saw it over a decade ago but I liked it then.)
4. Voice (2005): The fourth installment in the famed Whispering Corridor series of horror flicks more than hints at a lesbian romance. And that's not what makes it scary!
5. The King and the Clown (2005): A tragic romance involving queer clowns sounds absurd, I know, but I promise you Lee Joon-ik's Chosun Dynasty drama will have you weeping real tears.
6. A Frozen Flower (2008): Whether the sex scene involves the king and his male lover or the queen and that same side piece, the action is hot as hell. How many movies make that claim that while decked out in period garb? Bisexuals unite!
7. Two Weddings and a Funeral (2012): Prefer a romcom? Part fluff, part fire, this one features a marriage of convenience between a gay man and a lesbian, while addressing the political realities of oppression.
8. White Night (2012): Can you have a list of queer movies that doesn't include this classic trope: Two cute guys -- one moneyed; one working class. E. M. Forster did his own spin with Maurice, in case you forgot.
9. Man on High Heels (2014): Admittedly, this one if over the top but there's pleasure to be found in Cha Seung-won's turn as a trans cop who'd like to retire so he can fully transition.
10. A Distant Place (2020): Park Kun-young's quiet, melancholic indie flick concerns a gay, small-town romance that starts out strong then falters. It's a slow burn with honest heat.
11. Pumpkin Time (2021): An overeager fairy turns a young boy into a young girl proving that love is love is love, regardless of gender. This movie is full of surprises!
12. The Handmaiden (2016): Park Chan-wook has consistently delivered complex female characters so don't skip this lesbian erotic thriller based on Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith.

Brave Citizen: Meow Meow

I fell hard for Brave Citizen pretty quickly. Once director Park Jin-Pyo and screenwriter Yeo Ji-na had established this action movie is all about a failed female boxer who's going to combat high school bullying by donning a cat mask then punching the perpetrators, I was completely in. (I was one of those teens who reveled in WWE storylines and Brave Citizen is basically the bargain basement version of a superhero origination story without special effects or delusions of grandeur.) As the central pugilist-turned-teacher So Si-min, Shin Hye-sun does a terrific job at being both downtrodden and determined. You know she deserves better than this secondrate job at a high school where the overaged senior Han Soo-kang (Lee Jun-young) is making life miserable for faculty and students alike because he's rich, sadistic, and has connections in the police force. And you can see how she'd naturally make strong aliances with experienced educator Lee Jae-kyeong (Cha Cheong-hwa) and boyfriend cop Lee Kwon-joong (Lee Chan-Hyeong).

Then once you meet her goofy dad (Park Hyuk-kwon), you just know that she's unlikely to take the safe path to job security if it means overlooking the horrendous hazing being directed at Jin-hyeong (Park Jung-woo) who happens to be the grandson of the sweet old lady (Son Sook) who street-vends the best kimbap in her neighborhood. Is Brave Citizen predictable? Very much so. Farfetched? Oh, hell yes. But I liked watching a cat-masked Si-min overcome obstacles while executing fabulous taekwondo moves, whether the man getting kicked in the face is in the ring or on the sidewalk. This one's a knockout. Sequel please.

An Unattached Unit: United They Stood, Together They Fought

Injured soldiers and local civilians band together to fight the enemy — yankees and South Koreans, natch — in the stock North Korean war pic, An Unattached Unit. The time is the Korean war; the message, as current as ever. Everything, and I mean everything, must be sacrificed to protect the motherland. For the cheery Scout (Chang Gol Hyon), that means a longshot chance to marry the commander's pretty sister. For the skittish Bookkeeper (Kim Chol Hyon), a newly repaired, portable phonograph and a stash of buried money. And for the Instructor (Choe Tae-hyon), his eyesight. Even the surgeon knows that she may have to blow herself up to secure a temporary victory on behalf of this makeshift troop of unwavering patriots.

No one flinches at the idea of putting their life on the line. They may not like it when they get shot in the leg or end up with shrapnel in their face but not a single soul is second guessing the fight over flight ethos that guides their actions. This is a film in direct opposition to the feel-good individualism that leads to the "one man saves all" trope of Hollywood. The unit's commander (Choe Pong-sik) is dedicated, fairly clear-headed, and a team-builder. What he isn't is clever, invincible, or a motivational speaker. He's a man of few words in a way that's almost bland. Not that Kang Jung-mo's agit-prop flick is skirting with realism. It's just that the propaganda is completely out of sync with American me-first ideals. Survival is a group concept North of the border.

The Grace Lee Project: She's All That

Nice. Smart. Quiet. These are the most common adjectives used to describe Grace Lee. But which Grace Lee are we talking about? Seemingly all of them. In Grace Lee's giddily entertaining documentary The Grace Lee Project, one Asian American female stereotype gets demonstrated and debunked, upended and celebrated as the movie's intrepid, globehopping narrator interviews a series of women who happen to share her given name. It's oddly fascinating. And impossibly charming. You see, Lee, the filmmaker, can't escape the cliches as she vacilates between searching for points of connection and points of distinction. Instead she abandons the self-reflective, introspective query "Who am I?" for the outward looking question, "Who are you?" Her escalating curiosity is contagious.

Because in some weird way Grace Lee could be anybody: the newscaster in Hawaii; the Detroit social activist fighting the good fight at 88 years old; the preacher's wife; the preacher's kid; the hearing-impaired mother who escapes an abusive household of white, adoptive parents to go on and rescue a friend and that woman's three children from a similar cycle of domestic abuse. There's also — much less visibily — a cruiseship cabaret chanteuse, a panicked teen who sets fire to her high school, and a former lesbian organizer in South Korea who wants to disappear so as not to upset her parents. How much does one's name influences one's identity? And what if our differences somehow draw us together instead of pull us apart? Quirky and spirited, The Grace Lee Project starts off as preposterous but ends up profound.

