Secret: Marital Stressors

Does a person ever recover from being responsible for his own child's death? Detective Kim Sung-yeol (Cha Seung-won) got his daughter killed while drunk driving and chatting on the phone. Years later, not only does the guilt mess with his head but it's also undermining an ongoing investigation. What's the crime? A better question might be, what isn't? The list is long! Plus, nowadays, there's nothing that he won't do since he's already done the worst. What's ratting on your partner (Park Won-sang) compared to filicide? What's covering clues implicating your wife (Song Yun-ah) next to hiding your own culpability? Nothing, especially in a world where...

Criminals swing by the police headquarters to compare notes. Blackmailers dress up as clowns and sell chocolate. Former coworkers reunite despite a history of betrayal. Cops buy cake for a suspect's mother. The illogic goes even further: A junkie is brought to a live concert to identify a potential murderer (instead of someone showing that same addict a photo); a random man on his cellphone is accosted because a cop thinks that he must be the caller (as if everyone didn't own a cellphone). When Kim stopped to help a lady in a wheelchair despite being pursued by Jackal (Ryu Seung-ryong) and his muscle, I thought, that too is dumb. Motivation here is — as the title puts it — Secret at best? I guess writer-director Yun Je-gu knows the answer(s). He can keep them to himself.

Sinkhole: The Kids Are Far From Alright

Kim Ji-hoon's Sinkhole is a disaster comedy with one serious problem: The script introduces two children among the various residents who live in a doomed tenement about to get swallowed up by the earth then, like the other characters sharing their subterranean fate, abandons the kids for too long. I, for one, spent a lot of time impatiently waiting for the building's super (Cha Seung-won), the newest tenant (Park Dong-won), and two housewarming guests (Lee Kwang-soo and Kim Hye-jun) to stop griping about cell phone service and mud-covered chicken and to start searching for the two forgotten young boys, trapped in the basement parking lot with a senile grandma.

And unlike this director's previous — and highly gratifying — disaster pic The Tower, Sinkhole in undermined by jokes that never click, a love story that feels contrived, and muted tension buried underneath terrible CGI. Furthermore, while I realize that you have to cheat a little with lighting in a movie in which a half-dozen people find themselves submerged, miles below the earth's surface (where few sunrays or moonbeams could reach them), do you have to have your imperiled survivors scrambling around on what looks to be a moodily lit, multi-story stage-set? In which case... "Curtains!"

Believer 2: Repeat Crimes

Let's assume it's a given that most sequels are made because the originals earned too much goddamn money. Greedy producers see more cash ahead! Nothing will stop them from getting it either — not talent, not logic, not the passing of years, certainly not merit. With Example 1, Believer 2, that means hiring a new writer (Jeon Cheol-Hong) and a new director (Baek Jong-Yeol) who, in turn, serve up a convoluted plot finessed with torture porn and a final dedication to an actor from the first installment who died in car accident in the time in between. So what's up this time around?

• A dispirited lead detective (Cho Jin-woong) so obsessed with ones drug lord (Tzi Ma) that he'll fund his own flights to Thailand and Norway
• The return of two deaf-mute "cooks" (Kim Dong-young, Lee Joo-young) whose love cannot be stopped by blindness or mutilation
• A ventilated, wheelchair-bound, disfigured drug lord (Cha Seung-won) whose hospital gown remains spotless regardless of nearby blood splatters
• The lead villainess (Han Hyo-joo) — what used to be called a "psychobitch" with daddy issues — who constantly sticks her tongue in her cheek to alert us that... it's all tongue-in-cheek?

Are Bake and Jeon aiming for camp? If so, not everyone got the directive.

Man on High Heels: True Identity

Occasionally, people tell me that Koreans are more conservative than Americans when it comes to LGBTQ issues but I sometimes wonder if that's the truth. Admittedly, my doubts are based on what I glean from my weekly screening of films but even so, I honestly believe that movies reflect our views as a culture, at least to some point. Which brings me to writer-director Jang Jin's Man on High Heels, a 2014 action pic in which the lead detective (Cha Seung-won) is a trans cop who would like to retire and fully transition to being a woman. To its credit, this neo-noir takes its hero seriously: Ji-wook is somewhat of an institutionally-sanctioned vigilante, a kind of Dirty Harry type who also happens to be struggling with gender identity. Unable to imagine continuing a career in the police department post-op, the department's fiercest officer has visions of escaping to a new life.

The catch, as everyone knows, is you can't leave your past behind fully. The sister (E. Som) of your childhood sweetheart could reappear; the brother of a crime boss you landed in the hospital could develop a bit of a crush on you; you might even suspect your young partner (Go Kyung-pyo) of loving you whatever physical form you take — male or female. As to that one potential mentor (Lee Yong-yeo) who's gone through all the surgeries and then some, she's hardly an enlightened. You might consult her about picking out a sparkly dress for the disco. Beyond that? Pretty doubtful.

