The Deal: Caught Then Cagey

You're going to have to set logic free as a jailbird for So Yong-ho's thiller The Deal. For how can the police be on the trail of a serial killer when all the female victims' bodies are missing? Does missing qualify as dead? Fortunately, lead detective Tae-soo (Kim Sang-kyung), b.k.a. as "Mr. Intuition," defaults to his feelings over the facts. Which means a hit-and-run accident one rainy night seems significant in his pursuit of the killer for reasons only some internal vibe can explain.

That sixth sense doesn't allow him to protect those closest to him, and perhaps he takes to drink partially to deaden this gift which has failed him in a crucial way. ("I cant live withouut a drink," he proclaims after his sister (Yoon Seung-ah) dies. His brother-in-law Seung-hyeon (Kim Sung Kyun) would like to see less of him. His boss Chief Choi (Gi Ju-bong) would like him to get back on track. The serial killer Kang-cheon (Park Sung-woong) smiles whenever anyone's having a hard day and is very good at keeping secrets. But why do movie cops think that punching leads to truth-telling?

Montage: Start All Over Again

Fairly quickly, you realize something strange is happening in Montage: After young Detective Cha (Oh Dae-hwan) informs still-grieving mother Ha-kyung (Uhm Junghwa) that the statute of limitations around the murder of her child is slated to run out in five days, instead of sequeing into a suspenseful countdown, the movie leaps forward to "nine hours left." Given that this jump happens well before the halfway point, we're relatively assured that something else is afoot besides the solving of a 15-year-old homicide. What is it? A second crime, dear reader. A second crime that mirrors the first! So is the original killer back for more mayhem or has a copycat (perhaps within the police force) emerged to take his place. And what does this all have to do with grandpa (Song Young-chang)?

The force's retired cynic (Kim Sang-kyung) would like to find out more than anyone else but since he's no longer paired with his initial sidekick (Oh), Montage loses some really great opening chemistry. In its place, we're left with an echo chamber of screaming. Screams of grief, screams of anger, screams of frustration, screams of rebellion, screams of justice unfulfilled, and screams of indignation. Strangely, Bom (Heo Jung-eun), the kidnapped girl at the center of this story, doesn't scream that much. In Montage, the screaming is left to the adults. You may scream too at how this movie resolves itself. Unless you turn the screams into a drinking game, in which case you may think this film is a scream.

Hahaha: Taking a Page Out of Woody Allen's Book

I don't know why the similarities between Woody Allen and Hong Sang-soo never occurred to me before. They're both directors who crank out a movie a year, and primarily focus on troubled romances -- sometimes seriously, other times comically, oft times of the summer/winter variety, occasionally triangles. They're both critical darlings who have won more than a handful of awards -- both nationally and internationally -- yet neither could be called a box-office goldmine. They also have a small group of actors they reuse in multiple movies then were drawn to casting bigger names later in their careers. For Hong, that last bit has led to Isabelle Hupert in In Another Country and pop star Rain in Soar Into the Sun. Since Hong is a master of naturalistic acting, neither celeb upstages his or her co-stars.

One way that Hong differs from Allen, however, is in his constant use of drunk scenes. In Hahaha, not only is the framework a drunk scene -- two friends recount their overlapping weekend in a small coastal town called Tongyeong -- but so are about a quarter of the events they recount: failed filmmaker Moon-kyeong (Kim Sang-kyung) taking Seong-ok (Moon So-ri) back to a hotel room, depressed critic Joong-sik (Yu Jun-sang) taking his mistress (Ye Ji-won) to meet his uncle, Moon-kyeong's mother (Yoon Yeo-jeong) drinking with all of the above at some point or another. Because it's a Hong Sang-soo film, the drunk scenes are universally good. No one facilitates as many riveting naturalistic performances as Hong.

Both Allen and Hong are experimenters with form, too. Here in Hahaha that manifests itself with the framing conversation that takes place in the present being merely a voiceover to a black-and-white slideshow of Moon-kyeong and Joong-sik toasting, talking and saying "Cheers!" But unlike Allen, Hong isn't one of the leads nor does he cast himself in a cameo. He's got a history of having stand-ins for the alcoholic, womanizing, deluded artist we assume him to be and here he does it in triplicate, the third version being a fickle poet (Kim Kang-woo) who's not only the best friend of pill-popping critic Joong-sik but also a surrogate son to man-child Moon-kyeong's mom who gives the poet a free apartment once Moon-kyeong turns it down.

This is the 10th Hong Sang-soo movie I've seen! (I'm ready for more!)

The Tower: The Architecture of Laughter and Disaster

In reality, The Tower isn't about a single skyscraper going up in flames. It's about two skyscapers: one damaged when a too-close helicopter -- crassly sprinkling artificial snow -- collides into it; the other threatened by the domino effect should the first towering inferno fall. For obvious reasons, the title can't play up the conflagration of two twin towers. Not on this side of the Pacific anyway, where the World Trade Center attack of 2001 remains a national tragedy. Plus, the parallels are pretty problematic when you consider how hilarious The Tower often is. Sometimes the humor is intentional: two lovebirds spitting out fire extinguisher foam, a lowly maid complaining of a rich lady's dog poop. Most times, the jokes are unintentional: the pregnant lady (Min Jeong) prying open an elevator; a self-centered hotel exec spiraling down to his death. Those last two items might not sound funny but when you see them, believe me, you'll realize they are.

And what else is there to do but laugh at the collective struggle in writer-director Kim Ji-hoon's deliriously nutty disaster pic? You know from the beginning that the Head of Facilities (Kim Sang-kyung), his waterworks-of-tears daughter (Jo Min-ah), and the lady in the white pantsuit (Son Ye-jin) are going to end up a happy family at the end. You also know that the martyr of a squad captain (Sol Kyung-gu) is going to sacrifice his life to save others, although when and how that happens is constantly delayed. Maybe you're not sure whether the lowly maid and her college-going son will be reunited. All said, tension is not The Tower's strong point. What the movie has in its favor is some beautiful cinematography of computer generated flames, explosions, smoke clouds, and even the towers themselves which sparkle like giant pieces of jewelry. I also would like to say I got a kick out of Kim In-kwon who plays the cocky little firefighter who I personally hope gets promoted and forces his compatriots to get matching mohawks once the self-sacrificing captain bites the CGI dust.

The World of Silence: Thank Hell for Stalkers of Little Girls

There's something so perfect about making a photographer a pedophile. After all, a man who takes pictures is a man who likes to watch and voyeurism is inherently sexual. And while The World of Silence ends up retreating from that particularly icky association by the time of its literally fiery climax, the movie nevertheless plays that shuddersome perversion for all its worth. You may know that the fatalistic shutterbug (for National Geographic, no less) would never kill the understandably depressed orphan (Han Bo-Bae) who's become his charge and caretaker but you'll also recognize that there's something twisted about their relationship, even at its best. That disturbing tension goes a long way to making Jo Ui-seok's serial killer thriller more than just your everyday police procedural. So squirm as you learn who's going to catch the predatory criminal responsible for the string of murders of little girls. Is it the guy (Kim Sang-kyung) who has a suspicious hobby of taking snapshots of Lolitas or the disheveled cop (Park Yong-woo) with no hobbies at all? Neither, you fool. Only one thing is certain: Everyone involved with this case is going to lose their taste for mushroom soup.