Hunt: Sadistic Spy Games

I miss the days when gunshots were few and far between in South Korean action pics. I also have a hard time with movies that involve interogations using torture because the violence seems so pointless since people often confess to whatever the accusation is when under extreme physical duress. Which brings me to Hunt, the weapon-heavy, gratuitously battering directorial debut of Squid Games actor Lee Jung-jae. In this spy pic about an attempted presidential assassination, the bullets fly with some regularity but the more effective conflicts are strictly mano a mano...like when two opposing police-like factions meet in a hospital hallway and one of the leaders shouts out "Push through!" Mob meet mob.

As for the two men helming these two rival groups, one heads the foreign arm of the South Korean Agency for National Security Planning; the other, the national branch. Both men are deeply corrupt. (Is it just me or would lead actors Lee Jung-jae and Jung Woo-sung make an sensational pairing for a Korean version of Sam Shepard's True West?) That one of them is fighting for peaceful reconciliation between the two Koreas is ludicrous to the extreme. Hat tips to Jeon Hye-jin as a persistent third-in-command, Jeong Man-sik as an eventually-comatose agent, and Hwang Jung-min as a North Korean defector with sass because even overlong movies that don't quite work can come with fine performances.

The Distributors: One Bad Thing After Another

There's something pleasurably voyeuristic about The Distributors, Hong Seok-Ku's crackerjack thriller about a teacher (Park Sung-hoon) whose future plans for marrying rich are sabotaged when he's rufied at a club then filmed nude, barking like a dog for two VIP girls. But you don't feel bad for him. Because he's done the same thing more or less — with his fiance (Kim So-eun), noless — and he's recently given a pass to two students who are pretty much going down the same road. So I, for one, didn't mind seeing his life fall apart. Piece by piece. Plus, he lies so much that, while his motives are plausible, you also know that his character is basically shit. So if he's not the hero, what is this?

Can a movie work if it's the extended comeuppance of a bad guy? Is there anything this shady high school teacher could do that would provide him with redemption? Perhaps. There are two routes available: One would involve him truly owning his misdeeds then making amends; the other would be to show another character who is even more despicable than him, like the guy who videotapes a nerdy male student (Lee Hyun-so) acting like a girl while masturbating then gets that same guy to be his stooge. Lest you think The Distributors is strictly exploitation with its clueless sex-cam workers and remorseless amateur pornographers, let me set you straight. This cautionary tale does a really good job of illustrating how our collective cultural failure to hold people accountable for their actions creates a brutal domino effect as one forgiven bad act begets another.

The Martyred: The Truth Is Not God's Way

Captain Lee believes that nothing is above the truth: not personal reputation, not war, not religion, not love. So when he finds out a dozen Christian pastors, killed by the communists, groveled before their execution, he wants everyone to know. Unfortunately for him, Pastor Shin and Captain Jeong feels differently. One wants to protect the memories of the dead. One wants to use the mass killing as patriotric propaganda. As for Chaplain Goh, he isn't as confident about what's right and what's wrong since he abandoned his congregation at a crucial moment not long ago. He knows his word is mud.

Ultimately, the truth is complicated. Because the dead men were tortured — beaten, tied up, branded. Should they be reviled if they faltered? And what does the good person do in such a case? Expose a moment of weakness or take on the crimes themselves? What you think is the right action is going to determine who you believe is the hero in Yu Hyun-mok's The Martyred (a.k.a. Sungyoja) which includes a pretty trippy sequence in which the pastor communes with a spirit who makes the heavens throb with light. Not that he believes. To the contrary, he thinks Christianity is hokum but if it makes the masses feel better then why not? "There is no God. All we have is the cross we must bear."

The Policeman's Lineage: Like Father, Like Foster Son

I wish I lived in a world in which the good cops trying to catch bad cops didn't hava a leg to stand on, that cops only broke laws to catch criminals, and not because they wanted to live outside the law themselves. That's the world The Policeman's Lineage wants you to entertain. But I don't see what's to gain from buying into such a fantasy. We all know that there are corrupt cops, greedy cops, violent cops, unrepentant cops, power-hungry cops and most other cops will protect those cops even if they're not committing the same crimes themselves.

In The Policeman's Lineage, naive rookie cop Choi Min Jae (Choi Woo-sik) struggles to figure out whom to trust in this make-believe police department. Detective Park Gang-yoon (Cho Jin-woong) who's living in a fancy apartment and wearing designer clothes so he can get close to the !% committing high-level crimes? Or the Internal Affairs department investigating this enforcer for shady behavior? Because this is a movie, our young officer has a hard time making the call. In the real world not directed by Lee Kyu-maan, the choice is obivous... certainly after your boss has taken a mini-circular-saw to your face. Who cares if he was friends with your daddy.

Wall to Wall: In the Sub-Basement

I'm all for a dark movie, even a grim one. But this Kim Tae-joon thriller is too depressing for me. When a corporate drone (Kang Ha-neul) who moonlights as a food deliveryperson gets buried under the debts associated with buying a Seoul apartment, the accumulation of bad luck, bad choices, and bad living overwhelmed me. By the time he got consumed by his greed around a shady online trade (for which he'd liquidated his mortgage), I had already checked out. I just couldn't handle any more bad news. I also didn't believe that his luck would turn around or if it did, that he'd be able to sustain it.

Additionally, I didn't care. And since this main character isn't sympathetic, what does it matter if he strikes it rich or ends up in the poorhouse. Who really cares if he was set up and someone had put a noise-making device installed in his apartment so that all the enraged neighbors would turn against him. Who cares if his phone screen is shattered and almost out of juice. At this point, I'm only halfway through the movie, and yes, I watched 'til the end. Because the midway point is when the suspense part kicks in. And despite the cards remaining stacked against the hero when things turn mysterious, Wall to Wall does become less of a downer. Because the weightlifting undercover reporter (Seo Hyun-woo) who lives upstairs and the former prosecutor (Yeom Hye-ran) who owns the penthouse have major problems of their own. Misery loves company, y'know.

