The Hut: Ferocity, Thy Name Is Woman

Life in the small town of Suri is pretty wretched for the womenfolk at the end of the Chosun dynasty. At least, it is if director Lee Doo-yong's supernatural flick The Hut is to be believed. On the one end, there's rape; on the other, an enforced chastity so maddening that widows are driven to self-flagellate, take hot irons to their flesh, and drive a knife savagely into the nether regions then let the wounds fester. Sex positive, Suri is not. And yet, rather than call for a feminist revolution, all the townspeople are obsessed with that one male heir (Choi Seong-ho) who's been in a coma and may be possessed by a local spirit who's holding a justifiably major grudge.

And so they — ironically — call in a female shaman named (Yu Ji-in) who, in order to perform the necessary exorcism to free the town's heir presumptive, needs to play detective and findout who this infuriated phantom might be. Waving a shaking stick will only take a spirit-purging process so far! So... Is it the late Sam-dol (Won Namkoong), a local halfwit who lived in a ramshackle cabin that once served as a holding place for bodies in transition from this life to the next? Or is it the young woman to whom Sam-dol was pimped out because the family matriarch (Hwang Jung-seun) mistakenly thought her charge was about to die, sexually unfulfilled? Whoever the ghost is has every right to be pissed because they've spent a generation captured in a piece of paper trapped inside a bottle that was sealed inside another airtight vessel and then buried underground.

What Happens in an Alley: Children of a Debtor's God

The story of a financially-burdened business executive (Kim Seung-ho) with nine children, a seamstress wife, and a dependent mother, What Happens in an Alley intermittently registers as topical dramedy, its soundtrack buoyed by lighthearted vibraphone. Eventually, however, matters take the inescapable dark turn. What were you expecting? The title alone conjures up images of dirty needles, makedo toilets, illegal abortions, and sordid sexual escapades. Plus the company boss has a Hitlerian mustache and a Maoish uniform. Who couldn't foresee that director Park Jong-ho's slice-of-life flick would switch into social-realist mode?

Until it does, though, coming home drunk will be a chance for slapstick; marital arguments will culiminate in one-liners with dark undercurrents. As for this movie's recurring obsession with baby-making, that plot-point leads to weird scenes like one with an unhelpful obstretrician (Kim Hee-kab) and another with an unmarried woman (Kim Ji-mee) being groomed to carry the seed of an heirless married man. What these characters fail to realize is that there are worse things in life than childlessness. Like appendicitis, bribery, robbery, domestic violence, sexual assault, and living paycheck-to-paycheck. And What Happens in an Alley has those tragedies, too. Which makes it a pretty good movie. Or should I say melodrama?