The Neighbors: A Real Nail-Biter

Everyone knows that taste is subjective and personal yet how do we classify those movies that we really like that we know aren't "good" by the criteria that we'd normally apply? Especially when we can't deny how much these films are entirely to our liking? I'm not outlining a "so bad it's good" scenario. This is more like "flawed but still in favor." Personally, I was enraptured with Kim Hwi's serial killer thriller The Neighbors even as I knew I'd have a hard time defending it if another viewer started citing all the things that this movie does wrong. Does the little girl (Kim Sae-ron) who gets murdered have a terrible wig? Oh my god, yes. Does her prolonged psychological torture make us feel icky as moviegoers? I'm afraid that's true too. Does the actress (Kim Yunjin) who plays her grieving stepmother overact? Repeatedly so. Is the running bit in which a magpie keeps meddling in human affairs come across as a bit far-fetched? For many, I'm sure it will. And yet...

Sometimes, it's fun to have a bad guy (Kim Sung Kyun) who projects hair-raising creepiness with constantly dead eyes; and a cheery delivery boy (Do Ji-han) who can solve a violent crime based on the timing of when the pizza pies are ordered; and a suitcase salesman (Lim Ha-ryong) who can lick a combination lock code into place with his nimble tongue; and multiple instances of people pretending to be on the phone and then having those same phones ring! Plus ghosts seeking posthumous justice! And for those who won't watch the nailbiting Neighbors for all these reasons, there's at least the presence of a less bulky Ma Dong-seok, in an earlier phase of his career, stealing every scene in which he appears. So you can pretend that's the one reason you really like it.

Holy Night: Demon Hunters: Aerobic Exorcise

"My honey loves his exorcisms," my bofriend says to me. And he's right. I'm an easy one to please when it comes to movies about spirit possession. Which means I'm definitely the target audience for Holy Night: Demon Hunters, a film in which Ma Dong-seok (b.k.a. Don Lee in Hollywood) clobbers Satan's minions with well-aimed punches and his sidekick videographer played earnestly by Lee Da-witt faithfully records the fisticuffs for posterity. The true hero of Lim Dae-hee's directorial debut, however, is the silver-streaked Sharon (Seohyun of KPop sensation Girls Generation) who can instinctively smell out evil and has mastered the tried-and-true rituals for getting those nasty devils to leave their human hosts, without ever damaging her manicure.

Per usual, holy water stings, voice registers drop, youthful faces decompose, and rooms turn ice-cold as Sharon frantically works to get the parasitic spirit to confess its name in order to banish the ghoul back to hell. Also per usual, a loved one -- in this case, the devoted sister (Gyeong Su Jin) of the victim (Jung Ji-so) -- almost foils all these efforts as she battles her own personal biases as a neuroscientist and her naivete as a bewildered sibling. Even the subpar special F/X feel on brand, although simply turning the camera upsidedown is more silly than scary. As a fan of the ridiculous, I have no notes to give. And my boyfriend watched the whole thing with me, suggesting some simple pleasures have a diabolically broad appeal.

One on One: Point Made, Point Taken

Indie auteur Kim Ki-duk has never been shy about embedding a message within his films. That's no exception with One on One, his didactic movie about the inherent evil of obedient capitalism. That's not the only message, comrade. For Kim's also critiquing inherited violence as a viable tool for effecting change. It's simply what we have that's readily available. We never really learn why the daughter of Ma Dong-seok's unnamed character has been murdered or exactly how this vigilante boss-man has managed to put together a camouflaged crew of six to exact revenge on those responsible for his child's death. I'm not even sure why one of the establishment's underlings gets gassed while another gets electrocuted while another gets his hand smashed by a hammer. There might be a logic that's evading me. The main message I'm receiving is this: Everyone is complicit; a few feel guilt.

Despite Kim's atypical casting of a bona fide action star (Ma Dong-seok) in the lead role, Kim's agitprop pic mostly adheres to an underground esthetic and a renegade style. The settings feel makeshift; the script was supoosedly written on site over a period of ten days; the violence looks fake; the dialogue is stilted. Don't get me wrong. I'm not dissuading you from watching this flick. Because One one One possesses a sense of purpose that makes it impossible to dismiss outright. The unpolished aspect of this film is the point, right? And if it isn't, it certainly could be.

