Harbin: Revolutionary Movies

As the U.S. government slides towards white-supremacist, patriarchal fascism, Hollywood is not exactly taking up the call to arms with escapist fare like The Devil Wears Prada 2 and the new Michael Jackson biopic. Which is why we'd do well to turn towards Korea for movies like Woo Min-ho's Harbin, a 2024 release that glorifies the resistance movement that followed Japanese occupation in the early part of the 20th century. This is no hagiography, however. The rebel leader (Hyun Bin) disastrously lets the enemy free without weapons so children won't die fatherless when his Japanese counterpart (Park Hoon) would have gladly killed himself to save face. Poor decisions lead to mass collateral damage and a basement of peers are eager to take on the parts of judge and jury.

How do you defend stupid actions in a war? You often can't. What can you do to make things right? Revenge, assassinate, self-sacrifice, the usual. Although Harbin is very much a movie about leaders pitted against each other within and without the resistance movement, this movie equally belongs to its supporting characters: Gong Boo-in (Jeon Yeo-been), Russian translator and dynamite resource; Kim Sang Hyun (Jo Woo-jin), bespectacled, former POW with PTSD issues; Woo Deok-soon (Park Jeong-min), the pragmatic soldier who just wants a drink; and Park Jeom-cheol (Jung Woo-sung), the one-eyed, furcoat model and munitions dealer. Perhaps the underlying message here is that sometimes a group has to pitch in to remedy a mess made by higher-ups; and that being a traitor never works in your favor. As one character puts it, "If Japan writes history, no one will remember us." Then another rejoins, "When you're dead, you're dead." You might as well be true to yourself while you can. Because "we live in place of our dead comrades." Always true. "Korea! Ura!"

Midnight: Silent Night, Deadly Night

We live in a world where simply watching a lone woman walk down an abandoned street at night in a low-trafficked part of town can make for an unnerving moment, irrespective of the country. Make that potential target of violence a deaf woman and the tension only increases. On such scares has Midnight been built. Kwon Oh-seung's thriller revolves around a young deaf office-worker (Jin Ki-hoo) and her deaf seamstress mother (Kim Hae-yeon), who together unwittingly interrupt a serial killer (Wi Ha-joon) during his latest slay. That's not a bad start. This is not a particularly consistent nailbiter however. To wit, when the latest victim's brother (Park Hoon) — who happens to be a security guard — confronts the killer, our boys in blue are hanging outside the precinct headquarters, chatting, then let the bad man free for fairly sketchy reasons. In what reality, do police officers trust a total stranger (with a briefcase of knives) without taking a report? Why wouldn't they rush out to track him down once they've realized they'd made a mistake? Oh, Kwon, what were you thinking?!

Perhaps Midnight is a film about police incompetence. Which gives its bloodthirsty villain free rein to stalk and torment his witnesses at home and in their oddly underpopulated neighborhood. I don't think I've ever run down so many late-night streets without a homeless person or fellow drunk in sight, regardless of the hour. Then again, I also can't explain the satisfaction that comes from people chasing each other through a maze of alleyways, regardless of the plot-holes and the potholes. But since Kwon's screenplay fails to incorporate vibrations, peripheral vision, and neighbors who can hear a young woman cry out for help, I never doubted for a moment that this "final girl" would survive. I did like the how of it though!