Alongside this psychological portrait within in Man on High Heels, the hand-to-hand combat is fantastic; the repeated knives to the gut are repeatedly harrowing. I especially appreciated how the ex-marine Ji-wook's macho physical prowess is explained as overcompensation. Sure there are some weird gender-identity signifiers — like the raised pinkie glimpsed holding a tea cup — but this movie proved much better than I'd expected despite somewhat of a cop-out ending.

Eye for an Eye: Revenge Without Vision

Han Suk-kyu! Yeah, you! Come over here for a second. I want to talk to you. Now please don't take offense, but I was really frustrated with your acting in the abominable heist pic Eye for an Eye. To be blunt, your turn as Captain Baek Sung-chan really irritated the heck out of me. I know the movie's failure is not all your fault. The screenplay by co-directors Kwak Kyung-taek and Ahn Kwon-tae is full of holes. No one would believe that the cop you play would go so that easy on Ahn Hyon-min (Cha Seung-won), the goateed guy who frames him for grand larceny when he just wants to retire and become a pest exterminator. Nor would anyone believe that your character Baek could so consistently predict his foil's next step then just as consistently be tricked for the step thereafter. They certainly aren't going to believe that he's going to put that much stock in any leads provided by Antonio (Lee Byung-joon), the weird-toothed transvestite with whom he's been acquainted for years. Yes, Cha, even if your performance had been brilliant, Eye for an Eye would have been a dud, a second-rate thriller unlikely to make a top ten list covering your career.

But couldn't you have at least made it better? You've been in so many movies that I've really liked -- The President's Last Bang, The Scarlet Letter, Tell Me Something... And you've been good in movies I've had mixed feelings about too -- Green Fish, A Bloody Aria... You certainly didn't make any of those movies worse! But here... Oh, Cha, what are you doing? That high-pitched laugh you keep doing to relate the mad, crazy ridiculousness of it all in Eye for an Eye is both forced and grating. The smug self-satisfied way you have of lighting a cigarette or popping a piece of chewing gum in your mouth isn't as cool as you seem to think it is. Far from it. I hate to say it, my friend, but in this flick, you come across as a poseur, not an actor. There's so much that feels fraudulent in your performance that I've even begun to doubt whether your now-gray hair is prematurely so or whether you've had it dyed that way. Oh Cha, when you're good, you're quite good but here you're quite bad. It almost makes me re-evaluate everything you've ever done. But why do that? I thank you for your other movies. And I forgive you for this one.

On second thought, I might be totally wrong. Because you're still the most memorable part of the movie. It seems unlikely I'll forget that laugh or that affected bravado or that silver hair. I give up. You win, Han Suk-kyu.

Blades of Blood: The Look of Medieval History

What I like best about Korean epics set in the middle ages are the men's hats: wide-brimmed stovepipes made of black mesh that diffuses the shadow cast on the face; overturned, blue or earthen-colored bowls embellished with topknots and attached to the head with a strip of fabric secured in the back like a bandana; towering royal cones that look collapsible and slyly suggest the instability of any and every empire... Having been raised on the knit caps and baseball visors, the earmuffs and do rags of the late 20th century, these antiquated, grandly executed headpieces speak mysteriously, intriguingly of hidden meanings that have nothing to do with designer labels and sports franchises. Back then a hat had meaning! It defined your class, your rank, your identity in a way that today's tiaras and aviator hats do not. Talk about ridiculously aspirational. Well, Blades of Blood has hats aplenty. And aspirations too. And for that I thank director Lee Jun-ik (since I don't know the name of the costume designer). With this historic drama documenting eternal futility more than temporal reign, he's parading out a veritable fashion show of medieval formal- and sports- wear between and during the sword fights.

But clothes alone do not make a movie any more than they do a man. And at the center of Blades of Blood are actually two shabbily attired men: One, a blind samurai wearing a patched-up version of the stovepipe mentioned above; the other, his bare-headed apprentice with a robe as bland as a navy sportscoat. They're both hell-bent on revenging the man who killed Pil-joo (Lee Hae-yeong) -- friend of the former, father of the latter. And they have to trek by hundreds of people infinitely better attired to do so. It's a classic tale with the two men acting out a Star Wars-like mentorship as the elder -- a blind fool named Hwang (Hwang Jeong-min) -- teaches the younger -- a hot-tempered bastard named Gyeon-ja (Baek Seong-hyeon) -- the finer points of swordplay and hand-to-hand combat with plenty of head clobberings as reprimand. If the Foley soundtrack is to be believed, those hits to the head sure hurt! And it's not the only form of pain suffered throughout Blades of Blood. (it may be the only pains that continuously cause a laugh though.) For serious injury early on, Gyeon-ja gets stabbed right through the abdomen by his nemesis Lee Mong-hak (Cha Seung-won) and is given up as dead (as if that's the way movies ever worked). That hurt! And many of Lee's cohorts end up seeing the end of Lee's sword come out their other side, without coming back to life. As to other aches, there's Baek-ji (Han Ji-hye), lover to both Mong-hak and Gyeon-ja. That's gotta hurt for both men. How the love triangle happens is one of life's great coincidences. How it resolves itself is one of the film's greatest achievements. The whole thing's not quite as magical as Lee's masterpiece The King and the Clown but it's still an entertaining romp in the past. I say, hats off to them all!

