Cobweb: Actors Acting, Actors Being

Movies about moviemaking can be so much fun. And there are so many ways to do it. Hong Sang-soo's The Novelist's Film takes a naturalistically deadpan approach from conception to creation. The documentary Yellow Door excavates the roots that led to Bong Joon-ho's career. The farcical Luck-Key makes the most of its amnesiac gangster-turned-actor (Yoo Hae-jin). Kim Jee-woon's Cobweb is the most direct of them all: A ridiculous comedy in which a pill-popping hack director (Song Kang-ho) decides he needs to reshoot some scenes in order to turn his latest dreck into a masterpiece.

The flick within a flick is completely preposterous: pure soap, as one older leading lady (a terrific Park Jung-soo) points out. But the over-the-top storyline — abounding with murders, doublecrosses, and histrionics — are perfect excuses for this talented cast to constantly switch from silly sitcom mode to affected melodrama whenever the story shifts from off camera to on. Everyone's having fun throughout: the cheating husband (Oh Jung-se), the pregnant ingenue (Jung Krystal), the dead studio owner's daughter (Jeon Yeo-been), the exasperated studio chairwoman (Jang Young-nam)... The joy these performers are taking in the shenanigans is contagious. You couldn't get sick of this buffonery if you tried.

Husbands in Action: Bubbly, Bumbling-Buddy Comedy

Husbands in Action is straight up goofy. I say that appreciatively. For Park Gyu-tae's kooky bromantic comedy gradually ingratiates itself to the viewer by never letting its silliness falter. Ex-husband Hwang Choong-sik (Jin Seon-kyu) is the kind of supercop who uses his handcuffs like numchucks and will frame his frenemy for his farts; new husband Lee Min-seok (Gong Myoung) is a veterinarian who drives a van decked out with ears and a tail and can crack walnuts with his barehands; drug-dealing husband Ma Do-joon (Kim Ji Suk) is a dimwit with a strong inner dog and courts his brilliant scientist-wife (Lee Da-hee) by pummeling others. All three men must unite in order to save their loved ones from Kim Yong-gang (Yoon Kyung-ho), a behind-the-times ex-con who wants to get his turf back now that he's been released from jail.

The film abounds with silly details: a reporter (Jeon So Min) whose motives are more romantic than investigative; a police chief (Lee Soon-won) whose got a crush on his star detective. Well-executed character parts like one criminal second banana (Lee Hyun Kul) and Yong-gang's flashy wife (Lee Yoon-a) keep the laughs coming as does a delightfully absurd sequence in which the three main women defend themselves from a gang of attackers by using frozen fish as hammer-like weapons. A true knockout. Just the latest winner from Park who also wrote the touching A Great Chinese Restaurant.

Boss: Meth Acting

Being head honcho of a mob isn't the respectable job it used to be in Ra Hee-chan's jopok comedy Boss. High ranking gangster Soon-tae (Jo Woo-jin) would rather pursue his dream of being a chef with a restaurant franchise; recently released convict Kang-pyo (Jung Kyung-ho) fantasizes about going back to school to study tango. The only person who wants to be the new don is Pan-ho (Park Ji-hwan), the son of the old don (Lee Sung-min) but nobody wants to elect that clown. He's stupid and has anger management issues. Family lineage no longer holds the clout it once did.

Four senior hoods with an unofficial leader (Oh Dal-su) work to ensure a smooth succession for this crime organization. So does Kang-pyo's over-the-top mother Lady Hong (Gil Hae-yon). But apparently it's not as simple as letting the next-in-line step up since two out of the three nominees want nothing to do with the recently opened position. Throw in a bumbling undercover cop (Lee Kyu-hyung) with endless spyware, a disatisfied wife (Hwang Woo-seul-hye), a grifting daughter (Cho Si-yeon), and another underworld organization called The Triad, and this screenplay gets overly complicated. Would it have been such a crime to keep the story less layered? When this movie shifts from "stabbing to a catchy soundtrack" to "backstabbing to facilitate dealing meth," the "say no to drugs" message is about as ineffective as when Nancy Reagan first uttered the phrase. Except this time, we've got incredibly effective comic bits in the finale.

