Revivre: Who Has Time For a Life?

On the surface, Oh Sang-moo (Ahn Seung-kee) is a devoted husband. When his dying wife (Kim Ho-jung) gets yet another brain tumor, he's the one who shaves her head at home then spoon-feeds her gruel in the hospital. But to a certain degree he's just going through the motions. At the funeral home, he doesn't cry — simply asks his daughter to donate mom's clothes to a charity — and seems more focused on the cleavage of his new coworker Choo Eun-joo (Kim Gyu-ri) than on his dead wife's portrait at the wake. Well, everyone grieves in their own way. Oh does it by cold-bloodedly having his wife's perfectly healthy dog put to sleep shortly after her death. (It was her wish!)

Which isn't to say that Oh is not there for his wife throughout her time of need. He changes her diapers then deodorizes the room, catches her vomit in a pail then wipes off her comforter, takes a Viagra pill so he can get it up when they're having sex. (Although he'll be fantasizing about Choo for that last bit, truth be told.) No one is going to accuse Oh of being a poor caretaker. And how many times can you indulge in emotion when your daily lifting someone up onto the toilet then rinsing off their privates afterwards? Don't you eventually have to detach? Otherwise, there's crazy time ahead.

The casket scene in which the recently departed's daughter (Jeon Hye-jin) and sister (Sin Yeong-jin) make a hell of a lot of noise merely points out that the ones who grieve most effusively may be the people who have been less a part of the dying process, which can prove messy and exhausting? (Did the son-in-law feel anything at all?) Should we really think less of Oh simply because he's answering his cellphone while the casket is being wheeled to cremation? In Im Kwon-taek's Revivre, there's business to attend to as a marketing executive. Who has time for a life?

Baek Sang Art Awards: Best Film and Best Supporting Actress for Kim Ho-jung

Kilimanjaro: A Plot as Thin as Mountain Air

There's a point midway in writer-director-nincompoop Oh Seung-ook's Kilimanjaro when one character says to another, "See you in a better world." Probably, right after that shot, the actor uttering this bit of dialogue said to his co-star, "See you in a better film," too. A convoluted mess about the disaster set off when one shamed cop named Hae-shik (Park Shin-yang) decides to impersonate his twin brother Hae-chol, an unsuccessful gangster whom he disowned right up to until witnessing his forsaken sibling's unexplained suicide, Kilimanjaro requires a second viewing to make sense of because the flashbacks always leave you unsure just which brother you're seeing on screen at any given time. Since I have neither the patience nor the inclination to sit through this film again, this review may contain some inaccuracies. I'm okay with that.

Even with these misgivings, I feel confident stating ex post facto that lead character Hae-chol/Hae-shik shouldn't be so cocky when it comes to challenging the local crime boss Jong (Kim Seung-cheol) and he should be a heck of a lot more appreciative towards his repeated savior and fellow crook Beong (Ahn Sung-kee) who, oddly enough, treats him like a brother. I also know Hae-chol and Beong have two other partners-in-crime — "Sergeant" (Jeong Eun-pyo) and "Evangelist" (Choi Seon-jung) — with whom they've bonded by being photographed shirtless on the beach many years ago. As to the rivalry between Jong's gang and Beong's, the terrible thing that Hae-chol once did that now so pisses off Jong, the reason why Hae-shik got dismissed from the police force, even the reason why Beong got married, all of these things are conveyed as significant facts that the movie keeps inexplicably veiled in mystery. Lucid Kiliminjaro is not.

Despite the confusion, Kiliminjaro culminates in a satisfyingly bloody gunfight that puts all the good guys and bad guys in one shabby room with a bunch of guns that no one seems to know how to operate. You might not know why everyone's out to kill each other but you don't question the motives either. Sometimes people just piss you off and you wish they were dead.

The Housemaid: Cheating on Your Wife Means Gambling With Your Life

Checking references for a potential domestic hire? If the candidate's name is Myong-ja (Lee Eun-shim), be sure to talk with her former boyfriend as well as her recent employers. This girl's got serious jealousy issues! In Kim Ki-young's kooky melodrama The Housemaid, all hell breaks loose when this saucy servant starts cooking and cleaning... then screwing the master-of-the-house -- a music teacher named Dong Sik (Kim Jin-kyu) who leads a women's choir at the local factory. What's the best way to deal with her irrational behavior? Try to kill her off with the same rat poison she used to kill your bratty son (Ahn Sung-kee) and you'll end up like Dong's wife (Ju Jeung-nyeo ): a slave to her sewing machine and Myong-ja! Try to defuse her when she explodes and you'll end up like Miss Cho (Eom Aeng-ran): at the wrong end of a very long knife! Whatever you do, don't continue to sleep with her!!! In this movie's crazed reality, Dong Sik's last-ditch attempt to get away leads to his loony lover being latched on to his ankle and bumping her head against every stair along his failed escape. As black-and-white middle-class tragedies go, this one is campy, corny and not too credible.

