Will You Be There?: With a Bloody Nose

I assume the bloody noses suffered by middle-aged Soo-hyeon (Kim Yoon-seok) are caused by his lung cancer and then exacerbated by those mysteriously acquired time-traveling pills. I'd also guess that his oncologist wouldn't recommend jumping across decades while undergoing any form of medical treatment. But his 20-something counterpart a.k.a. young Dr. Soo-hyeon (Byun Yo-han) doesn't particularly care about what side effects are going to be triggered for his older self by shuttling back and forth through the years. He wants to save his dolphin-training girlfriend (Chae Seo-jin), let his future self be damned. If that might mean sacrificing the daughter (Park Hye-soo) he hasn't met yet, so be it. Most people's allegiances are going to be with the living persons they know...

And life gets complicated when you break a cardinal rule of science fiction. Like "Never talk to the past version of yourself." That's a basic no-no. You know, the butterfly effect and all that! So what will be the ultimate sacrifice for love in Hong Ji-Yeong's Will You Be There? And might it involve a puppy named "Potato"? Or the ever-trustworthy Uncle Tae-ho (Kim Sang-ho)? Or his younger but just-as-reliable iteration (Ahn Se-ha)? I'm also curious whether the guy with the magic pills couldn't have provided a placebo so that all those involved only thought that everything had turned out for the better. After all, as that old guy put it: "Life is what happens when you can't sleep."

Escape from Mogadishu: North and South Alliances in Africa

Aside from BTS and Bong Joon-ho, most Americans probably don't consider South Korea a major player on the world stage. As for North Korea, they've been designated as a longshot threat run by an insane leader with a hot temper and nuclear weaponry. I don't know if such hierarchical political views of the earth do us well. We all occupy the same planet and wars between two nations can assume global importance soon enough. Israel and Palestine, anyone? In truth, the international conflicts, genocides, uprisings and dictatorships concern us all. As Toni Morrison once put it: "The function of freedom is to free someone else." If we're not moved by the decimation in the Middle East, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the Ukraine, how civilized are we really? And so, a movie like Escape from Mogadishu, about South and North Korean diplomats working together to find safe harbor amid a civilian rebellion in Somalia has plenty to say about governance, negotiations, police brutality, children with guns...

As the South's Ambassador Han, Kim Yoon-seok is morally slippery but well-intentioned. As his stoic ounterpart Ambassador Rim, Huh Joon-ho brings a respectfulness not always accorded the neighbors from the North. (Each has a hot-headed assistant played by Zo In-sung and Koo Kyo-hwan respectively.) Once the two sides team up (seeking assistance from Italy and Egypt, not the U.S. and China by the way), Ryu Seung-wan's historical drama really gets cooking. I don't know whether the fleeing Koreans really wrote blood types on their children's arms or bulletproofed their cars by duct-taping hardcover books on the hood but it sure leads to one of the most exhilarating getaways in recent memory. Which isn't to say the survivors have escaped everything. Not by a long shot. And that acknowledgment makes Escape from Mogadishu not just good but very good.

The Fortress: A Royal Mess

As class critiques go, Hwang Dong-hyuk's The Fortress is a devastatingly effective one. This retelling of the 17th century Qing dynasty's invasion of Korea portrays the ruling class as one almost entirely out of touch with the commonfolk; a group of backstabbing lords more committed to appearances (fancy clothes, calvary etiquette, the overall hierarchy) then they are to the people and culture that they're supposedly representing. King Injo (Park Hae-il) is guided by a roomful of ass-kissers and the only two brave enough to speak their opposing truths are the reconciliatory diplomat Choi Myung-gil (Lee Byung-hun) and the military advisor Kim Sang-heon (Kim Yoon-seok) who places integrity higher than life itself. Each man is persuasive in his way yet you begin to suspect that neither is ultimately right.

For as the voice of the people, blacksmith Seo Nal-soi (Go Soo) is able to recognize that these gents are ultimately arguing for a world that still treats the majority of men as war fodder. As such, Seo isn't so much an agitator out to change the system so much as he is someone self-aware enough to recognize that the structure is rotten to its core. Also worth mentioning is orphan girl Naru (Cho Ah-in). This waif — tossed from grandfather to grandfather's murderer to pragmatic metalworker — serves as a powerful reminder that if we're not serving our children's futures with our costly battles then what are we fighting for?