The Therapist: Fist of Tae-Baek: Comedy Under Pressure

What makes comedy work? Witty repartee? Physical slapstick? Preposterous circumstances? Overreactions? If humor were as easy as filling out checkboxes, it wouldn't be so hard to quantify. Which leaves me seriously wondering why Choi Sang-hoon's The Therapist: Fist of Tae-baek doesn't meet the genre's loose standards. As an acupressurist capable of fostering weight loss and breast enlargement, actor Oh Ji-ho is goofy enough. The plot about two former BFFs and taekwondo masters who find themselves on opposite sides of the law during a real estate scam is ridiculous enough. Their martial arts encounters certainly lend themselves to physical comedy. As does a drunk scene mid-film. And yet...

The Therapist isn't particularly funny. Or even amusing. Which isn't to say, it's boring. Or even bad. What's the gray area called? Undramatic dramedy? Because The Therapist feels like watching a film that adheres to the tropes of farce without the hilarity. You've got the shrewish wife (Shin So-yul), a violent villain (Dong Zhang) with a soft side, a rivalry that drives best friends apart then pulls them together, and exaggerated facial expressions from just about everyone. It could work but it doesn't. More than anything else, The Therapist made me realize how years of watching sitcoms has trained me to accept comedies that don't make me laugh. Without complaint.

Extreme Job: Why Did the Chicken Cross the Police Lineup

"Are we cops or a chicken joint," one of the characters asks in Lee Byeong-heon's ultra-silly Extreme Job. That's a false polarity though because clearly as the movie goes on, this deep-fried squad is actually both. Sure, they're collectively running a thriving business inspired by the ribs recipe of Detective Ma (Jin Seon-kyu). But they only ended up "pretending" as a cover for their real career as narcs, hoping to bust an operation that's set up shop across the street. None of them were expecting this sideline scheme to end-up being such a success. Least of all, Captain "Zombie" Ko (Ryu Seung-ryong). So what's to do when the cash starts flowing?

Sabotage their business model? They try, time and again yet no matter how limited the menu and how overpriced, this spicy sauce-up can't stop from being an internet sensation. And while Ko's new financial security has its charms, Extreme Job might wait a little too long before the martial arts kick in during this action comedy. Considering Detective Jang (Lee Hanee) and lead surveilance Young-ho (Lee Dong-hwi) have martial arts in their backgrounds, it seems a shame to wait until the very end to let the physical hijinks emerge. An earlier scene involving two shirtless male crews going head to head in a loft while sexily entertaining doesn't feel especially connected to the tale at hand. Not that you can ever have too much hot sauce.

My Paparotti: Sing Out, Louise

Who you watch a movie with — or who you encounter any type of art with — can have a major impact on how you experience it. I remember hearing a casette of "Everything That Rises Must Converge" with my mother in the car after a particularly tense exchange between the two of us in the car. And let me tell you, Flannery O'Connor's bleak short story about a mother and her estranged son has probably never had a pair of more attentive listeners — destination forgotten. Happily, my viewing of Lee Jong-chan's feel-good comedy My Paparotti was a less emotionally wrought exchange. To the contrary, this cinematic success story proved effervescent when seated beside by boyfriend who corrected subtitles, mimicked opera singing, and encouraged all my sentimental reactions.

So let others roll their eyes at this underdog saga of a young troublemaker (Sung Yoo-bin) whose passion for singing provides a way out of "thug life" and under the prickly warm tutelage of a disillusioned teacher (Han Suk-kyu) whose own music career was derailed by some ill-timed tumors on his vocal cords. As for anyone ready to dismiss this film outright as fantastical nonsense, know this: My Paparotti is based on a true story! Characters like the bossy high school principal (Oh Dal-su), the kooky love interest (Kang So-ra), and the brotherly, middle-management mafioso (Cho Jin-woong) may register as pure cartoon but real life has a place for exaggeration, too, especially when it makes you feel this good.

The Bros: Siblings in Death

How many times have I started The Bros? Four times? Six times? More? A comedy you don't find funny is always a tough film to finish, even if it's the only Korean feature in the Netflix lineup that you haven't seen. Yet today, I am committed. And so, once again, I cue up the movie, hit play, and watch the story of two antagonistic brothers seeking resolution and riches at their grandfather's fortune-making funeral. Brother number one is Suk-bong (Ma Dong-seok), an impoverished history professor in search of two gold Buddha statuettes; brother number two is Joo-bong (Lee Dong-hwi), a low-level exec who works for a development company that wants to plow through the hometown.

