A Mother's Love: An Actor's Legacy

The great actor Ahn Sung-ki passed away earlier this year. But my, what an impressive body of work he left behind. Who can forget him as the master archer in Kim Sung-su's thrilling Musa - The Warriors (2001) or the heavy drinking journalist in Jeong Ji-yeong's moving White Badge (1992) or the nomadic monk in Im Kwon-taek's brilliant Mandala (1981)? Strictly random examples from the latter part of his career! Looking further back, we realize that Ahn was nearly as good as a five-year-old actor in Yang Ju-nam's weepie A Mother's Love (1958) as he was as a 60-something legend in Kim Joo-hwan's pulpy The Divine Fury (2019), decades later.

The earlier film is pure melodrama: Ahn plays a well-behaved young boy dropped off by his ailing mother (Lee Kyoung-hee) at the home of his married dad (Lee Min) who knocked up his mom during a one-night-stand during the war. Daddy's new wife (Jo Mi-lyeong) isn't immediately taken with her new potential charge, even if she's been unable to have any babies herself. So will she abandon the child at a neighborhood playground or a nearby orphanage? Will she let him stay at the house then depart herself as a divorcee? If she's got any sense, she'll keep him close and stay put because Ahn has an amazing future ahead. Trust me. I've seen a good swath of it.

Yeraishyang: The Student and the Sex Worker

We've all heard the one about the hooker with the heart of gold. Yet how about the whore with blood of gold? She's one of the leads in Jeong Chang-hwa's pleasurable melodrama Yeraishyang. How else to categorize a lady-of-the-night (Moon Jeong-seok) who saves the life of a penniless protester (Shin Sung-il) by donating her alcoholic blood for his needed transfusion? And once you've gone that far for a stranger, why not sacrifice everything else? He needs money? Sell your jewels. He needs a place to stay? Put him up for a while. He wants your love, too? Um. That's when things get complicated.

Because one is always one's dirty past as much as one is one's self-sacrificing present. In this cabaret dancer's case, that means "once a drunk, always a drunk" until she ends up in rehab at the National Psychiatric Hospital. There, she'll suffer the indignities of no makeup, no hairbrush, and an unflattering housecoat as well as the delirium tremens. She'll also emerge a new woman. Not the one who begs her boyfriend to slap her. No, she was always there. I'm talking about the embittered siren committed to revenging her dad after meeting a pipe-smoking old, Chinese man. The third act of this pulpy black-and-white may catch you offguard but it's pretty fun stuff.

Farewell to the Duman River: Im Kwon-Taek's Strong Start

It's kind of amazing that celebrated Korean director Im Kwon-taek's first film, Farewell to the Duman River, led to such an illustrious career. This melodramatic war pic isn't your conventional crowd-pleaser or arthouse crossover with atmospheric music in short supply, an extended chase scene fairly devoid of tension, and periodic jumpcuts that jar the viewer with no clear intent. And yet, Im's maiden voyage into moviemaking is definitely more than watchable, and not just for its feel-good story of revolutionary college students and their endless shootoffs with the Japanese.

What makes Farewell to the Duman River so undeniably delightful is the trio of actresses driving much of the action. Moon Jeong-suk plays a femme fatale supplying the rebels with needed info while Kim Hye-jung captivates as a man-hungry mountain-girl triggered into heat by the wounded hero. Neither woman is a match however for Eom Aeng-ran. In the role of the lead's pregnant girlfriend, she goes from demurely seeing her man off to war to robbing the family safe to turning the tables on an amoral uncle (Heo Jang-kang) to chasing the enemy through the snow with a machinegun and not one ounce of mercy. The gun-fight on skis got me delirious yet nothing beats a good ol' fashioned machine gun mama.

