Inside Men: He's Got the Look

Does an actor have to be beautiful to hold your attention? No. But it helps. Case in point: Lee Byung-hun. Woo Min-ho's Inside Men may have enough plot twists for a Hallmark mystery miniseries, but the real pleasure comes from seeing the many photo-ready looks of Lee who, despite a detachable prosthetic hand here, is eternally ready for the runway. Part of the time he looks like a retired surfer, his long black hair slicked back like a simulated mullet. Later he looks like he's auditioning for a sequel to the musical Grease. Still other times, all cleaned up with a feathered coif, he's practically walked out of a Thierry Mugler '80s lookbook — broad shoulders included. All this strutting and modeling may sound distracting but to the contrary, the visuals simply add another layer to Woo's political thriller which, for the record, is lavishly shot. And it's not as if Lee can't act!

He's got a time-tested track record to prove it too: Joint Security Area (2000), A Bittersweet Life (2005), I Saw the Devil (2010), The Fortress (2017)... Plus, he's in excellent company with a surrounding cast providing him with rich scene partners, especially Lee El as a glam old flame willing to sacrifice everything (for a price) and Cho Seung-woo as an always suited prosecutor frantically trying to get out of the trenches. One could argue that Inside Men is actually Cho's movie since so much of the screentime is devoted to his aspirational quest. But his life dream's success would be impossible without Lee, and frankly, so would the heart of this movie. Beautiful!

Love & Leashes: Learning & Lusting

I've avoided Love & Leashes for a year because I assumed it wasa trashy Korean-style take on 50 Shades of Grey. But whereas the latter is a self-described erotic romance, the K-counterpoint is a rom-com that vacillates between after-school special and workplace satire. And so, the heroine (Seohyun) isn't merely an office worker being initiated into the fine art of BDSM by an junior exec (Lee Joon-Young), she's also a woman who should've had his job and is likely working out some inner frustrations via the cords and whips and leashes. So can a courtship be pure kink? And I'll be honest: There is something romantic in seeing a man who's that vulnerable and a woman who's in control. But as a YouTube tutorial pretty quickly points out: "It's hard to engage in S&M or Dom/Sub relationships within a romantic context since lovers are ideally equally partners." (Major paraphrase!) An online forum teaches her everything else she needs to know.

Once these two have signed a written (!) contract, the training begins — she's exploring dog play at semi-respectable hotel; pressing the stilettoes of her fancy red heels into his back; and dripping hot wax on his body while he's ballgagged. Will love emerge? Well, in real life, I've known two women who fell into long-term, currently ongoing relationships that started with role-playing so why the hell not. That Park Hyeon-jin's Love & Leashes also confronts the rampant sexism in office culture and the violent misogyny that undermines kink practices of veterans like the lead's best friend (Lee El) results in a surprising film that's shockingly good.

Yaksha: Ruthless Operations: The Thing of It

You may not have heard of the Chinese city of Shenyang but it's bigger than Hong Kong, Rio, or L.A.. and home to one of the largest Koreatowns in the world. It's also the setting of the spy flick Yaksha: Ruthless Operations in which the reinstatement of self-righteous Prosecutor Han (Park Hae-soo) depends on surviving gunfights and fistfights among South Koreans, North Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and Russians what want "that thing you were going to give me" — as top black ops guy Ji Kang-in (Sol Kyung-gu) puts it. (That "thing" probably has to do with reunification!)

So can a small crew completely dressed in black take on every other nation's secret service in order to save an imperiled, orphaned daughter who likely has whatever it is they need? Writer-director Na Hyeon's crime pic has tension aplenty but no true suspense. No sane moviegoer doubts whether the good guys will prevail. This is vigilante justice, which tends to be infallible on screen. "If we were work by the law then we can't accomplish anything." And based on how the American Supreme Court is swinging, you'll likely fantasize about the three musketeers instead. (Enter Lee El, Park Jin-young, Song Jae-rim with guns cocked.)