Once the family secrets come out, as they often do at such occasions, nothing will be as it was: bloodlines will be questioned as well as who is alive and who is dead. Despite the dire predicaments, a happy ending seems inevitably ahead. But this comedy of manners requires a greater understanding of Korean cultural rituals and mores than I have, even with my many years of reviewing Korean movies, in order to generate laughs. Would the slapstick, fashion choices, family dynamics in Jang You-jeong's silly satire be riotous if I understood the references, taboos, and transgressions throughout? Until I get there, I'll have to settle for a kooky mom (Lee Hanee) and fraternal love.

Father and Sons: The Courtships of Four Bachelor Brothers

How did this movie happen? What misguided movie executive decided that a comedy about four grown men acting like 10-year-olds would make for a barrel of laughs? Yet here we are with director Kwon Yeong-sun's bizarre Father and Sons — a ridiculous sitcom about a sporting goods shopkeeper (Kim Hie-gab) whose four overaged bachelor babies dream of being the next Patridge Family. All they need now is a couple of Shirley-Joneses and Susan Deys. (Lyric sample: "My favorite type of girl is more beautiful than I am.")

So which of the longtime children will find true love first? Will it be the oldest son (Yang Hun) who wears a toupee and runs his own barbershop? The rubber-faced second son (Lee Jong-cheol) who drives a spotless taxi? The third child (Kim Twist) who dusts the album covers at a well-stocked record store? Or the baby (Nam Bo Won) who aspires to a gig at Carnegie Hall? Since Father and Sons is a comedy, I felt pretty confident that each would find his match eventually. The overhanging question was — to quote an Abbott and Costello routine — "Who's on first?" If that reference feels out of place, let me explain: This is a farce that's not shy with the insults. (Sample putdown: "You sure like to change your words, like a horse moving its butt.")

The film's got a lot of slapstick, too: roughhousing at the breakfast table, shoving money into a sibling's open mouth, the classic running into closed doors... What it doesn't have is natural romantic interests for its four overgrown boys. The four women who become these men's individual obsessions come aren't yins to their yangs so much as foolish ladies who get suckered into a dismal future. I can excuse the bride-to-be who falls for the guy who knows hypnotism but going gaga for a trumpet-playing bandleader who does blackface? Um, not so much.

Horse-Year Bride: No Rock, No Doris, No Fun

I was never a fan of the Rock Hudson / Doris Day movies which reveled in the sartorially stylish '50s and resisted the carnally swinging '60s. Yet that's what Horse-Year Bride recalls — a out-of-date, sighfully silly sex comedy set in a year astrologically reputed to birth the most strong-willed women. And like its American antecedent, Kim Ki-Duk's feeble farce has a flirtatiousness leading to coitus interuptus more than baby making. There's hormones everywhere from the rockabilly singers lip-syncing English pop to the bedazzled modern dancers shimmying to surf guitar yet, most of the time, no one is getting laid. One reason: According to one particularly prudish newlywed, intercourse during pregnancy can cause a cleft palate in the newborn child.

That's hardly the only piece of nonsense espoused in Kim Ki-duk's 1966 flick as its clownish narrator, a fortune-telling matchmaker of dubious talents, intermittently pops up to tell us things like Napoleon had his hand down the front of his pants because of his family jewels and that any incompatibility in the bedroom might be cured with the right yoga practice. Sound like a stretch? Well, follow this film's prescriptive guidelines at your own peril. Watch this movie against my advice. It's frustration on-screen and off.

The Artist: Reborn: The Painting, Reframed

No one's about to say that the creator of The Artist: Reborn doesn't have something to say. Kim Kyoung-won's dark comedy about a painter who skyrockets to fame after her supposed death is peppered with wry commentary about the art market, the creative process, and good old amoral capitalism. But, as the writer-director himself states, "It's like Frankenstein without the monster part." What's the missing monster exactly? Is it the art? Could be. The oils depicting floating mandalas and simpler geometric shapes are too minimal for Kandinsky, too muted for Hilma af Klimt. Is it the script? Also possible. Yet Kim's writerly shark jumps are intentionally outlandish: the artist's resurrection in the morgue is pure sight gag; the marketspeak of her fabricated backstory is satirical grotesquerie. ("Let's say she was raped by a priest!")