The Widow: Females First, Female Firsts

Quick. What's the first Korean movie directed by a woman? Yeah, I didn't know the answer either and that's too bad because Park Nam-ok's The Widow is actually really, really good. This despite missing the final footage and having the ten minutes preceding that missing footage devoid of sound. How many movies can you say are unquestionably worth watching even though you never get to see the end? Well, The Widow is one of that select few. Part of the movie's appeal can be attributed to Lee Min-ja who brings a lot of complexities to the lead character, the single mother Shin: She seems crafty by necessity, devoted but only to a point. She's neither the hero nor the villain; she's more a self-respecting woman trying to get by in very less-than-ideal circumstances. You can't blame her for manipulating her husband's old friend, the rich Mr. Lee (Shin Dong-hun), and you've got to appreciate Park's unexpectedly bold presentation of her as a far-from-perfect mother to her petulant and needy child Ju (Lee Seong-ju).

Also hard not to relish is how the sex symbol of The Widow is neither Shin nor the philandering Mrs. Lee (and certainly not the prostitute who lives down the street). It's Taek (Lee Tak-kyun), the unofficial lifeguard we first meet wearing only a bathing suit even as our protagonist is hanging out on the same beach in traditional raiment with a parasol over her head. You could say, he's The Widow's homme fatale who will lead Shin to compromise herself in her family, to indebt herself to a married man, and to drink hard liquor. He's not trying to ruin this lady's life. He simply can't help cause all-around grief and destruction. Just ask his former love, Mrs. Lee.

Romance Gray: Two Old Men, Two Young Ladies

The movies of Shin Sang-ok are the cinematic equivalent of summer stock: You see the same actors over and over: sometimes with bad age makeup and powdered wigs; more often in typecast roles they've played before. Here Shin regulars Han Eun-jin, Shin Yeong-gyun, Kim Seung-ho, and Choi Eun-hie are all back on board for Romance Gray (a.k.a. Love Affair), a lighthearted melodrama about a pair of philandering husbands, who get caught by their dowdy wives, in affairs with two women who hustle at the local bar. The initial advice proffered at the sewing bee is that cuckqueans need to spend more time on their appearance. But these two ladies escape a fate worse than divorce by unexpected means outside the powder room.

For the wife of the college professor, the plot will involve extortion, a fake mustache, an instant photo, and some martial arts moves. For the wife of the company president, the resolution will follow a forgotten pajama top, a righteously smashed-up apartment, two boozing broads, and some runaway kids who may or may not return. Yet despite all the drinking and shouting, most folks do get back together. Just not all... And that one loose thread is what makes this a pretty darned good genre picture.

Footnote: Romance Gray's screenwriter Lim Hee-jae also wrote the scripts for Madam White Snake, My Mother and Her Guest, and Seong Chun-hyang. Kudos to him!

Beasts of Prey: The Return of Insect Woman

Kim Ki-young's late-career melodrama Beasts of Prey is also known as Carnivore and Carnivorous Animals in English-speaking countries but it might just as easily have been called Insect Woman 2 or The Return of Insect Woman or Child of the Insect Woman so indebted is it to the 1972 film that would set the tone for most of Kim's kooky output for the next decade. Repeating plot points include a young woman forced into prostitution by economics who then ends up wreaking havoc on the family of the patriarch who stole her virginity; an insatiably hungry baby that miraculously appears shortly after that middle-aged man is doped into a vasectomy; a bratty, self-important son who swears off vegetables and meat for a diet consisting entirely of honey; an out-of-control rat infestation problem in the basement of the family's country estate; a contractual agreement that divides daddy's time between two households — twelve hours in each.

Some changes work better in Beasts of Prey than previously — the sex scene on the glass table covered with spilled candies; the concubine's insistence that her lover wear a diaper and bib to turn back the clock. Most improvements, however, do not. The look of Beasts of Prey is very akin to that of a 1980s prime time TV soap opera; the acting recalls the comic stridency of early John Waters flicks. Sadly missing is the "infant versus rat" battle, the shadowy figure in the refrigerator, and the demented snarls of the female protagonist. A narrative thread involving gigolos who target middle-aged women also gets dropped too quickly while the barmaid with the mullet should've had more screen time for her hairdo alone.

