Natural Burials: A Strange Branch of Horror

Never heard of a tree therapist? Well, she's the woman who hooks up IV drips to pines with fungal issues then places her hands on the infected bark to source any memories of dead people buried nearby. (Unhappy corpses can cause irrigation woes for the roots, you know.) It's not easy work, my friend, so you can easily see why in Park Kwang-chun's Natural Burials, the city's leading tree therapist (Lee Young-ah) is constantly being force-fed horse-pills by her worried mother to help with the stress. This is the kind of job that leads to night sweats, hallucinations, and car accidents.

"Car accidents?" you ask. Yes. Because part of being a tree therapist is driving from tree to tree to tree. (They're everywhere!) And the chances of an accident are only going to increase when that soiled, crazy man (Yeon Je-wook) who's obsessed with you -- and who happens to have both escaped from the madhouse and inherited a plant nursery -- has a nasty twitch in his neck. Meanwhile, your fiance (On Ju-wan) really only meets you in parking lots and your best friend -- who, as luck would have it, is in love with said fiance -- tends to speed when she (Park Soo-jin) feels any stress. Oh, yes. For a tree therapist, a four-car-pileup is much more than likely.

Did I mention that Natural Burials is a horror movie? Because it is. Did you know that it originally broadcast as a two-part miniseries on cable? Because it did. And you can kind of tell what kind of cable channel that might be. When the crazy gal pal strips off her dress for the boyfriend, the movie feels soap-y. When an assistant tree therapist comments, "It smells like a rotting corpse about an ailing plant," the movie feels silly. Low-end cable can feel very B-movie when you think about it. But why would you want to change that? Can't enjoy a little lowbrow, made-for-TV fun? Go see a therapist!

She's on Duty: High School's Undercover Lovers

No one wants to relive their high school years, least of all Jae-in (Kim Seon-a), an undercover cop whose single accomplishment then may have been to head up an all-girl gang on the playground. But duty calls, so she'll have to put her personal feelings aside in order to infiltrate the student body and cozy up to the shy daughter (Nam Sang-mi) of a mobster (Kim Kap-su) who the police hope to get under their protection so he can rat on the head of a crime ring that promotes dog fights and enslaves Korean girls as prostitutes for the Japanese. That she'll fall in love with a fellow student (Kong Yu) -- who is equally good at Taekwondo and also happens to live next door -- complicates her assignment and confounds her ethical code. All that confusion probably fuels the rage that comes into play whenever she gets in a fight with school bullies, sparring partners in gym or run-of-the-mill thugs in the abandoned backlots where so much crime takes place worldwide. A woman warrior to be sure, Jae-in can singlehandedly overpower gangs of all ages, sizes and gender to jig music no less. Park Kwang-chun's She's on Duty is no masterpiece but it's an enjoyable after school special that teaches girls rock, smoking is bad, and listen to your elders.

The Soul Guardians: Jesus Christ, That's Scary

I've seen Catholicism rear its Romanesque head before in Korean films but never as gorgeously as it does in Park Kwang-chun's The Soul Guardians. This K-Horror classic's got a madonna who weeps blood, a child prodigy of white magic, and a succubus who holds her lover literally by the bleeding heart. Talk about imagery! Talk about mysticism! Talk about heavy metal! Bring on that pentagram mapped out in candles already! The Satanic cult has birthed a dear-if-dim soul who only needs to take off her crucifix and lie down on the table to officially become Satan's bride. Subplots involve a trampy roommate doomed to coitus interruptus, a cop so unaware of the other side that he accidentally opens the Gates of Hell, and a flying dagger with abandonment issues. This is an alternate reality to rival Narnia in terms of converting Christianity's battle between Good and Evil into something a little more cinematic than The Bible. (Does anyone really want to see a filmed version of Chronicles or Psalms?) It may be sad that knifethrower Hyun-am (Shin Hyeon-jun) has to stab his soulmate (Chu Sang Mi) to save the world, but sometime a knife isn't just a knife. Symbolism people!