The Last Princess: Elevating Royalty

There's a pretty powerful disclaimer at the start of The Last Princess: "Incidents and persons portrayed do not reflect historical facts." So then what are we to believe about Yi Deokhye, the subject of this biopic? Was she a royal rebel who bravely snubbed the Japanese emperor's dress code and rallied fingerless Korean workers to rise up against their Japanese oppressors? Did she try to escape her gilded cage and get back to Korea as an act of solidarity with her countrymen? Was she the first to discover the assassination of her father, the king? In truth, much of Hur Jin-ho's costume dram is conjectural; it's a pro-dynastic movie posing as a anticolonial diatribe. Considering the history we do know regarding Japan's occupation, I'm okay with that.

And Son Ye-jin makes a convincing princess, struggling to balance her patriotism with her desire to survive. She's got a few people in her corner: an adoring servant (Ra Mi-ran), a couple of ineffectual brothers, and a soldier-spy (Park Hae-il) who doubles as her devoted, sexless romantic interest. Unfortunately, she's also got an evil Korean Benedict Arnold (Yun Je-mun) whose sole mission in life is to be her foil, derailing every attempt she makes to escape, to evade, to exalt. As fantasies go, if The Last Princess has any faults, it's that this heinous henchman never gets his just desserts. Director Hur may see this dark detail as a bitter dose of reality. Since so much is already made up, I'm not gonna quibble here. Finally, if Hollywood were more open to performances in foreign tongues, Son's lead turn would definitely have qualified as Oscar-bait — as she ages from 20s to 70s while screaming, crying, looking fashionable, looking nervous, and ultimately going insane. I was crazy about her in the best way possible.

Decision to Leave: Deadly Details

Park Chan-wook's films always have such humorously quirky details. In Decision to Leave, there's a handheld electric massager, the home health aide's clear plastic apron, the cop's ingenious chainmail glove, a Martin Beck crime novel, and the audio translator that switches the voice from female to male when it goes from Chinese to Korean... Of course, all of that would mean nothing if Park didn't bring that same attentiveness to narrative as well. And like many Park movies, Decision to Leave has a complicated plot to pair with these elements.

When a police detective (Park Hae-il) investigates a potential suicide, he becomes obsessed with the surviving wife (Tang Wei) who his cop partner (Go Kyung-Pyo) feels sure is the dead man's killer. Then the whole thing repeats — a new squad sidekick (Kim Shin-young)— again in another city. That's when Decision to Leave really soars. Complications become complexities; Park's decision to create simultaneities — allowing the past and present to coexist in a frame — grows even more poetic as history repeats itself in the linear storyline. And isn't the past, inherently, always something of a blur? Aren't we always haunted by the choices we make?

These are classic Park questions. And aside from the atypically restrained violence (a turtle bite may be as gruesome as it gets), this is a quintessential Park movie, right down to the score by Jo Yeong-wook (a composer who's been collaborating with Park fairly consistently since 2000's Joint Security Area). Everything is so carefully constructed that you have to admire the craftsmanship, even if you occasionaly can predict where it's going. A Greek tragedy doesn't depend on being surprised by every twist and turn or the ending. Nor does this Korean one.

Whistle Blower: The Lies of Science

One of the great myths of the modern age is that scientists are more honest than most people. In truth, cancer researchers and genetic engineers are equally human and therefore occassionally get seduced by fame, money, power, and all the other niceties. Elizabeth Holmes has become the poster child for scientific fraud in the U.S. but she's hardly the only one worldwide. In Korea, they had Hwang Woo-suk, a stem cell biotechnologist who bulllshitted about cloning capabilities (on a global scale, no less) as he deluded himself and his cohorts that the actual discovery was a constant few months away.

Yim Soon-rye's thriller Whistle Blower puts that headline-grabbing story on the big screen. Told from the perspective of a tenacious veteran producer (Park Hae-il) whose pursuit of a story puts his life as well as his livelihood in danger, this film really drives home how hard it is to take on the powers that be. Truth isn't enough. People need to be brave to the point of self-sacrifice and lucky beyond what fate usually provides. And so, while Whistle Blower may be a feel-good story, you're also aware that more often than not Justice is not the result. Corruption exists in the upper echelons everywhere — the science community included.

