A Man of Reason: Welcome Crimes Against Logic

Watching most contemporary action pics requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief. But if you can let go of particulars like how the combined blood loss from car accidents and bullet wounds would naturally prohibit a character from fighting and running at a physical peak then enjoyment may follow. I say "may" because sometimes these impossibilities are impossible to ignore. However, in actor Jung Woo-sung's directorial debut A Man of Reason such concerns did not trouble me. I was perfectly willing to accept such nonsense as a young girl (Ryu Jian) outrunning a trained dog in a dark house and the hero maneuvering through traffic as easily as a fleeing motorcyclist tossing bombs. A Man of Reason isn't concerned with keeping it real. It's focused on keeping it entertaining.

With that goal in mind (and a performance that feels like an invitation for Tom Cruise to remake), Jung packs his picture with visually stunning sequences: a gang of stuntmen (I mean thugs) fight to gain control of a spinning car in a fancy lobby; a pair of survivors dive into a giant birdbath as a building explodes into glorious fire. Would a recently beat-up second-banana of the underworld be able to survive multiple nails shot into his throat by a deranged assassin couple (Kim Nam-gil and Lee Elijah)? Could a single assailant take on an entire room of killers with only a flashlight and a glistening knife? If you're asking yourself such questions you're missing the point... and all of this movie's many pleasures.

Pandora: How Bad Can It Get?

Disaster movies are especially satisfying when the world becomes an epic nightmare itself. As Trump and his congress of Republican a-holes work to strip the people of education, health insurance, equal rights, a livable planet, etc., seeing a nuclear power plant blow its top off feels like a form of justice. (That moment in Pandora when all the rats flee town is quite a cinematic representation of the animal kingdom finally saying, "Hey, mankind. We're outta here!") And since radiation doesn't favor the rich, the resultant catastrophe is egalitarian in a way that somehow feels right. Which isn't to imply that hierarchies don't still exist.

Cops and military personnel still get off on bossing people around and locking them up. Emergency personnel and higher-level technicians still wait for someone above to call the shots, regardless of what constitutes doing the right thing. Middlemen are afraid of getting in trouble. But it's the rule-breakers who save the day: the female motorcyclist (Kim Joo-Hyun) who hijacks a bus; the secretary who slips an alarming report about the plant to the President (Kim Myung-min); the plant worker (Jeong Jin-yeong) who's behind that report and just got demoted and continues to make noise anyway. For he knows that the ultimate sacrifices to be made will not be made by the avaricious, arrogant Prime Minister (Lee Kyeong-yeong) or the people who spend their lives worrying about rules. No. That will fall to the locals, the young workers for whom the power plant has always been the paycheck for a dead-end existence, whose bodies are already contaminated, whose livelihoods have never really been a concern of the leaders they've elected. Sound familiar?

And while the rebel Jae-hyeok (Kim Nam-gil) may be Pandora's hero because he's the only one who knows how to set up the explosives that will blast the plant to safety and himself to his death, really all the guys are heroes. The only difference being, they've got a few more days to live before their organs give out.

Pirates: High Seas Hilarity

Some movies are elaborate meals, some movies are pure puke, and some are complete confections. Squarely in the candy category is director Lee Seok-hoon's deliciously silly Pirates, a salt water taffy of a movie if there ever was one. To extend this sugary metaphor, Lee's tasty adventure pic manages to be chewy and colorful as it stretches plausibility beyond belief. The individual ingredients may be neither good for you nor even particularly good but the sweetness here is undeniable. And yes, you will want more. Okay, enough toothsome metaphorical talk. On to the motion picture.

Though there's a lady swashbuckler (Son Ye-jin) front and center, Pirates doesn't break new ground in comedy or gender-blind casting. To the contrary, it serves up stereotypes and cliches unapologetically. There's an evil, petty guy (Kim Tae-woo) with the requisite eyepatch, a despotic, vengeful patriarchal figure (Lee Kyeong-yeong) who drowns only to reappear having not drowned after all, a king who must learn life lessons from his patriotic servants, and a pair of mismatched lovers (Son and Kim Nam-gil) who find out they were meant for each other. Which isn't to say the film has no novelties. It abounds with them! A momma whale who bonds with a young girl? A tethered shark that can turn a sailboat into a motorboat? A drunken bandit-monk (Park Cheol-min) who drinks gasoline without consequence? Pirates is nothing if not full of quirks.

Quirks and gags, that is. A running joke about peeing in the ocean while standing next to your beloved gets increasing laughs as does a bumbling thief (a marvelous Yoo Hae-jin) whose promotions and demotions occur with every changing tide. The utter, unending preposterous is Pirates greatest asset. As stupid comedies go, this one does dumb jokes smartly. Something Lee did before with the high school comedy See You After School and the equally corny, campy Dancing Queen. But if See You After School and Dancing Queen are good examples of ridiculousness, Pirates is ridiculousness at its best. Practice makes perfekt.

No Regret: Rent-Boy Comes With Serious Asking Price

Cute, spoiled rich kid (Kim Nam-gil) stalks cuter male prostitute (Lee Young-hoon). In Leesong Hee-il's homo-drama No Regret, the hustler learns halfway through the movie that this is love. Initially his reaction is the justifiable "Back off or I'll kill you!" But after being lured to yet another hotel room, the rent-boy asks somewhat frustratedly, "Of all the cocks I suck every night, why should yours be special?" The reply catches him off-guard: "Because it's one-of-a-kind...and so is yours." Personally, I'm skeptical as to how good one cock can be but for this hooker that ridiculous line turns out to be a persuasive argument. Shortly thereafter the two become a couple! Well, the rich boy's mom doesn't like them apples. Nor does the call-boy's pimp (Jeong Seung-kil) who shouts to his departing breadwinner: "Give me a screw before you go, bitch!" Since this love-that-dares-not-speak-its-name also dares not make any sense, the rich boy's temporary abandonment of the hired help drives the latter to binge drink, drunk dial, then attempt murder. There's nothing a guy won't do for a man who's declared, "I'll think of you every morning I wake up with a hard-on." Evidently, that's like saying "I love you to death" to a whore.