Circle of Atonement: Head-Spinning

There's a lot of coincidence at work in the thriller Circle of Atonement. Teacher Nam Cheol-woong (Son Ho-joon) gets involved with a star pupil Lee Jang-hyun (Kim Yoo-jeong) who is the surviving daughter of Shin Ji-chul (Lim Hyung-joon), the man who years ago murdered his girlfriend Kang Yoo Shin (Seo Ye-ji) who -- in his mind at least -- resembles this new student. Furthermore, Jang-hyun is blamed for killing her own mother with a gun dropped by police officer Lee Sang-won (Sung Dong-il) who was the lead detective on the case involving Yoo Shin and has secretly adopted the basically orphaned Jang-hyun.

I can practically see co-writers/co-directors Lee Dong-ha and Park Eun-kyung's intricately layered corkboard of index cards labeled with characters and plotpoints as well as the web of strings that connects them together like a spider's web. Some of the notes feel sketchy. Would Cheol-woong would want to kill Jang-hyun as revenge? Would Sang-won be so glib about Cheol-woong's slit wrists? When Reporter (Jin Kyung) starts poking around, looking for answers, we've got the same questions and more. But she's got a serious task ahead of her if she wants to write the article documenting this whole chain of events which started with a poor father who can't afford diapers and leads to a double suicide with hydrochloric acid then a pair of handcuffs ripped apart through rage.

Long Live the Island Frogs: The Sporting Life

On the surface, Long Live the Island Frogs is about a pair of dedicated, well-meaning teachers — married Mrs. Kim (Kim Seon-hui) and her blackbelt husband Mr. Gwon (Shin Il-ryong) — who come to a tiny fishing village on an isolated island in order to change the lives of poor, rural children through the power of education. But unlike the couple foregrounded in Shin Sang-ok's stirring Evergreen Tree, director Jung Jin-woo's married instructors are more committed to imparting basketball skills than grammar, history, and mathematics. As the movie progresses, we witness a real devotion to getting sports equipment, not books and school supplies. Even a recently acquired television set (the only one in town) is exclusively used for watching games and learning strategy.

I, like many others however, enjoy a good sports movie so watching these young boys and girls run drills in the mud, perfect their layups, and compete in hard-earned uniforms likely moved me more than any spelling bee could. (The basketball footage is incredibly exciting!) The film has plenty of subplots too, like the young boy who struggles to overcome the physical setbacks brought about by polio, and the reunion of the ferryman and his wife (who abandoned their son for a job in Seoul a few years ago). The up-and-coming team's national recognition leads to a shift in community priorities, from getting drunk to building a dock. If athletics can make that happen as effectively as scholarly pursuits can, I'm all for it.

People in the Slum: Once a Crook

If you're rich and you get caught doing a crime, what of it? Money can clean up your reputation over time. But if you're poor, no such luck. Shoplift and you're branded for life. So when pickpocket Kim Ju-seok (Ahn Sung-ki) gets busted for petty theft, his life is more or less ruined in perpetuity. He'll do his time in prison. He'll have a temporarily faithful wife Myeong-suk (Kim Bo-yeon) and a spitfire of a son (Cheon Dong-seok). He'll even get a job as a taxi driver. But ultimately, his life is doomed because from hereon, should anything bad happens in his vicinity, he's going to get fingered for it.

Such is the world of Bae Chang-ho's People in the Slum, a film parable in which one young man's "bad luck" seems to taint the lives of everyone around him. Even his mother-in-law dies early. Maybe the preacher who's now a local junk-seller (Song Jae-ho) escapes his shadow but the former holy man keeps his distance. As the crook's former wife puts it "I love you but I'm tired" and "I'm scared something bad's going to happen when you're around." That's why she stays with a drunk (Kim Hee-ra) instead. Misfortune has a shelf-life. When it passes the expiration date, it's a curse. And a curse is catching.

Hopeless: Correct

How bleak can a life be? Writer-director Kim Chang-hoon's riveting feature debut Hopeless shows one that's extremely so. 17-year-old Yeon-gyu (Hong Xa-bin) has a family in debt, classmates who gang up on him, and a drunken stepfather (Yoo Seong-ju) who goes after him with a newly purchased baseball bat. The only place he's able to find (temporary) sanctuary is with cool-headed gangster Chi-geon (Song Joong-ki) who takes him under his wing, although the why is never clear. I have my theory. Anyone else pick up on some homoerotic tension? Regardless, love of any sort is not going to save the day. Because life goes from bad to worse pretty quickly.

Yeon-gyu loses his part-time job as a food deliver for small-time restaurant owner (Jeong Man-sik) when a new facial scar alienates the customer base. His new criminal boss' boss sees him as a killing tool, not a human being. And his step-sister Ha-yan (Kim Hyung-seo a.k.a. Bibi) is getting harrassed at school and needs his assistance. Even when he shares his life story with Chi-geon, his listener responds with a fairly blank stare. Yet Yeon-gyu's struggle to survive and maintain a moral center despite his shit-town surroundings makes Hopeless more than a trip to the dark(est) side. Surely we can do better as a species! Clothing and feeding the poor is just the beginning.