The Fortress: A Royal Mess

As class critiques go, Hwang Dong-hyuk's The Fortress is a devastatingly effective one. This retelling of the 17th century Qing dynasty's invasion of Korea portrays the ruling class as one almost entirely out of touch with the commonfolk; a group of backstabbing lords more committed to appearances (fancy clothes, calvary etiquette, the overall hierarchy) then they are to the people and culture that they're supposedly representing. King Injo (Park Hae-il) is guided by a roomful of ass-kissers and the only two brave enough to speak their opposing truths are the reconciliatory diplomat Choi Myung-gil (Lee Byung-hun) and the military advisor Kim Sang-heon (Kim Yoon-seok) who places integrity higher than life itself. Each man is persuasive in his way yet you begin to suspect that neither is ultimately right.

For as the voice of the people, blacksmith Seo Nal-soi (Go Soo) is able to recognize that these gents are ultimately arguing for a world that still treats the majority of men as war fodder. As such, Seo isn't so much an agitator out to change the system so much as he is someone self-aware enough to recognize that the structure is rotten to its core. Also worth mentioning is orphan girl Naru (Cho Ah-in). This waif — tossed from grandfather to grandfather's murderer to pragmatic metalworker — serves as a powerful reminder that if we're not serving our children's futures with our costly battles then what are we fighting for?

High Society: Art About Art With Good Art

In today's cinematic universe, the order of the day is cynicism and corruption. No one expects characters to have noble motives and if they do, no one expects them to keep them for the duration of the film. Which is one of the surprises of Byun Hyuk's High Society, a political drama in which two deplorable leads — a callous economics professor (Park Hae-il) and a ruthless curator (Ae Soo) — start off willing to compromise everything for potential social status, only to discover a moral high ground along the way. As such, High Society is a bit of a fantasy. Who can imagine a corrupt couple finding their inner moral compass after living without one for so long? Be that as it may, it's a fantasy that satisfies because it's what we wish would happen to our culture's elites. Nothing could be better than people in power using that power for good after a lifetime of not truly giving a damn.

Not that High Society itself is a satisfying movie. Neither the representative of academia nor the art world comes across as particularly appealing. The most likable character in fact is a multimedia artist (Lee Jin-wook), who towering video installations — sometimes incorporating live performance — are truly a wonder to behold. As spectacles go, the visionary visuals within High Society make you want to stop watching the movie and track down the actual creator for more of the same. Anyone happen to know who that is? I couldn't find out when searching online.

Eungyo: A Summer-Winter Romance Gets Weatherproofed

I was ready to detest Eungyo. Truly. I mean, do we really need another movie about a horny old codger (Park Hae-il) who falls for a naif of a woman (Kim Go-eun) half his age? And are there really that many young ladies out there who have a thing for geriatric men outside of Woody Allen's universe? But Eungyo isn't actually telling that mass-produced story despite some early indications to the contrary. Because in Eungyo, director Jung Ji-woo's central love triangle doesn't culminate with Mr. Wrinkly and Ms. Baby Soft in bed. Any "action" scenes between these two are actually fantasized on the elderly poet's part and feature a much younger version of himself sticking his head under her T-shirt. She's never caressed by varicosed hands. He's not imagining getting it on with his young housekeeper. He's imagining being young again. That's an important distinction, and one that his plagiarizing protege (Kim Mu-yeol) is unable to fathom when he stumbles upon his mentor's manuscript detailing this dreamed of romance.

The inability — or unwillingness — to understand deeper feelings that might cross generations and exist outside of sex (not to mention flirtations that have no true intent in leading to physical intimacy) is really at the root of Eungyo. What is one character's undoing ultimately isn't his prudishness, his recklessness, his ego or his disloyalty. It's really his lack of imagination. What emotional ties might exist between a woman who's 17 and a man who's 70? Where is the wellspring of inspiration? Why might it be unwise to get involved sexually with a minor outside of the legal reasons? What is the nature of the very act of creation? For the younger man, such questions never arise. His desires are not to be an artist but to be a success. He doesn't want to write a masterpiece. He wants to win an award. So what is success when you haven't really done anything. At the risk of sounding too poetic — and why not go there given the nature of Eungyo, can a person die if he's never really lived? Or is that just another reason to mourn?

