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

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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.

Decibel: Is That a Bomb I Hear?

Pure popcorn entertainment, Hwang In-ho's Decibel pits beloved Submarine Commander Kang Do-Young (Kim Rae-won) against former Staff Sergeant Jeong Tae-Ryoung (Cha Eun-woo), a madman planting explosives around town; specifically, bombs triggered by high sound levels meaning the kids at the neighborhood playground, at the public pool, and at the soccer game all need to hush. Good luck with that! As the uniformed Kang scrambles from one potential mass murder to the next, he's assisted by his wife Jang Yu-Jeong (Lee Sang-hee) who happens to be bomb squad brass and CBC reporter Oh Dae-oh (Jung Sang-hoon) who's oddly nonchalant when it comes to protecting his own son. (Happy to report he can take care of himself.)

Some people do get blown up, though. An underwater accident, revealed in flashback, has deaths in store fos us too — albeit of a nobler variety. Per the psychopathic-driven disaster movie genre's preset rules, the crazed mastermind does have a legitimate reason for causing citywide mayhem but his choice of a target feels a little misguided. When you're that filled with that much rage, directing your ire at the right person is often challenging. Inevitably, there's gonna be spill. In this case, there's also going to be debris. And a big news conference at the end where one now-wiser journalist asks,"What did you learn from all this?" As a viewer, feel free to skip that question.