The Roundup: No Way Out: Here He Goes Again

The Roundup movie franchise so far seems to get less plausible and more habit-forming with each new installment. No Way Out, the third entry, has made its hero — Detective Ma Suk Do (Ma Dong-seok) — a cardboard cutout containing infallible intuition and insane physical resillience. He can figure out where the bad guys are going, where they're hiding the drugs, and even what kind of punch is about to be thrown on the spot, more often than not. More impressive still, he can get hit in the head with a lead pipe repeatedly and come up swinging. His most fearsome opponents this time around are the Japanese "fixer" Ricky (Munetaka Aoki) and the stylish sociopath Joo Seong-Cheol (Lee Jun-hyuk). Ma's support crew is neither as fierce nor particularly memorable because The Roundup movies are ultimately about a one-man-operation committed to JUSTICE while wearing a tight shirt.

From its opening scene in which Ma takes down a cluster of thugs on the street right on through the final fistfights in which knives aren't merely ineffective but broken with a punch, Lee Sang-yong's entertaining action pic is ultimately a corny vehicle for Ma's undeniable teddy bear charm. I certainly cringe at the notion that people are more likely to confess or cooperate with a cop if met with physical violence but No Way Out is unapologetic about its messed-up politics. Maybe this is what the fascists want: a bulky do-gooder who instinctively knows right from wrong and beats the latter into a pulp then acts like a little boy until the next crime comes up on the police radar.

Badland Hunters: Ma Dong-seok Survives the Apocalpyse

Everytime I see the words "co-produced by Netflix" (or words to that effect) in a Korean movie's opening credits, my heart sinks a bit. Having worked at a TV network that meddled detrimentally with their shows, I feel qualified to detect inept input — often about making things a little less strange and a little more generic. In martial artist-turned-director Heo Myeong haeng's Badland Hunters what might've been an above-decent zombie movie arrives instead as a fright flick that looks like a video game. And so, like most shooter games, this action pic reveles in bullets to the head, exploding skulls, splattered blood, and cracking bones. Primary players — I mean, characters — recover from injuries in record time while most of the other people onscreen are scenery.

I don't know whether to blame leading man Ma Dong-seok (a.k.a. Don Lee) or bless him for Badland Hunters. He's definitely the film's saving grace, dominating every scene with a prime Bruce Willis persona that relates equal parts worldweariness and bemusement. He's also, like the American title of his earlier film, pretty much "unstoppable." Whether his opponent is a body-regenerating mutant or a mad scientist with a machine gun, this loveable lug never blinks an eye. They have an arsenal, he has a butter knife? No problem. He's going to make them sorry they thought they had a chance. All human-testing in the post-apocalypse ends here!

Champion: Armwrestler on the Rise

Kim Yong-wan's Champion is an incredibly endearing sports movie with a revoltingly slimy character just off center. Clearly, I'm not talking about the film's hero (Ma Dong-seok), a down-on-his-luck armwrestler who's returned to Korea from the U.S. where he'd been working as a depressed nightclub bouncer. Nor am I referring to his armwrestling sponsor (Yang Hyun-min), an extortionist, mini-mafioso, big time gambler, and all-around bully. No. I mean the protagonist's spiffily-dressed BFF (Kwon Yul), a slick con artist with big dreams that bank on his buddy's full cooperation in questionable endeavors. This plot devise — he's hard to accept as a human being — is so transparent in his shady behavior that you may wonder if the hero has a screw loose or has a debt of incalculable magnitude.

Such payments aside, I was much more interested about our main guy's relationship to his newly found half-sister (Han Yeri) and her adorable kids (Choi Seung-hoon, Ok Ye-rin). In fact, I'd argue that there's a better version of this script in which the oily sidekick doesn't exist at all. Isn't an expat returning to his homeland to find a new family and long-deffered success against the odds enough for us viewers? We don't need to lose the thugs, the corrupt system, the adoption, the wins and losses, the party-crashing, the family bonding, the underdog story, the acupuncture scene, the ex-con rival (Lee Kyu-ho), the inevitably upbeat end. I love underdog stories. But I hate the middleman. Let's drop the middleman! Isn't that always a good policy?

The Bros: Siblings in Death

How many times have I started The Bros? Four times? Six times? More? A comedy you don't find funny is always a tough film to finish, even if it's the only Korean feature in the Netflix lineup that you haven't seen. Yet today, I am committed. And so, once again, I cue up the movie, hit play, and watch the story of two antagonistic brothers seeking resolution and riches at their grandfather's fortune-making funeral. Brother number one is Suk-bong (Ma Dong-seok), an impoverished history professor in search of two gold Buddha statuettes; brother number two is Joo-bong (Lee Dong-hwi), a low-level exec who works for a development company that wants to plow through the hometown.