Live Stream: Snuff for the 21st Century

In a world that's making wrong choices left and right lately, putting a protagonist like Live Stream's Dong-joo (Park Sun-ho) front and center makes absolute sense. You can't watch his poor judgment and think "No one would would do that" even if he can't make a correct decision to save his own life (or the life of anyone else either). And so when the anonymous sleazy host (Park Sung-woong) of a sicko streaming show roofies Dong-joo's girlfriend (Kim Hee-jung), Dong-joo keeps making poor choices while trying to save her. He repeatedly calls his endangered lover to warn her instead of texting her when she stops picking up her phone. He curses at the predator instead of getting info that would help identify her whereabouts. He fails to explain the full scope of the problem to the cops, to his sister, to his friends... All of which makes you realize there's a perfectly good reason why this perpetually unemployed 20-something is getting nowhere in his job interviews. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

But dumb isn't the worst quality a person can have. Consider his best friend Joon-ha (Kim Kyun-ha) who's not only unintelligent but unkind and untrustworthy. He'll open the door to strangers. He'll advocate jilting the doped young woman instead of rallying to her defense. He could go to the cops himself! At one point, they're literally outside the apartment. But no... he doesn't even protect the other best friend when the baseball bat comes out. It's not that kind of a movie. This one's about the predictable plot twist in Act III. Because we're not that dumb! Even if we missed the bigger plot twist after that. Because we're not that smart either.

Peninsula: The Walking Dead Abroad

As someone who worked on the digital marketing campaigns for The Walking Dead for a few seasons, I'm well aware that the most frustrating aspect of zombie movies -- and zombie TV shows for that matter -- is the habit of having characters take actions that serve no purpose except to attract the undead humans they're supposed to avoid. You can see what I mean in Peninsula when a treasure-seeker tries to extract a corpse from a van loaded with money instead of doing the logical thing: grabbing a bag of cash from the back then going on his way. His disastrous action isn't about greed; it's about attracting all the zombies in the vicinity. Which then turns the movie into a shooter game. Well, much of the world of Peninsula looks computer-generated so that aligns.

Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan sequel also suffers because it inserts a lot of unnecessary English, one assumes to attract American viewers. I honestly believe that this inclination, indeed this constant pressure, for artworks to be all things to all people is art's undoing. One need only look at Yeon's infinitely better vastly underrated Psychokinesis to see the man is hardly a one-hit wonder. And Peninsula is doing many things right: the family survival story, the military gone berserk story, the American imperialism story... I guess it's just that when you make movies as good as Train to Busan and Psychokinesis, I expect better. Even if this is better than most of the zombie content out there.

The Match: The King Mustn't Die

You may think you've seen this set-up before, although the framing activity undoubtedly differed. In this case, it's the boardgame Go. Newly crowned world champion Cho Hun-hyun (Lee Byung-hun) brings child prodigy Lee Chang-ho (Kim Kang-hoon) into his home where he undergoes a belittling training regimen and becomes a part of the family -- even referring to Cho's wife (Moon Jeong-Hee) as "Auntie." The grown-up Lee (Yoo Ah-in) becomes the rival of Cho, eventually beating him repeatedly. But it's here where writer-director Kim Hyeong-ju's double-biopic The Match distinguishes itself from the pack.

For whereas the above narrative arc would usually complete such a movie, this specific storyline is finished around the midway point of the movie. So what happens next? Cho has to refind his sense of purpose and emerge as a challenger for the man he schooled to be his primary competitor. I can't help but think this movie somehow reflects an older generation's unwillingness to cede ground to the younger. Or is that we simply want to stay in the game even if we're not getting all the trophies? Whatever. The Match is a compelling sports movie in which the playing field is the size of a chessboard.

Fighter: Don't Box Her In

North Korean refugee Ji-na (Lim Sung-mi) is trying to scrape a life together in South Korea: She's got a humble apartment, two physically taxing jobs, a dad stuck in China, and no friends. Lucky for her, her "moonlight" work is at a boxing gym and she might have a natural talent. Unlucky for her, her real estate agent (Lee Moon-bin) is a stalker, her mother (Lee Seung-yeon) is reluctant to reunite, and the female clients at the gym are mean girls who like to punch. At least the dojo's manager/coach (Oh Gwang-Rok) and his assitant Tae-soo (Baek Seo-Bin) are squarely in her corner. One sees sponsorship potential; the other, love.

If that sounds like Fighter has the makings of a feel-good Cinderella story, you're not wrong but Yun Jero's indie pic is infinitely more slice of life than slice of wedding cake. That means plenty of scenes in which we watch Ji-na clean (floors, mirrors, equipment) and observe (training sessions, online bouts, lockerroom banter). Lim does a good job of capturing the PTSD that must accompany going through the government's resettlement program which likely includes forms of indoctrination or deprogramming, depending on how you look at it. So how does one adapt to a shiny new world when everybody's stereotyped one as a fighting machine?

The Therapist: Fist of Tae-Baek: Comedy Under Pressure

What makes comedy work? Witty repartee? Physical slapstick? Preposterous circumstances? Overreactions? If humor were as easy as filling out checkboxes, it wouldn't be so hard to quantify. Which leaves me seriously wondering why Choi Sang-hoon's The Therapist: Fist of Tae-baek doesn't meet the genre's loose standards. As an acupressurist capable of fostering weight loss and breast enlargement, actor Oh Ji-ho is goofy enough. The plot about two former BFFs and taekwondo masters who find themselves on opposite sides of the law during a real estate scam is ridiculous enough. Their martial arts encounters certainly lend themselves to physical comedy. As does a drunk scene mid-film. And yet...

The Therapist isn't particularly funny. Or even amusing. Which isn't to say, it's boring. Or even bad. What's the gray area called? Undramatic dramedy? Because The Therapist feels like watching a film that adheres to the tropes of farce without the hilarity. You've got the shrewish wife (Shin So-yul), a violent villain (Dong Zhang) with a soft side, a rivalry that drives best friends apart then pulls them together, and exaggerated facial expressions from just about everyone. It could work but it doesn't. More than anything else, The Therapist made me realize how years of watching sitcoms has trained me to accept comedies that don't make me laugh. Without complaint.

