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.

Sweet & Sour: Who Do You Love?

I like a movie that emphatically changes gears midway and Lee Kae-byeok's Sweet & Sour definitely does that. What starts off as a giddily silly rom-com about a chubby guy (Lee Woo-je) with severe jaundice and an overworked nurse (Chae Soo-bin) who's an irresistable flirt turns into a harshly realistic drama about a couple unable to find time for each other because they're so overtaxed by jobs with no security. Admittedly, the nurse tries even as the engineer (Jang Ki-yong) is diverted by a sloppy but talented co-worker (Jung Krystal). But eventually, you question whether the two even belong together. Either pair actually. It's then that Sweet & Sour takes a mindspinning twist, which elevates the movie to a whole other level.

Rather then give you the details on that front and rob you of the fun that I promise you lies ahead, I'll simply say that this feel-good/feel-bad/feel-I-don't-know-what movie ends up stitching together three genres instead of two: romantic comedy, workplace drama, and time-dislocating head-spinner. To Lee's credit, each section of the film contains hints of the other two so the final product (art!) doesn't feel disjointed. To the contrary, I'd say Sweet & Sour is a bit of a miracle, modest as it may be.