End of Animal: The End of the End of World Movies as We Know Them

Doomsday scenarios tend to be big-budget affairs in the movies which makes writer-director-editor Jo Sung-hee's bare-bones End of Animal something truly unique, a catastrophe flick unconcerned with grandiose visuals, a low-budget Last Judgment pic that looks so familiar that you really do feel that the Final Days are just around the corner. This is an Armageddon without fire and brimstone. Instead of the four horseman, you've got a child-molesting taxi driver (Kim Yeong-ho). Consider this the reckoning that happens when the lights go out, there's no more electricity and you're left fending for yourself amid a greatly decimated population peopled by antagonistic survivors with no fashion sense.

Apropos of a 21st Century End of Days, you've got plenty of latter day Christian imagery throughout: a long-suffering Mary (Lee Min-ji), single, pregnant and looking for a place to rest; a mean-spirited angel/archangel (Park Hae-il) who communicates via walkie talkie; and a few small, strange miracles like a candy bar that appears from out of nowhere and a cute yet ominous, fluffy white dog that shows up just in time to be barbecued.

Everyone seems somewhat shell-shocked in End of Animal because instead of grappling with the larger reality (life as we know it is damn well over), they're fighting over the smallest of necessities: a middle-aged bicyclist (Yoo Seung-mok) just wants to get laid or sucked or jerked off; a stranded woman (Lee Min-ah) covets then steals a comfortable pair of walking shoes.

Having suffered endless indignities — many of them from a bullying traveling partner (Park Sae-jong)— the young woman is invited by her guardian angel to say what she wants to which she belatedly replies "a nice apartment, a new car, etc." She's clearly learned nothing from surviving one disaster after another, which leads you to wonder if we're living in a Heaven we don't recognize or suffering in a kind of Purgatory from which we'll never escape. Never. At least, not like we'd imagined or hoped. Or prayed.

Paradise Murdered: Neither Horror Nor Comedy Or Anything In Between

I have often thought that Korean movies are distinguished by their propensity for defying genre. As such, romcoms can suddenly take dark turns into very unfunny violence, and thrillers may take side trips into the broadest slapstick without warning then return to nail-biting action just as quick. Paradise Murdered is a whole other kettle of fish however: a movie that appears to be a horror script directed as is if it were a comedy. The result is neither funny nor scary, although it's definitely bizarre in exactly how it displeases.

You can see why Kim Han-min took a comical approach with the material. If you played Paradise Murdered straight, the holes in the plot would be too gaping to overlook. Why does the doctor (Park Hae-il) insist on not allowing anyone else to investigate the initial murders? Why does nobody suspect the town drunkard (Sung Ji-ru) who clearly is having hallucinations and is responsible for at least two accidental deaths, not get tied up, locked up and gagged? How do we know for sure that the little girl is dead? Or the little boy's mother (Yu Hae-jung)? What's up with the chaste ghost (Kim Ju-ryoung)? Why is everyone leaving their sandals behind? Is there really a community out there that's going to rejoice about receiving endless sacks of pure sugar for being best remote island of the year?

As to why Kim even chose to shoot this script, that answer is infinitely more apparent. He wrote Paradise Murdered all by himself. Whether he honestly thinks it's hilarious or simply realized that mining the humor was his best shot at salvaging shoddy material is anybody's guess. All I ask is that you don't write off Kim as a director too soon because he's actually done some fine work since this freshman effort. Both War of the Arrows, his medieval epic, and Handphone, his contemporary thriller, score much higher with the public via IMDb and Asianwiki.com. In the case of the first movie, I heartily agree. In the case of the second, I still need to see it.

Guess what I'll be watching next?!

Doomsday Book: Three Short Films Herald End of the World as We Know It

The apocalypse elicits mixed feelings in me. The primacy of survival appeals to my minimalist bent. The mass destruction of life makes my heart break. Secretly, between you and me, I think that technological advancements don't always advance society but that doesn't mean that I want to see planet Earth turned into a cinder of its former self to make a technophobic point. The three doomsday scenarios played out in Doomsday Book tap into some of my fears and some of my frustrations about the end of the world scenarios, although only one does it in a way that's truly artful. That's not the first entry, Yim Pil-sung's In a Brave New World, a vegan parable that posits that one bad apple is going to transmogrify mankind into rageaholic zombies, after the rotten fruit is eaten by a cow that's eaten by another cow. The winner isn't the third short either, Yim's Happy Birthday. This woeful tale of world's end finds a little girl (Jin Ji-hee) mistakenly making an e-purchase for a meteor that resembles a giant 8-ball. You can scratch that one off your must-see list too.