Awards: FeedSpot's 30 Best Asian Movies Blogs & Websites in 2025

Was it really seven years ago that FeedSpot featured me as one of the Top 35 Asian Movies Blogs on the web? Now in 2025, FeedSpot's list has become more selective (only 30 sites, this time) and moved Korean Grindhouse's ranking noticeably higher (we've risen to number 14). It's a pleasure to be listed among websites I use as references — namely, HanCinema.net and AsianWiki.com. It's also nudged me to check Korean Grindhouse's current online traffic which averages well over 10k pageviews per month and possesses an international reach which includes thousands of visitors from countries such as Singapore, France, Germany, Austria, China and Brazil. To check out FeedSpot's full list of endorsed Asian movie blogs, click here.

Mickey 17: Revenge of the Replicants

I was lucky enough to attend a "visiting artist talk" with auteur Bong Joon Ho at Yale University the afternoon before I saw his latest movie Mickey 17 and what really stuck with me about both experiences is Bong's sense of play. Whether he was wittily answering questions about surviving a successful Oscar campaign or his protagonist (Robert Pattinson) was engaged in a battle with a "habanero" version of himself, Bong serves up the unexpected in a way that unfailingly conveys an exhilarating freshness. In film as in life (or in life as in film), Bong never feels stale or weary... even when the questions are obvious, even when the set-up is seemingly familiar.

So while I'll never be an internationally recognized director nor a umpteenth iteration of my own clone bumbling about in outerspace, Bong points a way to be in this world. If you're engaged in a Q&A at a school auditorium, that's attentive, curious, humble, generous, and morally grounded; if you're floating in a spaceship ruled by a demented politician (Mark Ruffalo) and his twisted wife (Toni Colette), your best strategy is pretty much the same. How else would you connect with your best self or find a way to communicate with those giant snow bugs with fingernails for teeth? In both instances, however, if you're lucky you'll get to hang out with the incredibly talented Steven Yeun... which I did, in a way, in another life that was my life, too. Ask me about it next time you see me.

One on One: Point Made, Point Taken

Indie auteur Kim Ki-duk has never been shy about embedding a message within his films. That's no exception with One on One, his didactic movie about the inherent evil of obedient capitalism. That's not the only message, comrade. For Kim's also critiquing inherited violence as a viable tool for effecting change. It's simply what we have that's readily available. We never really learn why the daughter of Ma Dong-seok's unnamed character has been murdered or exactly how this vigilante boss-man has managed to put together a camouflaged crew of six to exact revenge on those responsible for his child's death. I'm not even sure why one of the establishment's underlings gets gassed while another gets electrocuted while another gets his hand smashed by a hammer. There might be a logic that's evading me. The main message I'm receiving is this: Everyone is complicit; a few feel guilt.

Despite Kim's atypical casting of a bona fide action star (Ma Dong-seok) in the lead role, Kim's agitprop pic mostly adheres to an underground esthetic and a renegade style. The settings feel makeshift; the script was supoosedly written on site over a period of ten days; the violence looks fake; the dialogue is stilted. Don't get me wrong. I'm not dissuading you from watching this flick. Because One one One possesses a sense of purpose that makes it impossible to dismiss outright. The unpolished aspect of this film is the point, right? And if it isn't, it certainly could be.

A Female Boss: The Oppressor Wins

Who doesn't want to see a light romantic comedy in which the misogynist comes out on top? Well, I don't. But here we are with A Female Boss, a jarring rom-com in which the mean-spirited publisher (Jo Mi-lyeong) of Modern Woman magazine falls in love with the cute new hire (Lee Su-ryeon) who kicked her dog. That these two end up as a couple is a strange inevitability, considering she's more about scheming an older businessman (Ju Seon-tae) while he's dating her younger sister (Seo Ae-ja). Does he come to love his employer/sexual-harrasser? Not really. But as his former work buddy frankly puts it, this higher-up is an opportunity for a merger. And what a merger it is! Spoiler alert: By the end of the movie, our unlikable "hero" is running the magazine while his former foil is at home knitting baby clothes.

Even acknowledging the times in which A Female Boss was made, Han Myeong-mo's movie is pretty offensive. (I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the director also made the movie My Sister Is a Hussy which, as its title suggests, isn't exactly a rally cry for female empowerment.) But seeing the magazine's two sassy female editors kowtow to the snivelling male staff (Kim Hie-gab) while the jerk is promoted to the big desk, now under a sign that reads "Men Are Superior to Women," is just too much for this viewer to stomach. There's a fun dance number at a nightclub, an enjoyable amateur basketball game, and a running gag involving a late-night ride home but the joys are few and far between in A Female Boss. The patriarchy ruins everything, even movies.

Revelations: Serial Killers Precede the Apocalypse

Director and screenwriter Yeon Sang-ho is shaping up to be a pretty interesting filmmaker. His breakout movie Train to Busan is one of the best zombie flicks out there while his equally delightful Psychokinesis gives the superhero genre a welcome refresh. Now with Revelations, he's delivering new life to serial killer thrillers. For in this strangely suspenseful feature, a recently released murderer (Shin Min-jae) with a dented head isn't the baddest bad guy on screen; that title goes to the zealous, pouty-mouthed pastor (Ryu Jun-yeol) whose mental collapse includes a string of misguiding if career-making hallucinations. Pursuing both men is a newly appointmed violent crimes detective (Shin Hyeon-bin) who has a history of her own with the former and a intuitive scepticism about the latter.