What's that leave us? The cast? Okay. So if so, who? Ryu Hyeon-kyeong's turn as the visionary abstractionist is out of sync with the other performers... as she should be; Park Jeong-min is overly earnest ...which seems appropriate, too. Lee Soon-jae and Moon Jong-won may be broader in their interpreations of a cultural minister and a cultural pariah but can you blame them? For me, it was as if nothing quite worked and nothing quite failed. "Nothing's wrong," the artist states near the end. I'd add, "Nothing's right either." But what are you looking for? Perfection?

What Happened to Mr. Cha?: And Does Anybody Care?

Full Disclosure: I watched Kim Dong-kyu's What Happened to Mr. Cha? because the trailer showed a repeatedly shirtless Cha In-pyo looking incredibly hot. There were multiple scenes in that trailer which led me to believe that this would be a movie filled with eye candy. Unfortunately, such was not the case as Mr. Cha, both the actor and the character, spends nearly the entire movie trapped underground in a poorly lit cave after the building in which he was showering collapses. Isn't this the classic genie curse where you get what you asked for and you regret that you didn't make your wish more specific. I should've said: "I want to see Cha In-pyo parading around shirtless in brightly lit environments." So how was the movie otherwise?

Odd. The plot really has the makings of a horror movie. The lead character is confined to a space so small he cannot even stand. No one hears him when he screams. His one contact with the outside world is limited to an assistant (Jo Dal-hwan), so incompetent that you fear the man's going to get his employer killed. And since the construction crew is uninformed of the trapped celebrity, they're endangering acts aren't careless so much as carefree. Is it funny? Never. Is this a comedy? You bet it is! But it's not a movie. More like a part of a movie that needs more scenes before it and more scenes after. And better lighting. And more shirtless Cha.

The March of Fools: Undergraduates Underachieving

How any discerning filmgoer can rank Ha Gil-jong's lighthearted (and lightweight) college romp The March of Fools right up there with Kim Ki-young's giddily perverse The Housemaid or Yoo Hyun-mok's neorealist Stray Bullet utterly baffles me! And it's not like I have a bias against comedies. I loved the culinary craziness of Le Grand Chef and the rebellious slapstick of Attack the Gas Station 2. Maybe it's simply that director Ha's 1975 social satire hasn't aged that well, especially in regards to its leading lady Yeong-ja (Lee Yeong-ok) — a ditzy, vivacious major in French literature who uses her looks to get free beers, Camus essays, and bit parts on the stage. (While I appreciated her self-defense moves to fend off unwanted sexual advances, her eternally sunshiny disposition somewhat tired me.)

So be it because ultimately The March of Fools is about the men: particularly, the carefree academic Byeong-tae (Yoon Moon-seop) and the test-failing cyclist Yeong-cheol (Ha Jae-young), two longtime friends who go on a series of adventures including blind dates, billiard games, streaking (with clothes), military screenings, tub soaking, beer-guzzling, and an extended escape from the police. Both actors are incredibly charismatic and you really do wish the best for them. So what is the best? Winning a drinking contest, getting kissed by a girl, scoring some money from dad... Yeong-cheol dreams of whale-hunting and inventing an umbrella for cigarettes. Byeong-tae dreams of getting married. Anyone who believes dreams like this might come true has another thing coming. I'd add, these men know better too. How can they not? They're philosophy students.

The takeaway: "Eheu fugaces labuntur anni!" ("Alas, the fleeting years slip by!")

Star Nextdoor: Mommie Coldest

The core premise of the comedy Star Nextdoor isn't particularly funny: A shallow, vain product-spokeswoman (Han Chae-young) refuses to acknowledge her adolescent daughter (Jin Ji-hee) as anything more than a pesky neighbor, in essence leaving her mother (Kim Bo-mi) to take on childrearing duties so she can pursue career-making movie roles and sexy pop stars 13 years her junior. Laughing yet? Me neither. So will the three women ever live "their truth"? Will the incredibly popular Sense frontman (Im Seul-ong) stick by the side of a cougar who had a baby out of wedlock? Will the tabloid reporter (Im Hyung-joon) be the one to crack a case that involves uterine cancer and pre-marital sex? Is ham sushi a thing? These are stupid questions but the bigger questions Kim Seung-wook's comedy poses are worse yet, questions like: Can a woman be a good mother and still have a career? Does not having an abortion grant you a pass for neglecting your child for 16 years?