Once the family secrets come out, as they often do at such occasions, nothing will be as it was: bloodlines will be questioned as well as who is alive and who is dead. Despite the dire predicaments, a happy ending seems inevitably ahead. But this comedy of manners requires a greater understanding of Korean cultural rituals and mores than I have, even with my many years of reviewing Korean movies, in order to generate laughs. Would the slapstick, fashion choices, family dynamics in Jang You-jeong's silly satire be riotous if I understood the references, taboos, and transgressions throughout? Until I get there, I'll have to settle for a kooky mom (Lee Hanee) and fraternal love.

Exchange: Deep Trap: Don't Have Kids

How far would you go to get pregnant? I'm not talking surgical operations or fertility pills. I'm talking drinking booze spiked with giant centipedes, eating a boiled eyeball, downing a shot of fresh boar's blood, and chewing on a fetal egg. Would you do that? Do you want a baby so bad that you'd basically do anything suggested by some crazy guy (Ma Dong-seok) who runs a backwoods cafe that you discovered on the internet? Would you let your husband (Jo Han-seon) sleep with this guy's mute sex slave (Ji An) — who may his sister, his wife or his adopted daughter — simply to combat erectile dysfunction? Before you answer that, let me ask one other question: Does the person who says "yes" to these questions sound like someone who would make a good parent?

I've certainly never wanted a kid that bad. Nor have I suffered the pain of a miscarriage. (And director Kwon Hyeong-jin's Exchange acknowledges that such a loss can be traumatic for the man as well as the woman.) What I do know, however, is that when such a person (Kim Min-kyeong) is willing to go to such extremes, the price is going to be higher than expected. Violence in all its forms will be in no short supply. One ridiculous touch: The impotent husband is repeatedly seen wearing the brand Le Coq Sportif! There's little humor in this film, though. This is Ma at his grimmest. Not fun.

The Outlaws 2: The Roundup

The Outlaws 2 is a very stabby movie. By which I mean, the weapon of choice is the knife for pretty much everyone. That's true for our villain (Son Sukku). Same for his blade-wielding bestie. Same for the brother assassins our villain hires when his bestie lands in the hospital. Same for a bistro's worth of serial sous chefs hired by a rich man (Nam Mun-cheol) to avenge one disarmed son. Everyone bad favors the knife. I mean everyone. Even the deranged hostage-taker in the movie's opening scene. Even the pathetic scam artist (Park Ji-hwan) who's mainly here for comic relief: The diminutive size of his switchblade is a cause for the titters.

Which begs the question. Who, in this universe of stainless steel stained with blood, prefers to fight by other means? And I don't mean the hatchet which also makes at least one appearnace. Well, our hero police officer (Ma Dong-seok) prefers using his fist. His sidekick of a captain (Choi Gwi-hwa) opts for the handgun should one become available. And the rich man's wife (Park Ji-young) who has her own negotiations with the stabbing maniac, she just uses her brains... and when that doesn't work, she runs! Funnily enough, though, the most exciting scene in Lee Sang-Yong's action-packed sequel isn't one of its many slice-and-dice bloodbaths. It's an extended car chase involving many vehicles and not dependent on endless crashes to create the drama.

Please Note: The Outlaws 2 goes by the title The Roundup and you don't need to have seen the previous film to make sense of the murderous mayhem.

The Outlaws: Superheroes Without Capes

Although you'd hardly find The Outlaws listed under fantasy films, Kang Yoon-seong's energetic crime pic has a superhero of sorts at its center despite being based on a true story involving Chinese-Korean gang warfare circa 2007. Detective Ma (Ma Dong-seok) can outmaneuver, outmuscle, and outthink any crook on his beat, and anyone who doubts that is about to get a serious schooling. Small surprise his boss (Choi Gwi-hwa) constantly defers to his judgment while a local busboy pretty much idolizes him. He's got his weaknesses — broads, booze, and bribes — but you get the feeling he's always respectful of the first and generally mindful of the second. As for the money he extorts on the street, in The Outlaws, it's all in good fun. (I know. I know.)