Murder, Take One: There's No Reason to Take a Second Shot

My friend Graham suggested early on that I stop watching Murder, Take One and ask the readers to tell me the ending. It was that boring. But I stuck with it, and writer-director Jang Jin's police procedural did finally pick up with the late entrance of a motherly exorcist (Lee Yong-lee) and her child sidekick. Prior to that, I was basically wondering how tall is that dashing detective (Cha Seung-won) -- He's 6'2" according to Wiki -- and why has he agreed to have his interrogation of the main suspect (Shin Ha-kyun) videotaped for prime time? Can the resultant program possibly be getting good ratings? Who are the sponsors? They weren't questions I felt deeply. Just things to think about while I clipped my toenails or nibbled on a frosted strawberry pop tart. But ghosts can make a movie more interesting. What had been a not particularly suspenseful murder mystery wrapped in a bland TV news special now became a ticklishly spooky character portrait about a cute cop who may have some connection to the other side. When the cocky television producer got possessed by the victim's spirit, I had to confess: This wasn't the worst Korean movie I'd ever seen. Up until then, it had been in the running.

Blood Rain: A Murder Mystery with a Paper Trail of Proof

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared after her husband confessed to having an extramarital affair. What she did during those eleven days remains a mystery to this day. Director Kim Dae-sung's Blood Rain suggests, against the odds, that she may have flown to Korea and written an old-fashioned potboiler as a restorative. The plot is standard Christie. It's 1808 and the royal investigator (Seung Won-cha) -- working on an arson case on the island of Donghwa -- suddenly lands in the middle of a gruesome murder case. As any Christie fan knows, everyone's a suspect so while one piece of evidence points at the paper mill owner's son (Park Young-woo) and another at the local artist (Ji Seong), who did it, even who had it done to him, stays unknown 'til the bitter end. There's a rational vs. superstitious conflict at work here but only a genre novice would side with the villagers blaming the vengeful ghost of Commissioner Kang (Jeon Ho-jin). And while she's without a motive, the island shaman (Choi Ji-na) is the creepiest character on screen. No one else could inspire followers to chop the heads off five real-life chickens, a jarringly bloody sequence that makes a human dismemberment earlier in the flick that less memorable. I see a PETA protest coming.

Libera Me: Pyro Mon Amour

Pyromaniacs provide firefighters with jobs. They also share a common interest. Still the two groups are improbable friends, at odds with each other for as long as one side wants to fan the flames and the other side wants to douse them. Libera Me isn't about to change all that. Sticking to the obvious, Yang Yun-ho's paean to the men with long hoses is basically a classic match-up between a fireman (Choi Min-su) who can psychically sense arson and a troublemaker (Cha Seung-won) who wants to see buildings burn. The hero's got guilt over a lost partner; the villain was inevitably abused as a child. Neither guy is particularly interesting. Luckily, fire loves a vacuum so in Libera Me, the fascination of both men emerges as the star. Exploding out windows, through walls, and up elevator shafts, this incendiary diva engulfs barely sketched out secondardy characters whom we never knew and we'll never miss. As unlucky extras flap their arms in panic or lie on the ashy floor, beautiful blasts of red, orange, and yellow fill the screen. Crackling dialogue is replaced by plain crackle. Explosive drama by repeated explosions. This isn't a movie. It's a promo for Zippo lighters.

Jail Breakers: Lame Prisoners on the Lam

There are bad comedies. And then there are god-awful ones. Kim Sang-jin's Jail Breakers falls squarely in the latter category. (This from the same director who brought us the delightful Attack the Gas Station!) A plodding chase movie in which two escaped convicts must find their way back into prison in order to get released properly for Amnesty Day, Jail Breakers is about as funny as solitary confinement. Part of the problem here is it's never clear why Convict 1 (matinee idol Cha Seung-won) wants to escape and whether Convict 2 (a braying Sol Kyung-gu) truly wants to return behind bars. Since the two actors don't exhibit any chemistry either, you're not only wondering why they're doing what they're doing but also why they're doing it with each other. Infinitely funnier (and more focused) is Convict 3 (Kang Seong-jin) who leads the insurrection back at the prison itself. Kang's performance is based on a theory of acting that advocates making a choice and sticking with it. Kang doesn't worry about dimensions, motivations or variation. He just bugs out his eyes and gets angry...over and over again. He can't quite stifle all the yawns but he at least keeps the movie from being a criminal waste of time.