To describe Star Nextdoor as an anachronism would be an understatement. While the story may factor in cell phones, chat rooms, and viral content as part of its plot, the narrative here is rooted in eternally offensive portrayals of women as nagging, dimwitted, and self-obsessed. Maybe that's why this movie showed up in my YouTube search results for "Korean full movie with English subtitles horror." Those search engines know content better than you might expect nowadays. This movie is scary in a way. Then again, Star Nextdoor probably also appears if you search for "korean comedy teen tennis spicy food swag bag actor's double life" or "korean movie generation conflict girl squad k-pop child abuse secrets money fame," too. But why would anyone google all those terms? Well, why would anyone make this movie? And why did I watch it?

Speedy Scandal: Grandpa Needs to Grow Up

I realized a few days after watching Speedy Scandal that radio host and DJ Nam Hyeon-soo (Cha Tae-hyun) isn't the hero. Not really. In fact, you could argue that he's the villain of the movie. That's what I'm about to do right now. Why? Well, because he's the one who treats his newfound daughter like dirt; the one who never asks about how her mother — his supposed "one true love" — is doing; the one who repeatedly gets in the way of his daughter's singing career and her love life and her hopes to form a new family that doesn't need to sleep on a restaurant floor. He's the one who sees his grandson (Hwang Seok-hyeon) primarily as a lure to bed the grammar school teacher and whose first concern when he discovers his grandson's been kidnapped from a concert that he's hosting is basically "Let's get on with the show." If you knew a child had been kidnapped would you really forge on even if it weren't your kid? Your answer better by "NO!" So yes, Hyeon-soo is pretty despicable.

Which brings up the following question: Why isn't his daughter Jeong-nam (Park Bo-yeong) the main character of this film? Why don't we see her try on lots of different outfits when her stingy father finally takes her to the mall to buy some nice clothes? Why are we forced to watch his "comic" attempts to keep her a secret instead of her "comic" attempts to fit into his world? I personally would've enjoyed seeing more scenes between her and her love interest the awkward photographer (Lim Ji-gyu) than daddy and his lust interest the school marm (Hwang Woo-seul-hye). Maybe some audiences have a soft spot for the still-cute actor Cha based on his memorable roles in My Sassy Girl and Sad Movie. But me? Not so much. Credit must be given to writer-director Kang Hyeong-cheol, however. With his next film, the infinitely more entertaining Sunny, he put the women front and center. People who learn from their mistakes should be praised. Sound cue: Applause.

Red Carpet: From XXX to XOXO

I put off watching Park Bum-Soo's impossibly delightful Red Carpet for weeks if not months because I figured it was a low-budget, mildly titillating, soft porn skin flick pretending to be legit. Sometimes, these type of movies can be fun diversions but you have to be in the right mood to watch them and keep the sound low so as not to disturb the neighbors. One day in March 2017, I was finally bored enough and let 'er roll. Well, Red Carpet was not what I expected. Not by a long shot. Far from being some pervy misogynist director's poorly acted, barely scripted excuse for some gratuitous nudity, Red Carpet is an incredibly wise romantic comedy that knows how hard it is to shrug off imposed shame and stay true to your heart, especially when that involves defying convention and the establishment.

Admittedly, there are plenty of gags about erections, sex, porn actors, and secret identities. But Red Carpet is actually a very sex-positive movie. There's nothing wrong with acting, writing or directing porn for the participants here. Any judgment suggesting as much comes from the buffoons outside the biz. Indeed there's a sweet camaraderie among the cinematic sex workers that manifests in unexpected ways, like when the performers and crew members put on corporate drag so that the lead stud can video chat with his wife from a makeshift conference room. As acts of deceptions go, this one is awfully cute.

Playing the role of the young porno director with non-porno dreams, Yoon Kye-sang is utterly lovable while Koh Joon-hee does a deft job at showing a former child actress's development from an insufferable attention-seeker to a young woman who knows success is irrelevant in a world where we deny ourselves the room to feel deeply. The entire supporting cast is spot-on, although Hwang Chan-sung was probably my favorite as the bumbling new crew member whose passion for Godard doesn't stop him from working on a very different kind of art film.

