Kingmaker: Whose Life Is It Anyway?

I've been trying to figure out why Byun Sung-hyun historical drama Kingmaker decided against being a biopic about the early political days of eventual Korean president Kim Dae-jung and his unorthodox strategist Uhm Chang-rok. Why are we instead watching a film about a fictional Kim Woon-beom (Sul Kyung-gu) and his sidekick Seo Chang-dae (Lee Sun-kyun)? Why indeed are so many of the main characters based on real-life figures but renamed as if they were someone else? Was there a fear of lawsuits related to defamation of character? Was there too much conjecture and not enough fact?

Whatever the reasons, don't them distract you. In truth, the less you know about South Korean politics from the 1970s, the more Kingmaker may captivate your attention. For the story this movie tells is a fascinating one: an election campaign in which idealism is catapulted by clever trickery despite unfavorable odds. Theft, misdirection, and betrayal all come into play as Kim struggles to put forth his populist, socialist agenda and loosen the dictatorial grip the current regime held on the country. Kingmaker has you rooting for the underdog and searching the American political landscape for a national figure akin to NYC's recently elected Zohran Mamdani. But given the backroom scheming that's able to manipulate a republic the sie of New Jersey, you know it's a big dream for the USA.

Nobody's Daughter Haewon: Some Slices of Life Aren't Filling

At one point in Nobody's Daughter Haewon, the title character (Jung Eun-chae) is perusing a copy of Norbert Elias' The Loneliness of the Dying. And death is a topic that strangely informs Hong Sang-soo's rambling slice-of-life drama about a student actress without meaningful direction. Her mother (Kim Ja-ok) is moving to Canada; her ex-lover (Lee Sun-kyun) is married with a new baby; an American professor (Kim Eui-sung) spontaneously takes her out for coffee. Haewon is basically examing what she's going to do before she dies: Will she see her mother again? Will she continue this farce of a relationship with her former professor? Will she marry a random guy she meets in a park?

An unexpected encounter with the one-and-only Jane Birkin argues for living a free life (especially if you're pretty). Will Haewon too inspire a designer purse? Will she end up in a movie directed by Martin Scorsese? Will she compete in a Miss Korea pageant? When you're young, anything seems possible. And in a way, life truly can go in many directions. Much like a Hong Sang-soo film. Reviewimg his canon, I wouldn't say this one ends up in the most interesting or enlightening place -- or that the performances are as thrillingly naturalistic as they can be despite the long shots in profile and the scenes fueled by alcohol -- but Nobody's Daughter... is nobody's total waste of time. And nothing is a secret.

A Special Lady: She's Got Alot Going On

Let me see if I've got this straight: A top level gangster (Kim Hye-su) with a prostitute backstory is looking to reconnect with her banished son (Kim Min-seok) and leave this criminal business to start a respectable life. Her boss (Choi Moo-seong) is supportive of her transition; her unhinged colleague (Lee Sun-kyun), who has drug dealer dreams, less so. The son doesn't know he's her offspring or that he was born in prison. We, as viewers, are never sure who his father is, despite what some characters say. A rival gangster whose eye she plucked out is seeking revenge since she killed his father. Equally angry is a violent prosecutor (Lee Hee-joon) who she blackmailed with a sextape costarring her not-so-bright protege (Oh Ha-nee).

To call Lee Ann-kyu's A Special Lady complicated is an understatement. But understated is definitely the heroine's conversational style, despite the anime-worthy bleached-blonde hairdo. She's also one of the few people in town who owns a gun so when everyone comes at her with a knife, she just keeps shooting them down. When she's out of bullets, she picks up a pair of scissors. Nothing can stop her. Who else would cross town to reunite with an ex with a knife still embedded in her thigh. No wonder this movie culminates with a marriage proposal. From whom or whether she accepts is neither here nor there. This movie has gone down the action movie rabbit hole.

Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage: Bad Dudes Are Bad News

Has the anti-hero trope run its course? Has the lone wolf who breaks all the rules morphed into the antisocial jerk who acts from a strictly self-serving interest? Are we really in the corners of assholes who don't appear to care about anyone but themselves simply because the world is shitting on them? Is charisma really enough to elevate a jerk to hero status? I grow depressed typing out these questions but I don't know what else to conclude from writer-director Lee Jeong-beom's corrupt-cop thriller Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage. It was the worst of times. It was the worst of men.

