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

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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.