Watching a short film as my Korean movie of the week can feel a bit like cheating as if, by not dedicating a full two hours to the experience, I'm somehow coming up short myself. Yet, it's hard to argue against "Influenza" as a this week's pic when you consider the director is Bong Joon-ho, the most famous director from South Korea. Initially commissioned for the Jeonju Digital Project omnibus (which also includes Yu Lik-Wai's "Dance with Me to the End of Love" and Sogo Ishii's "Mirrored Mind," Bong's contribution to the trilogy is more an experimental sketch than a full-blown flick. Yun Je-mun stars as a petty criminal who robs old people at bank machines, often accompanied by his thug girlfriend played by Go Su-hee.
All the action is taken from CCTV footage, grainy images ostensibly from Yanghwa Bridge, a parking lot, various ATM foyers, and city street corner. Dialogue is at a minimum since most of the "found footage" is without sound. Occasionally, the violence is unsettling: an attack in a parking lot with a pipe and a hammer is especially unsettling. Same for an elderly man hacked in a vestibule. Better are the scenes that verge on the absurd, like when the two crooks gently trip an old woman then carefully lower her to the floor before making off with her cash, her bank card, and her code. A curio more than a must-see, "Influenza" is strictly for Bong Joon-ho superfans.
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