Confessions of a College Student: Family Scam

One of the pleasures that comes with binging a bunch of Shin Sang-ok movies from the late 1950s and early '60s (a time when the director was cranking out two to five movies per year) is seeing certain actors reappear alongside his wife and muse Choi Eun-hie. Here, in Confessions of a College Student — a women's picture of Sirkian proportions, Shin regulars Kim Seung-ho (Dongshimcho, Sister's Garden, Lee Seung-man and the Independence Movement) and Choi Nam-hyeon (The Youth, Prince Yeonsan, Tyrant Yeonsan) show up as a big-hearted politician and a lecherous landlord respectively. Kim especially shines as his character, a teddy bear if there ever was one, journeys from overworked statesman to doting father.

As for Choi, her turn here as a destitute student who stumbles into a rich family thanks in part to the machinations of her mystery-loving gal pal (a budding novelist) is quintessential chick flick fare. She's vulnerable but determined, scared but resourceful, desperate but smart — and ultimately a young woman of integrity whose final confessions of her wrongdoings finds her unexpectedly in a better place than she could've ever possibly imagined. She's got quite a few plot-turns to execute before she gets to that final happy place such as fending off sexual harassment in the workplace, getting hit by a car then landing in the hospital, and finishing up her law studies before taking on her first case (a feminist murder trial!) — all while living a lie. And to think this all started with her last surviving grandmother's funeral. Well some say, every time the door of a casket closes, the window of opportunity opens. That and the truth will set you free to make oodles and oodles of money.

Rice: Communism for Non-Communists

Rarely do you see a movie so unapologetically histrionic as Shin Sang-ok's stridently socialist drama Rice. How exaggerated does this one get? How about a man sobbing while banging his head against a bamboo stalk then saying "I'm not crying"? Or a woman who confesses her deep feelings while flames from a fire lick the space between her and the camera? Or a politician who says to a war veteran, "Do you think I'll even consider a cripple for my son-in-law" to a daughter (Choi Eun-hie) who wears pigtails until she finds her true independence as a woman?

The camera shots can be equally grotesque: a point of view from within a casket; a face framed by a hole in a rock underground. And yet despite how Rice traffics in exaggeration with agit-prop dialogue that may have set the groundwork for the eventual kidnapping of Shin and Choi to North Korea, there's still some powerful moments that occur in this oddball flick. Your heart goes out to the movie's hero (Shin Yeong-gyun), a disabled war vet who goes from one government department to the next in search of backing for an agricultural project that all agree has worth but none will fund. You also get a certain rush when one townsmen calls his fiancee out for asking him to compromise his integrity during a manufactured red scare.

Indeed this movie abounds with relevancies to our current cultural crises by showing examples of women who side with a patriarchy that oppresses them; illustrating how the wealthy will undermine the working class's attempts to become autonomous; revealing the complicity of a religious institution with corrupt power as well as how that eventually backfires; and detailing the sacrifices real changes entails — which sometimes necessitates forsaking your own father! You may snort derisively of the sub-plot involving the rolly-polly figure but in Rice, as in life, you simply have to take the good with the bad and make the best of it.

Dongshimcho: Young Mother in Love

Shin Sang-ok's preposterously pulpy Dongshimcho had me reflecting on the difference between melodrama and soap opera, kindred spirits to be sure. Well, in my mind at least, the second genre distinguishes itself with its bounty of complications and coincidences, mostly if not entirely of a romantic nature. Here you can see that impossibly insane intricacy in a minor character like Mr. Kim from Busan (Kim Seung-ho) — who is at once the business associate for Seoul publisher Kim Sang-kyu (Kim Jin-kyu), a rival for the latter Kim's secret love Mrs. Lee (Choi Eun-hie), and a potential buyer of Mrs. Lee's house — as well as in another relatively secondary role like Ok-joo (Do Kum-bong), the main Kim's fiancee who is also a high school acquaintance of Mrs. Lee's daughter Kyung-hee (Eom Aeng-ran) and the daughter herself of Company Chairman Lee (Kim Dong-won) who has funded her beloved's business enterprise which is in jeopardy now because of a loan made to Mrs. Lee so the lonely widow won't lose her house which for various reasons she doesn't want to sell to the earlier mentioned Mr. Kim from out of town (who just happens to be a merry widower).

