Top Ten Movies of 2020 (Sort of)

This past year, my Korean moviewatching was decidedly not highbrow so plenty of pulpy flicks have made the cut this December. Scanning the picks, I do see some themes tellingly repeating: Revenge, Underdogs, and Prison. Do these three concerns have anything to do with my being cooped up in an apartment and not knowing what to do with the fluctuating anxiety caused by the Coronavirus? Probably. Would I have picked different movies had I been living in a COVID-free world? Um, duh. But these films provided relief. And likewise should be honored.

1. The Shower: It's rarely a bad idea to build a movie around first love. The same could be said about first death. Here, you get both!

2. The Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion: The diabolical military program employing twisted genetic engineering backfired but the resultant movie, helmed by Kim Da-mi, is a bona fide hit.

3. #Alive: Perfect for these pandemic times, this film features two housebound lovebirds who must navigate a zombified neighborhood whenever they step outside. Wear a mask!

4. Miss Baek: With her scarred legs, knotted hair, and butchered pinky, this flick's young charge should qualify for seasonal check-ins from the Make-a-Wish foundation.

5. Psychokinesis: The beleagured superhero movie gets a lift when a negligent dad drinks magical spring water shortly after his ex-wife dies.

6. Revenger: After watching this martial arts B-movie, you may ask yourself: Who the hell is Bruce Khan and where has he been all my life?

7. The Prison: This madcap men-behind-bars melee is a deliriously delightful Rube Goldberg machine of crime, cruelty, and power-tripping.

8. The Outlaws: If you want to watch Ma Dong-seok kick butt as a cop for two hours, have I got a blockbuster for you.

9. Ashfall: It seems only right to include a disaster movie in a top ten list for 2020.

10. The Drug King: Proof that Song Kang-ho can carry a messy movie if you supply a great '70s soundtrack and period perfect '70s garb.

Honorable Mentions: The Classified File, The Client, Failan, The Lost Choices, Piagol, and Yeong-ja's Heydays.

Ashfall: Disaster as Reality

It occurred to me when watching Kim Byung-seo's and Lee Hae-jun's Ashfall that there are only two kinds of movies worth making right now. One concerns exposing the truth on an at-least-somewhat-political scale. The other involves confronting catastrophes on an international level. In the first category, we've got movies like Dark Waters and even First Reformed. In the second group, we've got films like... well, like Ashfall. This action-packed disaster film involves a series of volcanic eruptions — inevitably caused by mankind's ongoing decimation of the planet — that threaten to destroy about fifty percent of the Korean peninsula. That the explosions are all taking place in North Korea, naturally makes any potential intervention that much more complicated.

Who will save the day? Certainly not the arrogant American industrial-military complex! So can anyone? Or, counter to the one hero saves all narrative, are a whole bunch of people going to be called upon to work together in order to pull off one risky solution? If you're hoping for once it's the latter, good news: Ashfall involves a whole crew of people — a reluctant professor (Ma Dong-seok, cast against type), a political prisoner (Lee Byung-hun), and a bomb-defuser (Ha Jung-woo) as well as a number of women in important roles like a high-ranking government official (Jeon Hye-jin) and a particularly effective female soldier who sadly does not currently get a credit on IMDb. Each of these players must dig deep, break some rules, jeopardize their careers, and risk their lives in order to potentially accomplish what's a long shot to begin with. And no, not everyone survives.