Starting Point: Gay War Days

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I won't quickly forget the scene in Starting Point during which a Japanesse officer (Heo Jang-kang) and his Korean subordinate (Shin Seong-il) relentlessly flog another soldier's ass because the latter refuses to apologize. (For what, I'm not entirely sure.) Later, that same sergeant taunts the sore-assed G.I., daring him to kill with a chokehold then laughingly mocking his feeble efforts. The film gets even more sordid when the commanding officer rapes that same soldier later on in a hideaway cave. If you're looking for "queerness" and "degenerate" being given a false equivalency, Kim Soo-yong's war drama with an extensive fictionalized flashback has it in spades.

The gay subplot, if you can call it that, is bizarre. Who's gay? The attacker? The victim? The witness? The young brother with girlfriend problems who's reading his older sibling's autofiction-in-progress? The alcoholic older brother responsible for writing this twisted tale? I actually wondered whether I was misreading the signals until a series of shots foregrounding uniformed butts was followed by an unbuttoned shirt and some rebuttoned pants. What's the opposite of homosexual subtext? Homosexual domtext? Can a movie be homosexual verstext, too? Based on Starting Point, I'd say, "Very much so in 1969."

The Eunuch: How Deep Is Your Love?

Poor Ja-ok (Yun Jeong-hie)! The man (Shin Seong-il) she loves has been castrated by her power-hungry father and she's become the number one concubine for the lusty king (Won Namkung). The king, for his part hopes she'll provide him with a male heir to thereby help him usurp his conniving mother, the queen (Yun In-ja) — who's got an active sexlife of her own. For a movie called The Eunuch, Shin Sang-ok's historical drama sure has a lot of genital action, from state-santified rape to MIA erections to exhibitionism and enforced voyeurism.

The head eunuch (Park Nou-sik) knows all the gossip. The medical eununch (Park Sang-ik) spills the tea on the most illicit court behavior in the castle. But this period piece doesn't culminate with savage whispers. Instead, there's mass murder and a battle that reaches its luridly reddest peak when the unexpected hero gets an arrow shot right into his left eye. After all the shafts to the heart, this deadly wound reminds us that love may hurt but weapons kill. That and poisoned drinks served by the bowl. Abortion, you have found your agit-prop movie.

The General's Mustache: A Novel Twist

Life is a mystery. Oh wait! I'm getting ahead of myself. Who killed photojournalist Kim Chul-woon (Shin Seong-il) before he could finish writing his parable of a novel? That's the supposed mystery in The General's Mustache, a movie that's not too worried about solving its principal crime. That's because the elusive nature of life keeps distracting our two lead investigators, Detective Park (Kim Seung-ho) and his young partner (Kim Seong-ok), an aspiring ladies' man. So while this procedural pair may grill the dead man's ex-girlfriend Shin-hye (Yoon Jeong-hee) and his landlady and his mother, they're also asking themselves what constitutes a relationship and what justifies a breakup. And when they reflect on the life of the girlfriend's father, about the very nature of faith and religion and friendship. Deep, baby, deep.

It's hard to crack a murder case — or establish the cause of a suicide if that's what's going on — when you keep getting swept up in existential questions or being distracted by the potential legacy of a childhood accident that left a forehead scar. Luckily for us, the philosophizing in The General's Mustache is exactly what makes this movie such a treat. Director Lee Seong-gu's film is bursting with ideas whether he's introducing a nude model or a game of "confession," riddling about a new kite or utilizing alternate visuals like cartoons and splashy paintings to help him tell his whackadoodle story. If you can call it a story. I'd call it poetry.

Mist: The Foggy Town

When a big city pharmaceutical executive (Shin Seong-il) vacations in his sleepy hometown without his wife in tow, memories flood back as he reunites with former school buddies then falls into an affair with a local music teacher (Yoon Jeong-hee). Who's orchestrating this extramarital fling is a matter of opinion. Both seem to be manipulators who are going to end up feeling a bit abusive and used when this brief tryst comes to a close. Indeed, writer-director Kim Soo-yong's refusal to cast one as villain and one as victim is what makes Mist such an intriguing film. This is a movie more about mood and psychic states than action and conflict.

It's also exquisitely shot. Jang Seok-jun's black-and-white cinematography is a marvel to behold, especially the longshots in which we see the protagonist crossing an empty lot or moving in and out of a night fog with his love interest or witnessing a funeral procession passing by on a hilltop. Mist is a film comfortable with art for art's sake, with the idea that a picture can tell a story as well as dialogue. Watching a liquor bottle empty out on the floor thereby ruining a nearby paperback is a quick, concise way to show us someone is tired and drunk; just hallucinated ants on a work document lets us know someone is sick and tired of their job. This confident artfulness really elevates Mist to classic status. I'd watch it again. Won't you watch it once?

Night Journey: She's Had Enough

I've never been able to fully own the idea that time isn't linear. I believe it. But it's hard to pind down. Because, the occasional deja vu aside, life feels like we're moving in a straight line from past to present towards future unknown. From hour to hour. Or minute to minute. Yet I also acknowledge that when I get caught up in a memory, moments often get interspliced or loop around each other. Which is basically a good way to describe director Kim Soo-yong's technique in constructing the slippery psychodrama that is Night Journey. Kim's portrait of a dissatisfied bank employee (Yu Jeong-hie) who's dragged for her unmarried status flashes back and forth in time, as nostalgia and past traumas act as imbalancers for her melancholic, present-day woes.

Sex with her co-worker/flatmate (Shin Seong-il) is dissatisfying. A rape comes out of nowhere then disappears just as quick. A trip home takes a strange turn when she puts on her high school uniform (still fits!), triggering recollections of a former teacher/soldier/suitor who died in the war. But sometimes, you're not sure whether what's presented is real or fantasy. Which somehow relates to the nature of time, too. Yet despite the inner chaos, our heroine is guiding her destiny — whether she's turning down offers from men in alleys, cajoling an old schoomate for a motorcycle ride, or acknowledging the lustful glance of a military officer on the street. Because of that, Night Journey is more grit than grim.