Queen of the Night: She's the Better Half

By the time you're 35, you know that any potential romantic partners are going to come with a luggage-rack's worth of emotional baggage so the question is simply: Are you willing to deal? When you're young, perhaps expectations of someone only bringing a psychic murse or a traumatic clutch to the romance are rational. But even then, should someone as sweet, cute, caring, resourceful, and loving as Hee-jo (Kim Min-jung) step into your life, do yourself a favor. Cut them major slack and make room for a whole travel cart of Samsonite. Catches like this won't come around again. So she's had her wild days clubbing. So she grew up in Southern California. So she knows how to throw a punch. Do you honestly think that none of those things might come in handy at some point in the future? Trust me when I say that no one, and I mean no one, is going to be able to win you that kimchi refrigerator at the reunion by executing a dance routine on the runway like she can.

Ah well. Boys will be boys. And the boy in this case, Young-soo (Cheon Jeong-myeong) insists on learning the hard way how valuable his soul mate is. Until then, he's going to get self-righteous when he learns she wasn't a virgin when they met, that she hung out with the tough crowd and that she even has a police record. He also forgets that he could barely make it through an online date before his soon-to-be-wife came along. Short memories cause long stretches of pain. As does a nerdy best friend like Jong-bae (Kim Gi-bang) who evinces a streak of misogyny likely caused by his undesirability to most women. Sometimes the satirical aspects of the Queen of the Night click (the scenes with the fertility doctor played by Kim Jung-tae, especially so). Sometimes, the comedy founders (the bits with the key repairman played by Park Jin-young). But the biggest flaw is actually a surprising one: Kim Min-jung is a lousy dancer. Note to writer-director Kim Je-yeong: Next time, you should hire a double.

Twilight Gangsters: Old Girls Just Want to Have Funds

Getting old can suck. Partly because, to much of society, once you reach a certain age, you become quaintly irrelevant. Additionally, if you ever fall into any kind of financial conflict with a major corporation — like a bank, for instance — they can take you to court and just wait it out. What's a girl to do? Well, the three grandmothers in Kang Hyo-jin's Twilight Gangsters go rogue. After years of shoplifting then hawking the goods on the street to raise a little extra cash for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Hawaii, they turn to robbing banks to get the airfare. Time is short. Waikiki, here they come!

Or so they hope. There's a lot to learn for these three lifelong friends, not the least of which is how do you hold up a bank, anyway? Sage old ladies that they are, they pressure the bank robber (Lim Chang-jung) who's partly responsible for their financial woes to act as their mentor/coach/advisor. Roles are assigned. Jeong-ja (Na Mun-hee) will be the diversion. Shin-ja (Kim Hyeo-ok) will carry the gun. Yeong-heui (Kim Su-mi) will be the "boss" shouting out demands. Their first hold-up lands them something like $80. The second hold-up covers the airfare costs to Honolulu but will they be able to get to the airport in time. (Ten to one they're flying coach.)

Nothing turns out as planned exactly but on their side is a homeless woman (Byeon Shin-ho) they once gifted shampoo and a geriatric flirt who likes to wear white suits. On the other side, unfortunately, is the entire police force of Seoul. Even with the addition of some sympathetic hostages and a senior center that won't be disrespected, the odds are not in these ladies' favor. How do you flee from an entire police force? Three on a motorcycle, of course. But how do you get in the air? Who'll fly the plane? Can you pare down to carry-on? And what about that corrupt cop whose gun you've inadvertantly borrowed? Those are much tougher questions. Sometimes the best you can hope for is someone to offer you tofu when you get out of jail.

Miss Granny: Oh to Be Young (and Hilarious) Again!

There's something irresistibly sweet about movies such as Big and 13 Going on 30, movies where the main character is a child transported into the body of an adult, from where they look at the world through the most innocent eyes. Even so, for me, I prefer the somewhat jaded age-swapping comedies which go in the other direction, movies like Peggy Sue Got Married and Miss Granny, movies with lead characters who wake up to find that they're young again (at least physically) while burdened with the wisdom of age. Because the wisdom that comes with age really is laughable, isn't it? What do we learn? How little we actually know? The lessons of time may ensure that we don't make certain mistakes again but it won't save us from all of our erroneous ways. We're never free of our shortcomings, even when we're given a chance to do it all again. Contrary to popular belief, hindsight isn't always 20/20 after all.