Ma isn't the only character who comes across as a smarter, stronger humanoid from another world. His nemesis Jang Chen, (the fabulously wigged Yoon Kye-sang) is equally next-level — albeit on the evil side which always has a better stylist. As the new bully in town, Jang exudes the inhuman confidence that can accompany being a sadist willing to inflict pain for the pettiest of reasons. His primary backup boys share his cruel streak so when push comes to shove, it often involves sledge hammers or other tools of destruction. My main quibble with this 2017 blockbuster is that the women are basically hookers and hostesses. I count on Korean films to deliver strong female roles. When they don't, I'm sad. Perhaps Kang had Hollywood biases on the brain.

Derailed: In Praise of Ma Don-seok

There are a few Korean actors who I'll see in anything: Song Kang-ho, Choi Min-sik, and Choi Eun-hie. Add Ma Don-seok to this short list. The hunky actor memorably came to my attention in the peerless zombie thriller Train to Busan in which he played one adorable, indestructible husband whose battles with the undead remain a highlight of the film. Since then I've seen him in Ashfall, Unstoppable, and Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days and this guy always delivers. Impossibly charismatic and appealingly rough, he's a true seducer who manages to balance danger and deliciousness in a marquee-worthy way.

Those two contrasting qualities play out in a strange way in Lee Seong-tae's savage crime pic Derailed since his character here is an uneasy mix of the likeable and the despicable. On the good side, he's a doting father, a flirtatious husband, a righteous fighter who recognizes integrity; on the bad, he's a pimp, a swindler, a bully, and a dumbkoff. Do you root for him when he's pitted against a young car thief (Choi Min-ho) trying to rescue his runaway girlfriend (Jung Da-eun) from "the life" and a recently released, psycho ex-con (Kim Jae-young) who has some justifiable grudges? I couldn't decide. Derailed is one of those movies in which no one looks like a potential friend. Ever. It's also a very violent film where people are punched, pummeled, kicked, and baseball-batted only to recover impossibly quickly. There's blood and bruises aplenty but no swelling. Perhaps there are myriad ice-packs off-screen?

Ashfall: Disaster as Reality

It occurred to me when watching Kim Byung-seo's and Lee Hae-jun's Ashfall that there are only two kinds of movies worth making right now. One concerns exposing the truth on an at-least-somewhat-political scale. The other involves confronting catastrophes on an international level. In the first category, we've got movies like Dark Waters and even First Reformed. In the second group, we've got films like... well, like Ashfall. This action-packed disaster film involves a series of volcanic eruptions — inevitably caused by mankind's ongoing decimation of the planet — that threaten to destroy about fifty percent of the Korean peninsula. That the explosions are all taking place in North Korea, naturally makes any potential intervention that much more complicated.

Who will save the day? Certainly not the arrogant American industrial-military complex! So can anyone? Or, counter to the one hero saves all narrative, are a whole bunch of people going to be called upon to work together in order to pull off one risky solution? If you're hoping for once it's the latter, good news: Ashfall involves a whole crew of people — a reluctant professor (Ma Dong-seok, cast against type), a political prisoner (Lee Byung-hun), and a bomb-defuser (Ha Jung-woo) as well as a number of women in important roles like a high-ranking government official (Jeon Hye-jin) and a particularly effective female soldier who sadly does not currently get a credit on IMDb. Each of these players must dig deep, break some rules, jeopardize their careers, and risk their lives in order to potentially accomplish what's a long shot to begin with. And no, not everyone survives.

Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days: What the Hell!

A movie can take its inspiration from anywhere: a great book, a bad book, a play, a graphic novel, or in this case, a webtoon. As you might guess given this particular source material, Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days isn't exactly realistic. Director Kim Yong-hwa's episodic tale of the underworld is instead a combination of video game action, Medieval redemption, and modern-day dramedy.

It's a complicated plot full of flashbacks and flashbacks in flashbacks, a story in which you may struggle to reconcile financially struggling humans on earth with costumed judges in the Hells of Filial Impiety, Indolence, Deceit, Betrayal, Injustice, Violence, and Murder. So many hells! So many green screens!

None of these hells are scary, mind you. The ravenous raptors and the firey Go-Bots, much like the CGI wolves and the animated tiger, are creatures more likely to surface via your PG-rated Xbox than by way of your worst nightmares. The closest thing this flick has to a real threat is the dwindling value of the mutual funds which the caretaker-grandfather (Nam Il-woo) and his guardian angel (Ma Dong-seok) pray will provide for the future of their young charge's future. As for the corny jokes and silly gags we've come to expect in action pics, one grim reaper (Ju Ji-hoon) does drink a chamber pot of urine. But overall, the comedy is more tonal than actual. So what's the point? "No one is innately bad. There are only bad circumstances," quips someone near the end. You could say the same about many movies.

