A Female Boss: The Oppressor Wins

Who doesn't want to see a light romantic comedy in which the misogynist comes out on top? Well, I don't. But here we are with A Female Boss, a jarring rom-com in which the mean-spirited publisher (Jo Mi-lyeong) of Modern Woman magazine falls in love with the cute new hire (Lee Su-ryeon) who kicked her dog. That these two end up as a couple is a strange inevitability, considering she's more about scheming an older businessman (Ju Seon-tae) while he's dating her younger sister (Seo Ae-ja). Does he come to love his employer/sexual-harrasser? Not really. But as his former work buddy frankly puts it, this higher-up is an opportunity for a merger. And what a merger it is! Spoiler alert: By the end of the movie, our unlikable "hero" is running the magazine while his former foil is at home knitting baby clothes.

Even acknowledging the times in which A Female Boss was made, Han Myeong-mo's movie is pretty offensive. (I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the director also made the movie My Sister Is a Hussy which, as its title suggests, isn't exactly a rally cry for female empowerment.) But seeing the magazine's two sassy female editors kowtow to the snivelling male staff (Kim Hie-gab) while the jerk is promoted to the big desk, now under a sign that reads "Men Are Superior to Women," is just too much for this viewer to stomach. There's a fun dance number at a nightclub, an enjoyable amateur basketball game, and a running gag involving a late-night ride home but the joys are few and far between in A Female Boss. The patriarchy ruins everything, even movies.

Madame Freedom: She Done Him Wrong, He Done Her Wrong Too

Han Hyeong-mo's midcentury melodrama Madame Freedom features a daisy chain of backstabbers: Professor Jang (Park Am) has a wandering eye for his goody-goody grammar student (Yang Mi-hie). The misses (Kim Jeong-rim) two-times the professor with two men: her slimy boss (Kim Dong-won) and her scalawag neighbor (Lee Min) who's also an impromptu dance instructor and amateur photographer. She's encouraged in her worst behavior (embezzlement, adultery, child negligence) by her none-too-bright best friend (No Kyeong-hie) who, for her part, is being swept off her feet by a Ponzi scheme charlatan (Ju Seon-tae) with a drawn-on mustache. The betrayals don't end there but you get the point. Fidelity is passé!

Is Han implying that the rise of capitalism coincides with the death of morality? Are Western values cheapening Eastern culture. I don't think so, although the drive to make a buck definitely isn't helping anyone to be a better person — except maybe the nightclub's sensational dancer (Na Bok-hui) who shimmies, bumps, grinds, and mugs deliciously and perhaps for tips. Her routine &$141; backed by a big band with four saxophones — is definitely one of Madame Freedom's high points. Amidst all the partner-swapping, this solo dance feels refreshingly innocent. If everyone's going to cheat, you might as well dance alone!

Dongshimcho: Young Mother in Love

Shin Sang-ok's preposterously pulpy Dongshimcho had me reflecting on the difference between melodrama and soap opera, kindred spirits to be sure. Well, in my mind at least, the second genre distinguishes itself with its bounty of complications and coincidences, mostly if not entirely of a romantic nature. Here you can see that impossibly insane intricacy in a minor character like Mr. Kim from Busan (Kim Seung-ho) — who is at once the business associate for Seoul publisher Kim Sang-kyu (Kim Jin-kyu), a rival for the latter Kim's secret love Mrs. Lee (Choi Eun-hie), and a potential buyer of Mrs. Lee's house — as well as in another relatively secondary role like Ok-joo (Do Kum-bong), the main Kim's fiancee who is also a high school acquaintance of Mrs. Lee's daughter Kyung-hee (Eom Aeng-ran) and the daughter herself of Company Chairman Lee (Kim Dong-won) who has funded her beloved's business enterprise which is in jeopardy now because of a loan made to Mrs. Lee so the lonely widow won't lose her house which for various reasons she doesn't want to sell to the earlier mentioned Mr. Kim from out of town (who just happens to be a merry widower).

It's hard to explain but it's not hard to follow though it is hard to believe. Such is life? Well, maybe. I was more interested in period details like phone calls that are received in the local pharmacy, open train windows that frame brokenhearted passengers tearfully looking out in search of the cause of their distress, and various stacks of 8½" x 17" paper which signal accounting and serious work. There's also a surprising amount of screen time spent on watching people get in and out of shoes as they enter various houses. I, for one, wasn't bored. And if the ever-so-friendly realtor looks familiar that may be because you recognize him as the bullying boss in The Hand of Destiny which is more melodrama than soap but similarly so-so.

The Hand of Destiny: Under the Covers with an Undercover Agent

Jeong-ae (Yun In-ja) is such a bad girl that she pretends that she's a hooker as a way to cover up her much-worse role in society: She's a North Korean spy! As bad luck would have it, she falls hard for Shin Yeong-cheol (Lee Hyang-ja), a dock-worker/penniless-student who's working his way up the ladder of the South Korean military. Neither knows the other one's secret life outside the tawdry apartment that she's decorated with weird dolls, cheap curtains, and an owl clock that shifts its eyes left and right with every second. As the wise old owl knows, eventually their time of bliss will be over. Tick, tick, tick.

All those booze-fueled flirtations, the shopping sprees that snagged him a nice suit and her a well-dressed piece of arm candy, those sleepovers in which they've inexplicably spent the night fully clothed in a twin-sized bed are about to become troublesome memories. Is it love that kept the other so close or something else? Has she been double-crossing him since day one? Was she actually under constant observation by him night after passionate night? Is the pure love that each continually professes a complete ruse?

This is melodrama built on the idea that when romance unravels, drama heightens. After numerous scenes punctuated by silences that feel either unintentionally modernist or patiently waiting for the actor to say the next line, The Hand of Destiny culminates in two pretty engrossing shootouts on a mountaintop -- one with her hiding just a few feet behind him, the other filmed inside a cave that suggests they, and her bullying secret agent boss (Ju Seon-tae), have been transported to the moon. Indeed, the best cinematography in director Han Hyeong-mo's The Hand of Destiny makes the most of otherworldly shadows and angles so that household objects like a wicker purse or a circular mirror look somehow familiar and strange.

Although historically important for having the first big screen kiss in Korean movie history, The Hand of Destiny's most riveting love scene is actually a death scene, too, in which the femme fatale looks to be experiencing a near-orgasm of death as she begs her former lover to kill her once and for all. As endings go, it's a pretty entertaining one. As an oldie-but-goodie, it's really so-so.