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.

When the Buckwheat Blooms: Rape Isn't Love

Lee Seong-gu's black-and-white melodrama When the Buckwheat Blooms is built around one distasteful event: After fabric peddler Heo (Park No-sik) falls in love-at-first-sight with Bun-i (Kim Ji-mee), he chances upon her nude-bathing, chases her down in a field, then rapes her...from the heart? For him, it's the beginning of a life-defining tragic romance; for her, it's the first in a series of sexual assaults that will plague her young womanhood as she's sold from boatsman to cattle rancher to pimp...then back again. That she longs for the father of her subsequent son doesn't seem like a lingering passion so much as a warped survival instinct shaped by the legacy of trauma. As for Heo, his years-long search for his victim impacts our sympathy for this "hero" because we know he'd try his best to provide her — and their child — without hustling her from man to man. No. It's not the Disney ideal!

But despite his best efforts to rescue his damsel in distress, as he runs from one end of the country to the other, his quest proves ultimately fruitless. By chance, however, he does reunite with two old friends — a snake oil salesman (Heo Chang-kang) and a paper dealer (Kim Hie-gab). These old pals of yesteryear are there to remind him that there are other loves in this life and that the fraternal bond is no less important than the familial or erotic one. Heck, When the Buckwheat Blooms even celebrates the affection between man and packmule. The break between Heo and his beast of burden is among the most tender scenes in the film. (Maybe he too is sold from one guy to the next!) But for me, it was nice to see a four-legged friend have his work and devotion acknowledged, too.

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.