It's hard to explain but it's not hard to follow though it is hard to believe. Such is life? Well, maybe. I was more interested in period details like phone calls that are received in the local pharmacy, open train windows that frame brokenhearted passengers tearfully looking out in search of the cause of their distress, and various stacks of 8½" x 17" paper which signal accounting and serious work. There's also a surprising amount of screen time spent on watching people get in and out of shoes as they enter various houses. I, for one, wasn't bored. And if the ever-so-friendly realtor looks familiar that may be because you recognize him as the bullying boss in The Hand of Destiny which is more melodrama than soap but similarly so-so.

Bound by Chastity Rules: Two Movies for the Price of One

There are two stories being told in Shin Sang-ok's Bound by Chastity Rule a.k.a. The Memorial Gate for Virtuous Women: One is a tale of forbidden love between a virgin widow (Choi Eun-hie) and a field hand (Shin Yeong-gyun); the other concerns an ultra-conservative sister-in-law with a troublingly masochistic relationship to honor. The same characters drive both stories but the two tales' contrary viewpoints only sometimes align. Regardless of screenwriter Hwang Sun-won's intents, you're neither feeling the love nor understanding the honor. The problem with the pseudo-romance is that our heroine has been raped by her supposed love interest and clearly wants to abort the shameful (to her) baby that comes of the attack. She may admire the worker beforehand; afterwards, she seems legitimately scared. The problem with the tale of honor is that the family that she's married into comes across as undesirable from the get-go: her child-groom leaves her with a stumpy finger; her mother-in-law — who wears poorly done age makeup — advises her to stick needles in her thighs as a way to fight off sexual longing.

Holding the movie together is none other than Choi Eun-hie who rather than try to make sense of it all allows simple moments — from the exuberant joy of a rainstorm following a drought to the domestic satisfaction of stitching a shirt for her well-meaning father-in-law (Kim Dong-won) — to segue into aftermaths of inner conflict. She is a woman on shaky ground pretty much all the time. Like other Shin Sang-ok melodramas from the period, the "happily ever after" coda is rife with unhappy possibilities. A life led in self-abnegation seems unlikely to end with heartwarming familial bonds with a stranger, lush soundtrack or not.

Sister's Garden: A New Lease on Life

Like any good melodrama worth a toilet paper roll's worth of coarse tissue, Shin Sang-ok's Sister's Garden finds its emotionally distraught characters collapsing on the floor in tears multiple times. Who can blame them? They've got a lot to cry about, the rent first and foremost. Turns out the widowed father (Yu Chun), a beloved doctor dying of a disease he once cured in others, is going to leave some serious debts behind. Once the martyring eldest daughter (Choi Eun-hie) figures out a way to make some money, she's suddenly saddled with a second IOU after her impetuous sister (Choi Ji-hie) opens a not-so-popular dress shop with her not-so-successful painter-husband (Nam Gung-won). What's a girl to do?

Become a madam at a disreputable inn, start drinking alcohol to please the crass customers, forsake her true love — a tight-lipped medical student (Kim Seok-hun), and consider the marriage proposal made by one Mr. Bang (Kim Seung-ho), a shady character whom her father restored to health but who nevertheless can't resist an opportunity to pimp her out to make a buck. Maybe this good-daughter-about-to-turn-bad wouldn't go to such extremes if she didn't have a much younger brother (Ahn Sung-ki) to take care of. But then again, maybe she's grown bored with the bourgeois life and isn't that crazy about becoming a doctor's wife. Whatever her reasons, you get the feeling that the nasty turn of events has awakened something inside her. When the swell of "Ol' Man River" is heard behind this movie's "happy ending," you can't help but recall the lyric "You and me / We sweat and strain / Body all aching / And wracked with pain." In other words, the potential for "good times ahead" looks doubtful. Perhaps "Get a little drunk / And you land in jail" isn't such a terrible fate after all.