Harbin: Revolutionary Movies

As the U.S. government slides towards white-supremacist, patriarchal fascism, Hollywood is not exactly taking up the call to arms with escapist fare like The Devil Wears Prada 2 and the new Michael Jackson biopic. Which is why we'd do well to turn towards Korea for movies like Woo Min-ho's Harbin, a 2024 release that glorifies the resistance movement that followed Japanese occupation in the early part of the 20th century. This is no hagiography, however. The rebel leader (Hyun Bin) disastrously lets the enemy free without weapons so children won't die fatherless when his Japanese counterpart (Park Hoon) would have gladly killed himself to save face. Poor decisions lead to mass collateral damage and a basement of peers are eager to take on the parts of judge and jury.

How do you defend stupid actions in a war? You often can't. What can you do to make things right? Revenge, assassinate, self-sacrifice, the usual. Although Harbin is very much a movie about leaders pitted against each other within and without the resistance movement, this movie equally belongs to its supporting characters: Gong Boo-in (Jeon Yeo-been), Russian translator and dynamite resource; Kim Sang Hyun (Jo Woo-jin), bespectacled, former POW with PTSD issues; Woo Deok-soon (Park Jeong-min), the pragmatic soldier who just wants a drink; and Park Jeom-cheol (Jung Woo-sung), the one-eyed, furcoat model and munitions dealer. Perhaps the underlying message here is that sometimes a group has to pitch in to remedy a mess made by higher-ups; and that being a traitor never works in your favor. As one character puts it, "If Japan writes history, no one will remember us." Then another rejoins, "When you're dead, you're dead." You might as well be true to yourself while you can. Because "we live in place of our dead comrades." Always true. "Korea! Ura!"

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.

Mantis: A Deadly Game

You can see from the earliest, elaborately choreographed fight scene that Lee Tae-sung's Mantis is beholden to video game violence: the neatly severed hand, the neatly severed head. Neither has the visuals of realism. Even the looks of the various players are costume-y: Head honcho Cha Min-kyu (Sul Kyung-gu) wears thickly framed architect glasses; star hitman Han-ul (Yim Si-wan) wields two scythes in homage to the titular insect; and female rival and romantic interest Jae-yi (Park Gyuyoung) has tomboy energy and a slacker-rocker hairdo. So when one character claims that "we're not fucking characters in a fucking game," I, for one, did not believe him.

Especially since the central start-up company of assassins is getting sponsored by a video game company called Blood High School, run by prepster Benjamin Jo (Choi Hyun-wook). Naturally, everyone hopes to be King of the Hill -- including former martial arts mentor Dok-go (Jo Woo-jin). Unlike a video game, however, there's no Replay button. The game that's started is the only game in town. Fighting is a way of expressing love, of showing competence, of making friends, and of making money. Sad to say, per the movie's script, "Corporate style murder businesses rarely turn a profit." Mantis may make money, sure, but is it worth your time? Kill Bookson, this is not. (Although it is a spin-off.)

Alienoid: The Return to the Future: ET2

If you missed my earlier review, I thoroughly enjoyed the first Alienoid movie last year. Why that flick didn't land on my top ten list for 2023 may be simply because I sometimes make faulty judgments in my annual "best of" roundups. And so, I was excited about the return of this sci-fi franchise: A world where human bodies double as ET prisons and robots work for good. Did I want to see more of the star-crossed lovers (Kim Tae-ri and Ryu Jun-yeol), the humanoid cats (Lee Si-hoon and Shin Jeong-geun), and the two comically cocky sorcerers (Yum Jung-ah and Jo Woo-jin)? You bet I did. I even welcomed the addition of a blind swordsman (Jin Seon-kyu) and the expanded role of his equally skilled descendant, a customs-officer/auntie (Lee Hanee) who's been waiting her whole life to fight alien invaders on behalf of our planet Earth.

Now, time travel movies are tricky. But time travel sequels that recount the exact same story while incorporating different elements are even trickier. Meaning Alienoid 2 does get confusing and redundant depending on who you are as writer-director Choi Dong-hoon flips between the 14th and 21st centuries. New viewers will never truly understand all this business about the red gas bubbles. Old viewers are left to utter joyously "Oh, that's right..." as memories of A1 plot-points get triggered. Like Park Hoon-jung's The Witch: Part 2, A2 doesn't quite blow the door of its predecessor via a reorienting return. But a fresh coat of paint on something you like can sometimes suffice for an evening's pleasure.

