Deliver Us From Evil: Essential Neo-Noir

What's needed to make a movie a film noir? An unsavory underworld? An avenging antihero? A dominoed sequence of dastardly crimes? Well, yes, all those things can come into play and more. But a noir also isn't a noir without some seriously considered cinematography enhanced by the moodiest of lighting. For the great Fritz Lang, the noir of the '40s/'50s was distinguished by arty camera angles and strategically-cast shadows; for writer-director Hong Wan-chon, the amoral action gets a richer palette if not the crackling dialogue. No longer black-and-white, his update on noir abounds with fireside yellows, silvery blues, and scarily splashy reds. (Literally, "splashy" since the blood does splatter.) Set in the asphalt jungle (where else?), Deliver Us From Evil has neo-noir's ravishing visuals and vigilante vibe down pat.

Hong's sinister screenplay is better than basic, too. Much better. A world-weary assassin (Hwang Jung-min) — is there any other kind? — heads to Bangkok to right wrongs out of the past, after his never-quite-forgotten ex-girlfriend (Choi He-seo) suddenly resurfaces on his radar only to vanish once again. Naturally, the villainy only spirals out from there. Beyond a reasonable doubt, Hong next-levels the reliable black-market-organ trope (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Man From Nowhere, Traffickers). Equally potent is the wardrobe of the retaliating nemesis (Lee Jung-jae) who shows up at one point in a zebra-print shirt paired with aviator glasses. Killer, for sure. The same can be said for the acting of Park Jeong Min whose turn as a trans nightclub performer who serves as the "good" assassin's most-reliable sidekick adds just the right amount of sparkle to a world dominated by doom and gloom.

Some may say that Deliver Us From Evil has too many moments that go too far: How could a layperson know how to perform surgery on themselves? What allows an individual to outmaneuvre a full police SWAT team without even spraining an arm? Why would a bloodbath be followed by a snifter of booze? Those looking for logic are likely to end up as shell-shocked as the movie's kidnapped little girl (Park So-yi). As one character says, "The reason doesn't matter anymore." But Hong's film sure does, if you're thirsting for a thriller.

The Lost Choices: She's Not Having It

Ji Eun (Shin Hyon-bin) has one damned ugly life. An orphaned young woman with only one friend (Yim Seo-joo) at the fabric factory where they're bored shitless, she's unable to find a better job as a graphic artist despite her talents because of a severe speech impediment. After witnessing her gal pal (who's also her next-door neighbor) get physically and mentally abused at home and at work almost daily, Ji Eun gets gang raped. Then a shady cop is dismissive of her account despite a fistful of hair she's ripped from the head of one of her attacker. Then one of her rapists returns to rape her again. Who wouldn't want be consumed by anger? Who wouldn't want revenge?

But Ahn Yong-hoon's grimly satisfying The Lost Choices isn't content with reveling in serial killings by a survivor vigilante. This effective drama also does an excellent job at reflecting the patriarchal biases and attitudes that inform this most misogynist of crimes. On the criminal side, the perps are not only oblivious of the harm they've inflicted but also don't remember the face of their victim... and repeatedly cast themselves as victims when the tables take a deadly turn. On the law side, the only one sympathetic to Ji Eun is the sole female cop (Yoon So-yi), who knows a thing or two about the PTSD that accompanies sexual assault. What especially engrossed me about The Lost Choices was how the script charts both the heroine's spree and the lady copy's consciousness expanding. The ending is not what you'd expect!

Bloody Fight in Iron-Rock Valley: Ex-Con Goes on Killing Spree

It would be a bit of a stretch to say that the low-budget, high death-count pic Bloody Fight in Iron-Rock Valley has a plot. What it has instead is a scenario that acts as n excuse to link one murder to the next with retaliatory violence in between plus some flashbacks to the brutal rape and murder that started this bloodbath of revenge to begin with. Writer-director Ji Ha-Jean has no favored method of offing his characters, mind you, but you can be damned sure that a single gunshot or knife wound is unlikely to do it: Ghostface (Yoon Sang-Hwa) has his throat slit then is shot in the chest; Axe (Kwak Ja-Hyeong ) is hacked with his namesake weapon before having his head bashed in by a stolen Buddha statue; the young girl in the flashback who is raped and murdered eventually has her face is peeled off. Those who survivor do not escape Scot free. The hero Chul-Gi (Lee Moo-Seang) — a young man of few words, who is out to exact revenge on his sister's killers — is stabbed, bludgeoned, punched, choked, hacked, clobbered, and even has his mouth cranked open with dental jacks we assume will lead to torture. He's one of the lucky ones, simply because he never receives that final death blow. Is the creepy little ballerina music box he's constructed while in prison — or is it juvie? — some kind of magic talisman that capable of warding off the Grim Reaper? Could be.

Equally charmed is Tae-yeon (Choi Ji-Eun), Iron-Rock Valley's only prostitute — hell, its only woman — who lures men to the local gambling den but defies the odds by staying alive, even as her boyfriend, dad (who happens to be a monk), and child (at least I think it's her child) are gunned down. You'd think she and Chul-Gi were a perfect match. Yet when Chul-Gi heads off on his motorcycle into the sunset, she's not behind him with her his arms wrapped around his waist and her head leaning on his shoulder. There's no place for love in Iron-Rock so he leaves her behind to deal with her inheritance: a now abandoned temple with no tenants but a lot of ghosts.