This structural shakeup — convict, evil; man of god, more evil — definitely keeps you on your toes, as we coast through rain-soaked abductions, almost-kills, and ghostly flashbacks. I also appreciate how Yeon has included a court psychologist to inject objective logic into story that's shaped in part by apparitions from the past, like a dead sister, a one-eyed monster, and — naturally — Jesus Christ. My only question at the end was a simple one: What's the powder in those packets consumed by the detective? Is it Fun Dip? Energy drink mix? Migraine medicine? Magic dust? A combo pack? Whatever it was, she might consider seeing a doctor in order to get a more effective prescription.

The Pollen of Flowers: Male Secretary Breaks Hearts

After middle-aged businessman Hyeon-ma (Won Namkung) brings home his male secretary Dan-joo (Ha Myeong-jung) for an unconventional happily ever after, things get only twistier. For this gay love interest falls decidedly elsewhere on the sexual spectrum as he embarks on an affair of his own with Mi-ra (Yoon So-ra), the newly menstruating, younger sister of daddy's wife Se-ran (Choi Ji-hee) who calls herself a concubine. If this sounds like pure melodrama, you're right. Lines like "You're worse than a dog!," "Go back to where you were" and "You bitch!" abound. There's even a nosy maid (Yeo Woon-gye) to spy on the one red-lit sex scene...and then for her to attempt to initiate an intimate encounter all her own.

How can all these conflicts be resolved. The wife thinks it may be as simple as sending her younger sibling to study abroad. Or having her marry a rich, handsome pianist from France. And while that might lead to cocktails for some of those involved, someone else is stuck, locked up in a room, lying under a pile of hay. Such is the world of Ha Gil-jong's The Pollen of Flowers, an over-the-top tragedy built around an obsessive gay lust that appropriately builds to a wedding with a thunderstorm then eventual madness. These characters have definitely earned an extended honeymoon in Mykonos or Puerto Vallarta. Ready for an Atlantis cruise, squirrel friends?

Kicks of Death: A Film for Han Yong-cheol Fans

Some heroes drive the action. Others appear to drift. Or so it occurs to me after watching Lee Doo-yong's patriotic action pic Kicks of Death. For leading man Charles Han Yong-cheol gets his ass whooped everywhere he goes, stumbling from bar to backroom to street. Han's character seems absolutely oblivious to the potential motivations he could assume once he finally takes an assertive role. He could redeem his father's name. (Dad collaborated with the Japanese.) He could join the Korean Independence Army and return to his homeland a hero. He could win over the girl — who keeps giving him apples — by rescuing her brother from prison. I suppose, come the movie's end, he's done all those things, more or less. But you don't feel as though he's accomplished any of them done them with a meaningful intention. His motive is basically a "thank you" to that apple-distributor for her constant kindnesses.

This laisez faire attitude is honestly what makes every Han Yong-cheol martial arts pic so damned fascinating. Standing at six-feet tall, pretty-boy Han foots the faces and fists the ribs of his opponents with a graceful athleticism that never looks strenuous or aggressive. Watching him execute his taekwondo moves in a black top and pants, I thought more about the dancing Audrey Hepburn of Funny Face than the determined Bruce Lee of Enter the Dragon. Speaking of Dragons, I wish there were an easy way to watch all the other movies Han made, like I did with Dragon Lee. I've seen Manchurian Tiger, Returned Single-Legged Man, and The Korean Connection, and I am now a bona fide Han fan. Much like Lee, despite his penchant for having the actor whipped, flogged, branded, and attacked by a hook.

A Note on Names: This movie is listed at IMDb as Bridge of Death while showing a poster reflecting its Italian title, Billy Chang. As for the film's lead actor Charles Han Yong-cheol, he also went by Charles Han, Ian Han, Hon Long-chit, Han Yong-chul, and Han Long-zhe.

Starting Point: Gay War Days

>

I won't quickly forget the scene in Starting Point during which a Japanesse officer (Heo Jang-kang) and his Korean subordinate (Shin Seong-il) relentlessly flog another soldier's ass because the latter refuses to apologize. (For what, I'm not entirely sure.) Later, that same sergeant taunts the sore-assed G.I., daring him to kill with a chokehold then laughingly mocking his feeble efforts. The film gets even more sordid when the commanding officer rapes that same soldier later on in a hideaway cave. If you're looking for "queerness" and "degenerate" being given a false equivalency, Kim Soo-yong's war drama with an extensive fictionalized flashback has it in spades.

The gay subplot, if you can call it that, is bizarre. Who's gay? The attacker? The victim? The witness? The young brother with girlfriend problems who's reading his older sibling's autofiction-in-progress? The alcoholic older brother responsible for writing this twisted tale? I actually wondered whether I was misreading the signals until a series of shots foregrounding uniformed butts was followed by an unbuttoned shirt and some rebuttoned pants. What's the opposite of homosexual subtext? Homosexual domtext? Can a movie be homosexual verstext, too? Based on Starting Point, I'd say, "Very much so in 1969."

Perfect Proposal: 21st Century Noir

One of the things I like about the thriller Perfect Proposal is that our femme fatale Ji-yeon (Lim Soo-jung) isn't the villain. She's more like a victim who's also a heroine. That's because she's not calling the shots for most of Yun Je-gu's effective thriller; she's following a plan laid out by soulless mastermind Sung-yeol (Yoo Yeon-seok). Distracted by the looks of her money-hungry mentor, Ji-yeon is generally unaware that she's being played despite being pretty astute on how to play the game. The objective is this: Get rich asshole Yoo-mi (Lee Kyoung-young) to marry you so you can access all his money. It's a classic noir scenario, made from a mold that's as true to the genre as Double Indemnity and Black Widow.

But what I really enjoyed about Perfect Proposal is how the leading lady is made less attractive instead of more so when she's put in position to seduce "the boss." When we first meet Jiy-yeon, she's a broke-but-lively, long-haired barmaid who her customers clearly adore. When she boards the yacht to do the dirty work, she's been given a corporate bob and a wardrobe that looks as though she's middle management with aspirations but a limited budget. Her new look makes you believe that she could get fooled and do dumb things and fall for a guy based on how he looks in a bathing suit. I fell for this movie, in part, because of that.