Alienoid: Star Wars for Warlocks

Just like there are good humans and bad humans, there are good aliens and bad aliens. And good sorcerers and bad sorcerers too. In other words, the eternal, universal battle between Good and Evil plays out on multiple, mindbending levels throughout blockbuster auteur Choi Dong-hoon's deliriously fun Alienoid. What else can you expect when humans possessed by imprisoned aliens and aliens masquerading as everyday humans find themselves in conflict with each other, the law, and medieval merchant magicians who are also masters of mixed martial arts. That the film is able to bounce effortlessly back and forth in time — while throwing a good-cop/bad-cop twist into the mix — is another truly remarkable aspect of this irresistible sci-fi fantasy.

I'd also like to say that when a film runs well over two hours, I sometimes break it into parts, like two acts over two days or even a series of webisodes that'll last a week. But with Alienoid, I watched from start to finish as the interplanetary guard (Kim Woo-bin) and his sidekick "program" Thunder (Kim Dae-myung) handled everything from childcare (Choi Yu-ri) to spaceship dogfights to bounty hunting a rogue rebel in the present; and as a bumbling wizard (Ryu Jun-yeol) and his humanoid cats (Shin Jeong-geun, Lee Si-hoon) collaborated with a gun-toting heroine (Kim Tae-ri) and an odd couple of occultists (Yum Jung-ah, Jo Woo-jin) to combat the same dastardly extraterrestrials centuries ago.

Now about that ending...

Hard Hit: Car Bomb

There's something so satisfying about a thriller with a simple plot-device. In Hard Hit, a father (Jo Woo-jin) — shuttling his daughter (Lee Jae-in) and son to school — discovers a bomb has been planted under the driver's seat. If he gets out of his car... BOOM! It's the same gimmick as Speed — more or less — except smaller vehicle, less passengers, and higher stakes. So what's the mystery caller want? Money was my first guess since daddy's in banking. And considering a co-worker's car blows up pretty quickly, you know that the man on the phone means business.

So what does one do in such a heinous situation, except drive on? In this case, our man-behind-the-wheel attempts to negotiate. He stalls for time. He calms his children. He suggests a more reasonable amount of cash. But we all know how this works! That caller insists on getting every damned penny. And you better not call the cops or the bomb squad (Jin Kyung). No time for excuses; you best be wheelin' and dealin' fast. Which is a skill our panicking hero possesses. As the extortionist says, "You certainly lie well." Which of course makes us wonder what his relationship is like with his wife (Kim Ji-ho). But we can explore those questions much later... depending on who survives!

Remake(s): Writer-director Kim Chang-ju's Hard Hit (2021) is inspired by Alberto Morini's screenplay for Retribution (2015) which was also remade as the German film Don't. Get. Out. (2018).

Default: The Cruelty of Capitalism

It's weird to call Default a thriller because there aren't any murders or thefts in the conventional sense. Indeed, for awhile, you wonder if hand-drawn flowcharts and freshly printed financial documents are going to be enough to generate the necessary drama in this movie about South Korea's financial crisis of 1997. Yet eventually director Choi Kook-hee and screenwriter Eom Seong-min do create a palpable tension, primarily in the behind-the-scenes battles between a well-meaning Bank of Korea exec (Kim Hye-su) and a self-serving government official (Jo Woo-jin), each hellbent on furthering their own agenda. It's a painful struggle to witness because we all now know that over the last twenty years the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer worldwide. And so you really hope that the noble effort wins out over the bottomless greed, even as you're aware that the chances are anorexically slim.

The policy wonks aren't the only ones having their stories told here either. Subplots concern a sweet-natured, small-business owner (Heo Jun-ho) whose livelihood is threatened by the collapsing economy, and a heartlessly ambitious trader (Yoo Ah-in) who is briefly struck with a conscience before moving on to piles of cash. As you may sense and without giving too much away, Default is a bleak movie with fleeting moments of compassion. There's something decidedly upsetting about watching a new generation of moneyed heirs gleefully reaping in profits while the common man jumps off a bridge, hangs himself, ends up in jail or somehow survives only to become a racist slave-driver. Is this survival of the meanest? That the U.S. government played a role in the shady shenanigans with the International Monetary Fund is, at once, not surprising and a cause for despair. That the IMF is represented by the dashing French actor Vincent Cassel however brings pleasure.