The standout, for me, is -- Kim Jee-woon's The Heavenly Creature. This mesmerizing short concerns a service robot (voiced by Park Hae-il) at a Buddhist temple who may or not be the latest re-incarnation of Buddha himself. Both suspenseful and philosophical, The Heavenly Creature is chockful of clever social commentary about consciousness, loneliness, self-actualization, pets, corporate hierarchies, religion, perception, apartment dwelling, etc. It's strong enough to stand alone, even if it's running time is under an hour. The end is near. Who has time for a long movie?

Footnote for completists: Ryu Seung-beom headlines In a Brave New World as the Adam of the new zombie race while director Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Mother, Memories of Murder) also makes a brief appearance (in front of the camera for a change).

War of the Arrows: History and Archery Shoot a Pointed Arrow to Your Heart

I'm not sure why the idea of watching a historical drama tends to dishearten me because when I think about it, I bet I like them more often than I don't. Looking back over the years, I can immediately name a few epics set way back when which made my annual top ten lists: The King and the Clown, A Frozen Flower, Musa - The Warriors... Even so, I was ready to be bored to tears when I sat down to watch War of the Arrows. Boy, was I wrong.

Kim Han-min's anything-but-dull drama set in the 17th century is, for all its fancy robes and bedazzled leather, a heart-stopping action pic with an extended chase scene in which bows and arrows prove every bit as thrilling as martial arts or souped-up weaponry ever did.

On the run is Nam-yi (Park Hae-il), a disgraced archer whose father was beheaded for being a traitor, and whose sister Ja-in (Moon Chae-won) is, at one point, abducted by a Manchurian kidnapper-prince (Park Gi-woong) who wants to tame her like a leopard's pelt. Well, the royal rapist is about to learn not to mess with an independent woman with a strong set of teeth. As to his invading militia, they're about to pay the price for underestimating members of the Joseon Dynasty.

Pursuing Nam-yi is a bald Machurian commander (Ryoo Seung-yong), his second-in-command Wanhan (Lee Seung-joon), and their small posse of fellow warriors who despite tricked up arrows and studded leather armbands, find themselves dropping off one by one. A random tiger that comes out of nowhere doesn't help matters for them either.

Although half of War of the Arrows is consumed by this great chase, my favorite part comes right beforehand -- an uplifting scene in which a feudal lord's son (Kim Mu-yeol), assisted by lovable sidekicks Gang-du (Kim Gu-taek) and Gab-young (Lee Han-wi), leads a prisoners' revolt against the invading army. Tired, dirty, and unarmed, the townsfolk charges their captors and through sheer numbers and unstoppable fury drive the enemy into the sea before burning the Manchurian flag. It's one of those common man against the oppressor feel-good scenes that always makes you feel more optimistic about being one of the hoi polloi.

Note: Some reviews accuse War of the Arrows of plagiarizing Apocalypto which does make me want to see the latter movie.

The Host: Honey, I Lost the Kid... to a Mutant Monster

Government. Military. Big business. The medical establishment. The media. Which is the most inhumane, the most corrupt, the most evil? While The Host's central family unites to track down the aquatic Godzilla who's kidnapped their daughter (Ko Ah-sung), director Bong Joon-ho hilariously castigates the movie's true villains -- those power-crazed officials who keep getting in their way. Yet The Host is hardly some diatribe of antiestablishmentarianism; Bong is critical of his core characters, too: the slacker dad (Song Kang-ho), his self-defeating sister (Bae Du-na), his bossy brother (Park Hae-il) and the lovable grandfather (Byeon Hie-bong). Everyone does stupid things, no matter what your walk in life. To err is human. But what's also human are the brave, crazy acts that love can inspire us to. What elevates The Host from Kaiju camp to exceptional monster movie is how Bong uses familial love -- as opposed to romantic -- to propel his four squabbling yet noble family members to the very bowels of the Earth. You could say their rescue efforts fail but the final image of a re-configured family of survivors is nothing if not uplifting. Song's performance as the endearing doofus dad is frankly unforgettable.