Sea Fog: The Ship Hits the Fan

Are newly poor people who were once flush with cash more likely to compromise their integrity in order to become rich again? That would certainly explain the strictly mercenary decision of flat-broke Captain Kang Chul-joo (Kim Yun-seok) who has chosen to smuggle Chinese emigrants of Korean heritage across the border. Once he's committed himself and his crew to this bit of political lawlessness, however, the real dastardly crimes begin. One of your passengers gets all "equal rights"? Throw him overboard. Anyone accidentally die in the fish-hold? Chop up the body and throw it into the sea for the fishies to eat. Got a mutinous engineer? You know what to do.

Because the Captain's been in the seafaring biz for so long, his crew tends to do as instructed, too, no matter how repugnant the request. Really, the only one who stands up against the Cap is Dong-sik (Park Yoo-chun), a young sailor (arguably on the spectrum) who lives with his grandmother and has basically kidnapped a female passenger (Han Ye-ri) in hopes of turning her into his wife. That budding romance is one of the movie's creepiest components and the scene in which the two young not-truly-lovers end up fornicating after witnessing a murder ranks up there as one of the grossest sex scenes in Korean movie history.

That may be intentional. After all, Sea Fog's script is by auteur Bong Joon-ho and Shim Sung-bo who'd previously worked with Bong on the incredibly complex Memories of Murder. If Sea Fog isn't quite as nuanced as their previous collaboration, well what is? Plus, the shortcomings are probably due in part to this being Shim's directorial debut. And while the finale is a mess and the female characters are woefully underdeveloped, Shim fares well overall. He's recruited a strong supporting cast (Mun Seong-kun, Kim Sang-ho, Jo Kyung-sook) and cinematographer Hong Kyung-po to ensure a high level of quality on both sides of the camera. Waterlogged, this movie is not.

A Brand New Life: Who's Your Daddy

I, for one, felt uncomfortable watching Ounie Lecomte's semi-autobiographical A Brand New Life because far from feeling sympathetic for Jin-hee, the young orphan girl (Kim Sae-ron) who's been abandoned by her father (Sol Kyung-gu), I felt sorry for the parents that would eventually adopt her. I got that this kid is depressed because she's been ditched and that she's acting out when she throws her food on the floor or rips apart another girl's doll but since she a bit off-kilter even before daddy dumps her at the church-run "child placement agency," I couldn't help but think she was in need of intensive therapy more than a new family.

Why doesn't the doctor (Mun Seong-kun) at the institution do more one-on-one sessions with Jin-hee before he puts her on a plane to Paris? And why wouldn't he give a ticket abroad to one of Jin-hee's infinitely less morose playmates when an opening for adoption came up? Is Lecomte exposing the export of damaged Korean children abroad? Or is she of the camp that believes that Korean orphanages have become baby catalogues for Westerners? Is the zany, Anglo puppeteer who performs half in drag part of an insidious plot to convince young Korean children that white folk are the funniest people around?

I'm guessing Lecomte sees her protagonist'a fate as Tragic with a capital "T." Disagreeing with her feels mean-spirited and uncharitable. But it's also hard to rally around a self-pity party, even if the writer-director's complaints are valid. And maybe my heart would've gone out to Jin-hee had a different young actress been cast in the role. Kim feels incredibly self-conscious and affected. Her fish-eyed stares feel false and the final freeze frame, a cheap reference to The 400 Blows, lands with a thud. I'm not writing off Kim, mind you. Her subsequent film The Man From Nowhere was marvelous. Better luck next time as they say.

Oki's Movie: Hong Sang-soo's Echo Chamber

Oh, Hong Sang-soo. Here you go again, you myopic auteur, with your tried-and-true tropes: The philandering filmmaker who drinks too much, the winter-summer romance that doesn't add up, the backstabbing frenemy who for awhile takes the lead, the love triangle that breaks apart then forms anew with somewhat interchangeable people. And also once again, from me, a lot of eye-rolling that culminates with a double-take caused by a narrative twist or a genius piece of dialogue or a stretch of naturalistic acting that really is without peer in Korean cinema, all of which makes me second guess myself and you and what the whole point of movie-watching/making is.

In short Oki's Movie feels both like standard Hong fare and a fresh experiment. A collection of faux student shorts examining the ever-changing relationships of a college film professor (Mun Seong-kun), his protege (Lee Seon-gyun) and the young woman (Jeong Yu-mi) having affairs with them both, Oki's Movie initially feels like typically Hong Sang-soo in the worst way and ends up feeling like typical Hong Sang-soo in the best. The change of heart in the viewer comes late in the game, thanks to two scenes: One, in which the two students -- arriving late to class on a snow day -- are encouraged by the teacher to ask whatever they want which they do with hilarious results; the second, a longer sequence in which a walk in the woods, taken by the young woman first with the professor, then with the student, is compared via short back-to-back footage that, in a very telling way, illustrates what Hong is a master of -- showing the significance of the most seemingly insignificant moments and actions.

As much as I eventually came to appreciate, even like, Oki's Movie, I admit there's still a part of me that wishes that Hong came up with a different plot more often instead of treading familiar ground. But given how prolific he's been of late -- three movies in 2009, two in 2010, two in 2011, one in 2012, and three in 2013 -- I suppose it's inevitable that he repeat himself. To his credit, he does so inventively.

The Green Fish: You Need to Go Down to Get Deep

The loss of innocence is so upsetting sometimes. Even if you factor in that innocence and adulthood are pretty much incompatible, watching a late-bloomer fall from grace can make for a painful viewing experience. And coming-of-age only gets crueler the older you get. In Lee Chang-dong's masterful first film The Green Fish, the naif about to lose it all is earnest 26-year-old Makdong (Han Suk-kyu). He's a poor, eager-to-please guy who, recently discharged from the army, ends up working for ruthless mobster Bae Tae-kon (Mun Seong-kun) after one unlucky circumstance. Bae's girlfriend Mi-ae (Shim Hye-jin), for her part, is about as far from innocence as you can get. Pimped out by her boyfriend when she's not being harassed by customers who ridicule her nightclub act, she knows she's sinking more and more deeply into the mire but she can't find a way out. She's drawn to Makdong not because he's cute but because he's the least corrupt thing she's seen in God knows how long. He'll never be the life preserver he and she wishes he could be; the few times he tries, he proves a terrible protector since he's adhering to a school boy code in a roomful of truants. But their love is inevitable. Just as their future is doomed.