So let's concentrate on the women.

The wife (Lee Young-yoo) of the title character (Lee Sun-kyun) is pretty fascinating. She's supportive and independent, criminal without being corrupt, tough without being mean. She'd make a good lead! So would the film's ingenue (Jeon So-nee). She's got a sense of ethics, a streak of rebellion, and a decidedly unglamorous way of dressing. We don't spend nearly enough time with either of these ladies though. Instead, we watch as Jo Pil-ho mouths off, gets beats up, cheats, betrays, and poops out bullets for the 3-D laser-printed gun he's hidden in his faux arm cast. Not that this clever stratagem is going to prevent him from getting pummelled for the umpteenth time. Jo's a schmuck pretending to be an antihero who thinks he's a good guy when he's actually a boor.

A Hard Day: Not-So-Good Cop, Not-So-Bad Cop

At what point does a sleazy cop (Lee Sun-kyun) who's committed a hit-and-run murder become sympathetic to you? Is it after you've realized that the person he's accidentally killed is a serial killer? Or is it once you've learned that the phone caller (Jo Jin-woong) harassing him for committing said reprehensible crime has a more sordid history in — and outside — the police department that employs them both? Or is it, sentimentalist that you are, when the car-crashing cop's innocent family is threatened by the unknown witness to his crime? For me, that turning point never happened. And that's not a bad thing.

In a world that appears to embrace antiheroes because of their charm, their snappy one-liners, and their adherence to a dubious moral code, A Hard Day feels refreshing for having a protagonist who is, when you stop to think about it, pretty irredeemable. He's a self-absorbed, petty, disrespectful bully who you're happy to see get his just desserts even as you wish the same unfortunate comeuppance for his nemesis. When the two butt heads, you wish they'll both get concussions in the process. The closest writer-direct Kim Seong-hoon's highly entertaining thriller comes to sympathetic characters are the understatedly hunky detective (Jeong Man-sik) who's left a trail of receipts documenting his illegal use of government funds to hire prostitutes, and the squad chief (Sin Jeong-geun) who apparently will look the other way, regardless of the crime. The rest of the department is pretty forgettable.

In a nice Aristotelian touch, the entire action of A Hard Day is supposed to take place within one single day. (Hence, the title.) Although that feels highly unlikely, it does give the action a sense of speed that heightens the excitement. One assumes, the lead character will deal with the divorce papers he's served early on tomorrow.

Paju: Movies Can Have Their Own Language

Paju is a city located just south of the 38th parallel. In fact, it's so close to North Korea, that on clear days, you can see the North Korean bordertown of Kaesong from certain vantage points in the city. Given this proximity, it's no surprise that Paju is home to more than its fair share of military bases -- both American and homegrown. Yet none of this comes into play in Park Chan-ok's film of the same name. At least, not in the most obvious way.

I mean, there's militancy. But it's on the part of some housing rights activists/squatters who engage in actual warfare against unsympathetic developers. There's a very personal territorial battle -- specifically, over an inherited homestead that increasingly becomes a source of volatile contention. There's even border-crossing, if you're willing to stretch the meaning to include (as I am) an affair between a disoriented drifter (Seo Woo) and the man (Lee Sun-kyun) who may or may not have killed her none-too-bright sister (Shim Yi-young).

Holy smoke, that's a whole lot of metaphor. And to be honest, I don't know that this is Park's intent at all. Plus, I'm still stumped by the significance of the boiling water that gets spilled on the unattended baby, the silver fox of a nightclub owner (Lee Kyeong-yeong) who rides around in a fancy car and silently makes his backseat window go up and down or the final scooter ride to somewhere or other. All of these items feel laden with meaning.

I'm pretty sure that if you asked Park, she'd be able to tell you exactly what her intent is. Paju feels like a movie eager for interpretation and explication. Which isn't surprising when you learn that Park is one of Korea's few female directors. You just know that she had to work hard to get this — her second feature — made and she hardly seems likely to have gone to all that trouble if she didn't have something interesting to say. That it's not that easy to decode doesn't diminish the probability of wanting to watch it again. And maybe even, again. Isn't that what you do for a poem?