A Good Lawyer's Wife: A Slice of Life With an Aftertaste

I suppose you could say that A Good Lawyer's Wife is about a disenchanted married couple ineffectually dealing with a couple of tragedies. And you'd be right except that you'd be ignoring how writer-director Im Sang-soo seems just as interested in this fascinating movie's tangential side stories. Im has no problem leaving his central narrative to zero in on a child (Jang Joon-yeong) coming to terms with being adopted or a drunken mailman (Sung Ji-ru) struggling with mental illness or a widow (the always excellent Yoon Yeo-jeong) finding relief in the death of her husband (Kim In-mun) from liver failure. After all, even in our own lives, we may be the lead characters but that doesn't mean there aren't supporting players with subplots that sometimes absorb us as completely as if they were our own. Life is messy, busy, filled with distractions. Why shouldn't a movie be the same?

Which is not to say that A Good Lawyer's Wife is a mess or pure chaos or unfocused! Im's film may wander on occasion but it always return to its two primary characters — a bored, detached housewife (Moon So-ri) who jump-starts her life via an affair with a teenage neighbor (Bong Tae-gyu) and an equally jaded attorney (Hwang Jeong-min) who's seeking solace in sex and booze — folding the side stories into theirs in the process. The acting in A Good Lawyer's Wife is superb throughout but Moon and Hwang are exceptionally so. Moon, certainly one of the great actresses of her generation as witnessed in Oasis and Hahaha, is once again a revelation, capable of bringing depth to eating a popsicle or conveying an excited reluctance while flirting with a minor on the make. As to Hwang, A Good Lawyer's Wife has elevated him to one of my favorite Korean actors. I've seen him portray a lovesick country bumpkin (You Are My Sunshine), a jaded cop (Bloody Ties), even a boxer on reality TV (Fists of Legend). Regardless of the situations, Hwang infuses his roles with an intense naturalism. Here, where the movie's all shitty, gritty realism, he's in his element. Everything his character does seems wrong but he feels so human your heart goes out to him anyway.

The Beat Goes On: Actually, the Beat Barely Gets Started

I'm a little perplexed by The Beat Goes On. The movie bills itself as Korea's first full-length feature focused on hip-hop but even though most of the characters are wannabe rappers, we only get to hear one actual (not-too-catchy) song and there's a criminal lack of bling. You could say director Byun Sung-hyun's movie is a light satire — considering its ragtag bunch of poseurs are constantly forging new alliances based on the idea that stupidity means trustworthy — but even after factoring in actor Bong Tae-gyu's rubbery face and actress Kwak Ji-min's ditzy deadpan, you never sense Byun's lampooning the industry and its players because an innocent earnestness underscores the comedy and drama alike. You feel Byun appreciates the absurdities in life yet lacks the critical acumen to cut the biz to shreds.

A true look at hip-hop music should include concert footage, perhaps political messaging, montages of personal excesses (drugs, alcohol, shopping sprees, awards, crazed fans), maybe the evolution of a sound, a look, a clothing line, a counter culture. Yet The Beat Goes On shrinks its competitive woes about who gets the job and shirks its careerist story for junior high backstabbing. Its boy sees girl, boy's best friend (Lee Young-hoon) gets girl, boy bangs girl arc has an immaturity that never registers as emblematic of a larger world. These are small, sub-par lives existing in a very small subculture. Maybe The Beat Goes On is a micro-comedy?

This is clearly not a recommendation. Looking for something "like" this? Here's what I'd say. Want a movie about a music scene in Korea? Check out Intangible Asset Number 82 (jazz) or Turn It Up to 11 (heavy metal). Craving a comedy starring Bong Tae-gyu? Go see See You After School or even Jungle Juice. Written off this cast? Take note: Kwak helmed Kim Ki-duk's Samaritan Girl; Lee stars in the indie gay pic No Regret. In short, I never write off an artist completely based on one bad movie but if I were going to make a bet, I'd put my money the actors, not the director, in this case.