White Badge: Survival Is Not Always a Reward

Americans know all about the Vietnam War. They also know something about the Korean one. Yet they probably know nothing about South Korea's role in the former, a participation that was both alongside U.S. troops and at their behest. And if Vietnam remains a haunting conflict in American consciousness, it also appears to have wreaked havoc on the Korean psyche as well. In his allegorical fright flick R-Point, director Kong Su-chang equates that war's terrors to supernatural horrors; in White Badge, Jeong Ji-yeong takes a much more naturalistic approach by exorcising those same demons in a grimly nostalgic memory piece. Grounded by a terrific performance by Ahn Sung-kee as a heavy drinking journalist reluctantly writing a novel about his experiences in Vietnam, White Badge neither shies away from the absurdities of the battlefield (the troops mistake a herd of water buffalo for the enemy) nor minimizes the psychic damage to the soldiers who survive. (Pfc. Pyon (Lee Kyeong-yeong) is a basket case unable to salvage his relationship with a prostitute who was his wartime pen pal.) Children as scavengers, bulletproof panties, the paparazzi of the frontlines... White Badge's imagery is so rich, it really does insist on repeated viewings.

Nowhere to Hide: Look at the Crime; Don't Attend to the Crime

Nowhere to Hide certainly looks good. It's got a grainy black-and-white prelude in which one high-energy police bust periodically freeze frames into Crayola-colored stills. It's got slow, arhythmic pans that slide across glass surfaces reflecting autumn leaves, street lights and garish neon. It's got one extended fight sequence shot in silhouette so that it looks like cool shadow puppetry. All of this is good. It's also got a villain (Ahn Sung-kee) who despite being a murderer doesn't seem to justify the extensive manhunt. It's got a main cop (Park Joong-hoon, a kind of poor man's Song Kang-ho) who's technique is limited to swagger, smile and run. The detective has an ineffective sidekick (Jang Dong-kun); the bad guy, a teary-eyed girlfriend (Choi Ji-woo). All of this is bad. Does it balance out in the end? I'd say Nowhere to Hide is the perfect party video; director Lee Myung-se's movie is the type you want playing on a wall at a nightclub or a rave, its periodically flashy visuals acting as conversation-starters and boredom-preventers. Minus the dialogue (and there isn't much, frankly), Nowhere to Hide is fit to be seen and danced to.

Bitter and Sweet: The Aftertaste of Fluorescent Lights

Film students sweating over an overdue term paper on appropriation should consider Bitter and Sweet the answer to their prayers. A prismatic comedy about office drones (Ahn Sung-kee, Choi Jong-won, Park Sang-min, Song Young-chang) who escape bleak reality via rebellious fantasies, Lee Myung-se's workplace satire overflows with easily identifiable references to Chaplin, The Three Stooges, Dr. Seuss, Singin' in the Rain, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty... The list goes on and on. It's not hard to imagine some happy undergraduate madly scribbling or typing all the ideas flooding his or her mind. Those not working on a thesis, however, will be less excited. Although intermittently amusing (a giggle, a chuckle, no laughs), Bitter and Sweet is more often overemphatic and under-rehearsed. There's nothing sublime about Lee's social critique and the acting is so unpolished you get the feeling that every scene was done in one shot with actors being handed scripts seconds before the clapper snapped and the director screamed "Action!" Visually, you'll see flashes of Hitchock, Minnelli, Tati, etc. What you won't see is something as lively as its source materials.

Musa - The Warriors: Once Upon a Time in 1375 A.D.

You can call it an historical epic, a period war movie, a Medieval costume drama, or an Oriental homage to Peckinpah. You could also call it a horror flick in disguise. How's that? Well, Kim Sung-su's suspenseful Musa - The Warriors can go bucket for bucket with many a slasher film plus its combat scenes are filmed in today's reigning jittery style. Heads fly off when you least expect it; red sprays from throats, bellies, backs, eye sockets, severed limbs and mouths wrenched in pain. More thrilling than chilling, Musa - The Warriors furthermore follows a typical genre thread by connecting all carnage by way of psychotic pursuers. The runaway princess (Zhang Ziyi) rescued by Korean envoys disrespected by the Ming dynasty to which she belongs are stalked, hunted, and taunted by various bloodthirsty Mongols ready to resort to any means necessary to get the girl. Too bad for the bad guys, the general (Ju Jin-mo) has eyes for the noblewoman. Too bad for the general, so does a slave (Jung Woo-sung). By the time these two reconcile their differences, any hope for survival has been obliterated. Like any good fright flick, the one warrior to get out alive (Ahn Sung-kee) sails out alone in the shadow of hopelessness. Genius!