Pipeline: Striking Oil, Not Gold

I'm trying to figure out why director Ha Yoo and his co-writer Kim Kyung-chan included a subplot involving two cops in their thriller Pipeline. The central story, which involves a motley, underground crew siphoning oil from two major subterranean conduits, is more than enough. The film already has the tensions that come when a bunch of desperate oddballs unite to execute a major outlandish crime: Drill-bit (Seo In-guk) has too much ego; Mr. Na (Yoo Seung-mok) has cancer; and Shovel (Tae Hang-ho) has brawn without brains. There's even a rivalry between Drill-bit and the team welder Jeob-sae (Eum Moon-Suk) while the questionable loyalties of the sole female gang member Counter (Bae Da-bin) also factor into the story. Another narrative thread is hardly needed.

Indeed the driving drama doesn't rely on the lawmen but instead on an evil benefactor &3151; the insanely greedy, insanely in-debt Gun-woo (Lee Soo-hyuk) who promises exorbitant amounts of cash if this gang can pull of his wackadoodle oil heist. As for the cops (Bae Yoo-ram and a not-so-memorable sidekick), they come with a back story and goofy demeanors that suggests they're the comic relief. Laugh, I did not. Nor did their presence distract me from the nonsensical aspects of anyone trusting Mr. Moneybags at his word or an involved bit of trickery that allows this criminal crew to outwit their despotic funder with a karmic water bomb.

Bogotá: City of the Lost: The Crimes of Alexa

I stopped watching Bogotá: City of the Lost after two previous attempts to get through it a few days ago. After picking up where I left off once again today, I quickly remembered why I lost interest. This beautifully shot but not-even run-of-the-mill crime pic about a young Korean man (Song Joong-ki) who masters the art of international smuggling when his family movies to Colombia feels as though it were written by an A.I. program. "Siri, please create a crime pic screenplay for Korean actors that will appeal to an American Netflix audience with potential Latin American appeal. No actresses needed."

Then the computer brain drew from its unlawfully acquired files of Narcos, the films of Kim Song-je (who directed this), and hundreds of other scripts which can't be named for legal reasons, drew on its translation programs for Spanish and Korean, and in a short order pumped out this mess. The intelligence then cast actors Song (so good in Frozen Flower), put an English mustache on Lee Hee-joon, and asked Kwon Hae-hyo to phone in a slimy performance as the movie's head thug. Once all the pieces and people were in place, a robot voice shouted, "Action." But what it really should have said was "Cut." Someone forgot to tell Siri, that the shopping mall is no longer central to the American dream.

P1H: The Beginning of a New World: Pop Your Preconceptions

I think I can safely say that P1H: The Beginning of a New World is one of the weirdest movies I've seen in a long time. An apocalyptic flick in which legions of drones from the star Alkaid (the end of the handle in the big dipper constellation) are injecting humans with a zombie sperm that makes people muderously rageful, this cockamamie sci-fi fantasy has more loose threads then an Anne McCaffrey trilogy. [If you know, you know.] We've got a bullied tween girl (Lee Chae-yun) with a talking teddy bear; a high school breakdancer (Hwang Intak) granted immunity by a razor cut to his neck; a pair of amnesiac frat boys (Yoon Kee-ho and Choi Ji-ung) who gain superpowers courtesy of a charmed ring and a magical wristwatch; and an airhead (Haku Shota) who can destroy a killer drone with a well-aimed brick when he's out of bullets.

Not all these characters exist within the same timeline; unless, you consider the ability to time-travel means everyone lives everywhere all at once. [The Butterfly Effect is not explored!] Hardcore K-pop fans may notice that there are six characters who share the same names -- and the exact likenesses -- of the six members of the boy band P1Harmony. This is not a coincidence. [Spoiler Alert] Writer-director Yoon Hong-seung's action pic increasingly feels like a crazy, convoluted music video promo for a perfectly good reason. It is one! Come the final scene in which all pretense of this not being an advertorial is discarded, you might expect a big choreographed pay-off. Instead, P1H goes to black. Roll credits. Dark magic in a way.

The Flesh-Witness: The Mark of Colonialism

Installation artist Kyuri Jeon's The Flesh-Witness is one of those short experimental documentaries that packs the punch of a feature-length film. The movie is built in part around Korean War footage sourced from the United States' NARA (National Archives and Records Administration). This seems worth mentioning because the clips are so damning regarding America's role during that conflict that I doubt that the current administration would allow such images to be released. Specifically, The Flesh-Witness recounts the enforced tattooing of Korean P.O.W.s with anti-communist messages as a way to spread pro-capitalist propaganda and make a return to North Korea untenable for the soldiers.

Watching scenes of often shirtless young men being disinfected and shorn prior to getting tattooed calls to mind atrocities like Auschwitz and Dachau. But unlike WWII, the Korean War isn't the story of Yankee rescuers, despite how some history books have tried to spin it. The Flesh-Witness reminds us that what brought American troops to the 38th latitude wasn't the liberation of the country from Japanese occupation but rather a fear that communism would take hold in this East Asian country which was being helped by Russia and China. Neo-colonialism and xenophobia, white supremacy and capitalist imperialism were the driving forces for General MacArthur and company who literally branded those with more personal allegiances once victory was at hand. Shameful.

The Eunuch: How Deep Is Your Love?