A Tale of Legendary Libido: Dick Jokes and Slowpokes

Jeon Soo-kyeong stars in a number of empty-headed movies but whenever there's a vacuum, she expands to fill it up. In the middling comedy Little Black Dress, she's a hack writer dropping zingers like the best of screwball Hollywood's peroxide blondes. In the even worse The Perfect Couple, she plays an amoral journalist whose mastery of slapstick is equally vintage. This time around in the raunch romp A Tale of Legendary Libido, Jeon plays a lecherous bar owner who's one of many townswomen who go from ridiculing rice-cake street-peddlar Byeon (Bong Tae-gyu) for having a small penis to pining for his shlong once it's miraculously enlarged. Amid sight gags of cascading pee-streams and Three Stooges-style violence [like when Byeon has a fire on his crotch stomped out by his brother (Oh Dal-su)], Jeon milks the comedy for all its worth. As per usual, she doesn't have many lines but she gives great reaction-face and when she gets a moment to sing, she sends chills up and down your spine.

Bong isn't quite as effective at making the most out of a little. As the bumpkin cursed with a tiny dick, he's a bit clueless and so emotionally scarred by his tryst with a cackling, nymphomanical harridan (Yoon Yeo-jeong) that instead of giving us permission to laugh at him, we're stuck feeling pity at first, and indifference soon after. Later, he doesn't make the most out of a lot either. Magically transformed into the neighborhood stud, he's just as sullen and just as dull. You never witness his delight in finally being hung. You never find satisfaction in watching him over-pleasure women who spurned him in the past. His heart (and his hard-on) ultimately belongs to another (Kim Sin-ah) -- a nearly brainless former sex slave whose sad history is unexplored and whose skill at synchronized swimming is unexplained. As sex comedies go, writer-director Shin Han-sol's A Tale of Legendary Libido barely gets to first base. It has the feel of a comedy at most.

See You After School: The Bottom of the Barrel Lands on Top

I always think that I'm indifferent to the charms of the high school comedy but then once I start watching one, I start to think, hmm, maybe I'm not so immune to the genre or so above it all. Lee Seon-hoon's See You After School is typical fare: Transfer student and all-around reject Dahl Nam-koong (Bong Tae-gyu) is released from an international, slapstick medical study about lifelong losers just in time for the fall semester. At his new school, he immediately comes into conflict with on-campus bully Jae-koo (Ha Seok-jin) who is harassing the crush-worthy Min-ah (Jeong Koo-yeon) because that's what tough boys do to pretty girls when they're both 17. By defending her budding womanhood, however, Dahl lands himself in a heap of trouble. Now he's slated to get his butt whooped at the end of day for not knowing his place. As the hours diminish before his hopeless rooftop showdown, Dahl's attempts to get a suspension, detention, or medical leave as a way to escape yet another of life's humiliations (as well as death) inadvertently push him higher and higher in the school's seemingly unscalable hierarchy. Come the final bell, he's actually considered a serious contender as he squares off with the martial arts master. Look how far Dahl's come!

The Loser's Club has embraced him as their savior and leader; fellow outcast Yeon Song (Kim Tae-hyeon with a ludicrous coif) is willing to put his own life on the line in the spirit of wimpish solidarity; best yet, the prettiest girl in his class gently tries to dissuade him from fighting. (Who'd want to see that slack jaw punched?) Yet Dahl's greatest fear has evolved into a challenge he can't bypass without completely sacrificing his self-esteem It's one thing to get beaten up (again) and another thing to see yourself as trash. Aside from one major leap in logic which insists we believe that one toughie has inexplicably found religion and collegiate sweaters, See You After School teeters on the plausible throughout. Screenwriter Lee's balancing act of the real and the fantastic is commendable. I particularly enjoy the darker part of the movie that finds Dahl entertaining the idea of becoming the oppressor, even if it costs him a newfound chubby buddy. The devil is always offering you opportunities to sell your soul and there's something beautiful in an adolescent romp that reminds you that you can always buy it back.