Unstoppable: This Husband Is One Hard-Hitting Hero

Let's start with Unstoppable's hero. That's Dong-chul (Ma Dong-seok). He's got the eyes of a puppy dog and the body of a mack truck. That means when his practical, pretty wife Ji-soo (Song Ji-hyo) gets kidnapped to be sold into the sex slave trade, he comes out swinging. "That bro is notorious for his fist," says his sidekick Chun-sik (Park Ji-hwan) and he ain't kidding. This guy punches like a humanoid sledgehammer as he knocks out one thug after another. What's a stab wound or getting hit by an SUV to him? Nothing when it means saving his love from a greedy pimp!

So now let's talk about this movie's wacky but watchable villain. He's the diabolical Ki-tae (Kim Seong-ho), a man with an insane laugh and insaner eyes, a greedy-ass crime lord who can't imagine anything but cold hard cash as a motivator in life. "He's a crazy lunatic who thinks money can buy anything," says someone at one point. Which leads us to believe he's highly motivated since he's incredibly rich. He may have bought himself some kind of superpowers along the way too as he alone seems to be able to survive an endless array of Dong-chul's punches to the head even after emerging from a car crash. Perhaps he invested in titanium steel plates for his skull in a scene that mistakenly got cut.

Together these two are engaged in a fight to the finish. Each has his memorable BFFs — a mulleted private eye (Kim Min-jae) for one; a weasel-y chauffeur (Lee Sung-woo) for the other — but the joys of Kim Min-ho's fast-paced thriller are really those that come with watching a hunky, working class hero beat up the big (Park Gwang-jae), the bad, and the beautiful. To paraphrase a well-known boxing phrase: May the best man win...repeatedly.

Fun Fact: The movie poster's truth-in-advertising tag line is "The beast has been released."

Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time: Buoyant Slime

Choi Min-sik's career encompasses a rogues' gallery worth of tough guys: the serial killer in I Saw the Devil, the title character in The Admiral, the washed-up pugilist in Crying Fist, and — perhaps most hauntingly — the vigilante/victim in Park Chan-wook's messed-up masterpiece Oldboy. Yet as tough as all these guys were, Choi's character in Nameless Gangster could probably beat them all. It's not that he's physically stronger, more intellectually limber, or naturally bloodthirstier. It's simply that he's a shameless slime-ball who backstabs like nobody's business, an evil Everyman with a chip on his shoulder. Never has an ingratiating laugh felt more like a secret weapon.

Indeed there's something so believably sleazy about Choi Ik-hyun, the wheeling and dealing gangster played by the actor, that your disgust rises and rises each time he gets out of another jam by screwing somebody else over. His one-upmanship of a younger, more seasoned gangster (Ha Jung-woo) is ingenious; his self-serving coercion of his brother-in-law (Ma Dong-seok) into a life of crime is heartless; his outmaneuvering of an ambitious prosecutor (Kwak Do-won) is infuriating. When you're loyal to none, evidently, there's no place to go but up! As the old adage goes: "Poop floats."

Writer-director Yun Jong-bin has presented us with an uncomfortably cynical point of view of every level of society: the judicial system, the police department, organized crime, the workplace, your family, your hometown, you name it. And yet, despite Choi's continual deceits, at no point do you feel, "Oh this could never happen" or "someone would have caught on by now." We've all lived with and/or worked with reprehensible success stories like Choi's double-dealer. He's our relative, our boss, our elected official, our next door neighbor, our social studies teacher. Humanity is horrible.

Kundo: Age of the Rampant: Our Friends and Family on Screen

I'm not above having imaginary relationships with movie stars. I may not put posters on my bedroom walls or gossip about my celluloid boyfriend but there are definitely performers I've enjoyed meeting and looked forward to seeing again; actor whom I wanted to be a bigger part of my life; actors who I miss after I haven't seen them for awhile and greet with pleasure when they reappear. Ma Dong-seok fells into this category: He's in my inner circle, I mean I frankly adore him, although that wasn't always the case.

Over the years, our paths had crossed numerous times: He played the gang boss in Rough Play, a section chief in New World, and an ineffectual detective in Azooma. So sure I kind of knew him but honestly, we didn't really get that close until just very recently. His role as a lovable lug with a pregnant girlfriend in Train to Busan and now his turn as a rebel-thief in Kundo: Age of the Rampant has really brought us much closer than I'd ever expected. People are funny that way. Mind you, he's not the lead in Kundo, Yun Jong-bin's crowd-pleasing, action-packed historical drama about revolutionaries fighting a corrupt government in 19th-century Joseon.