Hwang Dong-hyuk's Miss Granny is funnier than Francis Ford Coppola's heartbreakingly nostalgic Peggy Sue however. For in Peggy Sue, the leading lady (Kathleen Turner) is caught in an emotionally raw flashback whereas in Miss Granny our heroine is a much older woman (Na Mun-hee) who while likewise gifted with the body of her teenage self (Shim Eun-kyung) is experiencing her transformation in current times. Literally born again, she pursues her long-abandoned dream of being a singer even as she works to help realize the dreams of her grandson (Jung Jin-yeong), a guitarist in a failed heavy metal band. Should she start a new life or mend the problems embedded in the one she escaped? It's not an easy choice. As for Shim, she's a revelation — her comic impersonation of a grandmother is physically and vocally astute whether she's reveling in neo "Audrey Hepburn" fashions or scolding a fellow bus passenger for having water-y milk in her breasts. But Shim isn't just a comic wonder, she can also sing like an angel. Her rendition of songs like "Raindrop" and "White Butterfly" especially make you think that Shim has an alternate career as a chanteuse if she ever tires of being an actress.

The Quiz Show Scandal: Only One Man Can Win So Let's Meet Everybody Else

For all the time it spends setting up the various back stories of its primary characters, Jang Jin's The Quiz Show Scandal truly only cares about one and then disconcertingly abandons him at the very end. Rather than give away who that one sympathetic guy is (no spoilers here except that he's a man), let's take a look at some of the various contenders we meet who don't end up mattering in the least. There's the sullen, boy-crazy teenager (Shim Euy-Kyung) who's part of an ineffective support group; a gambler (Ryu Seung-Ryong) saddled with a shrewish wife (Jang Young-Nam) and a debt; a nutty history professor who knows his French lit inside and out; and a well-coifed motorcyclist (Ryu Deok-Hwan) who delivers an empassioned speech about the sacrifices made by food delivery workers. Also competing are a cop, random women, and a martial arts instructor (Jeong Jae-Yeong) who shows up for the quiz show in his uniform. But these latter folks are clearly not in the running for the multi-million dollar prize. They're just extra color for a movie that's already got too much color to start with.

What's weird is that despite the many contestants we meet in The Quiz Show Scandal, the funniest characters don't feature in the actual competition, two being an unstable, attention-seeking woman who dominates the aforementioned support group and a preposterously drunk guy at the police station who shouts out all the right answers for the game show when it's on TV. Her rage and his incoherence would have been welcome additions to the quiz itself and would have amplified any paranoia experienced by game show host (Lee Hae-Yeong) who may or may not be responsible for the death of the woman (Han Soo-Jin) who crafted the difficult questions for the show that has made him a star. There's a third memorable comic turn from writer-director Jang himself. As a self-styled master police chief, Jang's timing is spot-on, his persona hilariously off. I'm not saying Jang should act but not direct or write for future movies. But he could definitely give himself a bigger role with his next one.

Kiss Me, Kill Me: Hired Killer, Suicidal Dame

I'm on the fence about Shin Hyeon-jun. Sure, he's handsome as hell and charming to boot but can he act? I'm beginning to doubt it. So what if he's likable in the Married to the Mafia movies? Big deal if he can hold his own in the Son of a General series. Kudos to him for picking scripts that lead to franchises — and no doubt his bank is well stocked — but damn him for never going deep, especially now when deep is just what Kiss Me, Kill Me needs. Don't brush me off with the retort that this is an absurdist comedy about a hired assassin who falls for a klutzy young client (Kang Hye-jeong) who initially wants him to kill her because she doesn't have the wherewithal to off herself. Since writer-director Yang Jong-Hyun's movie occasionally lurches into places where a little gravity would go a long way.

The despair that comes when you find out that the love of your life still pines for another, the fear that accompanies aging out of your career while lacking other marketable skills, the longing which struggles to come to the surface when you're hemorrhaging from a gunshot wound and your girlfriend is holding you in her arms... These are all situations that another actor might've run with but Shin tends to flatten out at such moments, at best transitioning from a blank stare to a sly smile that admittedly wins you over but at what cost? Must Shin always revert to summoning up the appeal of a puppy?

I don't mean to undersell Shin. He's a deft light comedian, a master of the side-eye, the double-take and deadpan in general. Without him, Kiss Me, Kill Me wouldn't be worth watching at all. But there are some actors you really, really like that you wish that you could love. For that to happen with Shin, we'd need to get serious. He's made over two dozen movies. Perhaps our cinematic romance lies ahead. Until then, we're not really on speaking terms, as friends.