Poor Ja-ok (Yun Jeong-hie)! The man (Shin Seong-il) she loves has been castrated by her power-hungry father and she's become the number one concubine for the lusty king (Won Namkung). The king, for his part hopes she'll provide him with a male heir to thereby help him usurp his conniving mother, the queen (Yun In-ja) — whose got an active sexlife of her own. For a movie called The Eunuch, Shin Sang-ok's historical drama sure has a lot of genital action, from state-santified rape to MIA erections to exhibitionism and enforced voyeurism.

The head eunuch (Park Nou-sik) knows all the gossip. The medical eununch (Park Sang-ik) spills the tea on the most illicit court behavior in the castle. But this period piece doesn't culminate with savage whispers. Instead, there's mass murder and a battle that reaches its luridly reddest peak when the unexpected hero gets an arrow shot right into his left eye. After all the shafts to the heart, this deadly wound reminds us that love may hurt but weapons kill. That and poisoned drinks served by the bowl. Abortion, you have found your agit-prop movie.

Secret: Marital Stressors

Does a person ever recover from being responsible for his own child's death? Detective Kim Sung-yeol (Cha Seung-won) got his daughter killed while drunk driving and chatting on the phone. Years later, not only does the guilt mess with his head but it's also undermining an ongoing investigation. What's the crime? A better question might be, what isn't? The list is long! Plus, nowadays, there's nothing that he won't do since he's already done the worst. What's ratting on your partner (Park Won-sang) compared to filicide? What's covering clues implicating your wife (Song Yun-ah) next to hiding your own culpability? Nothing, especially in a world where...

Criminals swing by the police headquarters to compare notes. Blackmailers dress up as clowns and sell chocolate. Former coworkers reunite despite a history of betrayal. Cops buy cake for a suspect's mother. The illogic goes even further: A junkie is brought to a live concert to identify a potential murderer (instead of someone showing that same addict a photo); a random man on his cellphone is accosted because a cop thinks that he must be the caller (as if everyone didn't own a cellphone). When Kim stopped to help a lady in a wheelchair despite being pursued by Jackal (Ryu Seung-ryong) and his muscle, I thought, that too is dumb. Motivation here is — as the title puts it — Secret at best? I guess writer-director Yun Je-gu knows the answer(s). He can keep them to himself.

A Special Lady: She's Got Alot Going On

Let me see if I've got this straight: A top level gangster (Kim Hye-su) with a prostitute backstory is looking to reconnect with her banished son (Kim Min-seok) and leave this criminal business to start a respectable life. Her boss (Choi Moo-seong) is supportive of her transition; her unhinged colleague (Lee Sun-kyun), who has drug dealer dreams, less so. The son doesn't know he's her offspring or that he was born in prison. We, as viewers, are never sure who his father is, despite what some characters say. A rival gangster whose eye she plucked out is seeking revenge since she killed his father. Equally angry is a violent prosecutor (Lee Hee-joon) who she blackmailed with a sextape costarring her not-so-bright protege (Oh Ha-nee).

To call Lee Ann-kyu's A Special Lady complicated is an understatement. But understated is definitely the heroine's conversational style, despite the anime-worthy bleached-blonde hairdo. She's also one of the few people in town who owns a gun so when everyone comes at her with a knife, she just keeps shooting them down. When she's out of bullets, she picks up a pair of scissors. Nothing can stop her. Who else would cross town to reunite with an ex with a knife still embedded in her thigh. No wonder this movie culminates with a marriage proposal. From whom or whether she accepts is neither here nor there. This movie has gone down the action movie rabbit hole.

12.12: The Day: The Shock of History

Admittedly my knowledge of Korean history is limited. I've gained some awareness after over a decade of watching Korean movies and having from a handful of books about Korean-American history but I can still be surprised by seeing actual events unfold that are well-known to anyone from South Korea. In this case, while I was aware of the military coup that followed the Korean president's assassination in 1979, I did not know any details about the power struggles that preceded the subsequent dictatorship. And so, my cursory knowledge was supplanted by Hollywood happy-ending conditing.

Because of this, while watching Kim Sung Soo's informative feature 12.12: The Day, I was foolishly, even stupidly, expecting that the forces of good — as represented by two-star general Lee Tae-shin (Jung Woo-sung) — would triumph over the forces of evil — embodied by his nemesis, the power-hungry, eventual president Chun Doo-gwang (Hwang Jung-min). Like here in the United States, the integrity of a few individuals, which includes Chief of Staff Jeong Sang-ho (Lee Sung-min), is much too easily, even decisively counterbalanced by the sliminess of a single man like National Defense Minister Oh Guk Sang (Kim Eui-sung). That the Korean people were eventually able to restore their government to something closer to a true democracy is kind of amazing. In that sense, 12.12: The Day does give one a glimmer of hope. In the streets but not on the telephone.

Man in Love: Preposterous and Delicious

For me, the signature moment in Man in Love — about a smitten debt collector (Hwang Jung-min) who's in hot pursuit of a financially compromised mark (Han Hye-jin) — occurs rather late in Han Dong-wook's movie. Their coerced, extended courtship culminates in a bizarrely poignant expression of devotion: a fart released while comatose. As ridiculous as this sounds, I cried when this moment happened because the act signified a tenderness capable of overcoming all. You might think that doesn't make sense and you might be right. But for some reason, the illogic of this kooky crime pic gets under your skin when you least expect it.

Is our reverence for love so heartfelt that we'd willingly accept the most absurd plot points as long as boy meets girl leads to boy marries girl? For one night, mine apparently was! I was willing to abide pop-up funeral processions, busdrivers with active dementia (Nam Il-woo), a terminal cancer revealed in flashback, and a do-gooder police detective (Nam Moon-cheol) who has a softspot for a violent repeat offender, recently released from the clink. As long as Hwang's puppy-dog eyes are pining for that bank teller, nothing seems far-fetched for me. If movies are supposed to be fantasies made real, then Man in Love is, just like its protagonist's wardrobe, flashy in the best way possible.