That honor (or responsibility) falls to Ha Jung-woo who plays a politically enlightened butcher with a debt to settle and two cleavers to do it with. And Ha's great. He really is. So are co-stars Yun Ji-hye (as an archer with a low tolerance for bullshit) and Kang Dong-won (as the bastard son who takes his grudges a little too far). But I only had eyes for Ma. I guess that's just the kind of friend I am.

It's so nice to make new friends but you know what? Now I need to find out if Ma is in a film with my other buddy Song Kang-ho. It would be so great if there was a way for the three of us to hang out together for a night. Life is short. Way too short. So spend it with the people you love, right?

Train to Busan: Zombies on Track

People are brain-dead. People might as well be dead for all the meaning their lives have. We can never escape the dead. So many meanings behind zombies in pop culture, right? Yet in a weird way, they're all related in that they all have to do with personal responsibility. If we're brain dead, who's fault is it? If our lives have no meaning, who could best change that? If we're haunted by our pasts, how do we reconcile ourselves to them? Thrillingly, Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busann addresses those big questions repeatedly instead of just serving us up the ravenous zombie, an image that frankly had started to decay.

What's changed isn't the zombies. Nope. They're still bloodthirsty, dangerous, infectious, crazed, and in this case, fast. It's the humans. In this very well-constructed, multi-layered script, Yeon has assembled a nice cadre of survivors: a ruthless investor (Gong Yoo), his sweet-natured daughter (Kim Soo-an), a big-hearted lug (Ma Dong-seok), his pregnant wife (Jeong Yu-mi), a shy baseball player (Choi Woo-sik), his girlfriend (Sohee) and a homeless guy (Choi Gwi-ha). You'll notice that all the women are defined by the men. A problem, agreed, but they're at least not completely helpless. Just watch that pregnant woman run!

And as the chemically-induced disease (caused by man's greed, what else?) spreads across South Korea (I'm guessing the North is safe), this small group (on a speeding commuter train out of Seoul) must fight with their paranoid peers (especially one deplorable businessman) as well as against the hungry hordes in order to survive. The rabidity of these zombies is something to behold, whether they're literally exploding through windows or racing up escalators, jumping on train cars or grasping on to the caboose (and then grasping on to the guy grasping on to the caboose, and then grasping on to the guy who's grasping on to the guy, etc.). The last time I saw a Korean horror movie this exquisite was Bong Joon-ho's The Host. Yes, Train to Busan is that good!

Azooma: Momma's Got a Bite That's Worse Than Her Bark

Theoretically, I could've missed a very short-but-telling scene while glancing over at the snoring old woman sitting next to me in the theater. That unglimpsed moment in Azooma would explain how the title character (played by Jang Young-nam) knows for sure who her daughter's rapist is. Which isn't to say there aren't some very leading indicators. Like a man (Hwang Taekwang) who repeatedly drives down the street outside her daughter's school and says, "Hey, little girl. Want a ride?" Like a man, the same man no less, with highly sexualized artwork of characters from children's fables on his apartment walls. But isn't that all too circumstantial? Would any of it hold it up in a court of law? Probably not. From what I can tell though, Azooma simply trusts the very vivid dreams she has of her daughter's abduction and assumes that the rapist is supporting her theory by wearing the same baseball cap, the same khaki pants and the same gray pullover that he's wearing in her dreams. Works for me!

Naturally, the police are no help. The detective (Ma Dong-seok) assigned to the case is always procrastinating even after Azooma has tracked down the pedophile herself. Her ex-husband (Bae Seong-woo) doesn't want to be seen with his former wife, regardless of what's happened to their kid. Her daughter (Lee Jae-hee) at most does a few drawings that clue her in to where the pervert lives. Since no one's going to help her get justice, Azooma takes matters into her own hands and exacts an extreme revenge. To give you a clue as to how extreme, let's just say that before Azooma was an inefficient insurance saleswoman, she was a clumsy dental hygienist and she still has keys to the dentist's office and access to all his tools. It's also worth noting that the violence becomes incredibly graphic at this point. In his directorial debut, Lee Ji-seung doesn't shy away from showing a drill carving a way at a molar to the point of blood or the equally bloody remains of a forced extraction. By that point, the old lady sitting next to me had left the theater. Theoretically, she had to go to the bathroom.