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!"

Inside Men: He's Got the Look

Does an actor have to be beautiful to hold your attention? No. But it helps. Case in point: Lee Byung-hun. Woo Min-ho's Inside Men may have enough plot twists for a Hallmark mystery miniseries, but the real pleasure comes from seeing the many photo-ready looks of Lee who, despite a detachable prosthetic hand here, is eternally ready for the runway. Part of the time he looks like a retired surfer, his long black hair slicked back like a simulated mullet. Later he looks like he's auditioning for a sequel to the musical Grease. Still other times, all cleaned up with a feathered coif, he's practically walked out of a Thierry Mugler '80s lookbook — broad shoulders included. All this strutting and modeling may sound distracting but to the contrary, the visuals simply add another layer to Woo's political thriller which, for the record, is lavishly shot. And it's not as if Lee can't act!

He's got a time-tested track record to prove it too: Joint Security Area (2000), A Bittersweet Life (2005), I Saw the Devil (2010), The Fortress (2017)... Plus, he's in excellent company with a surrounding cast providing him with rich scene partners, especially Lee El as a glam old flame willing to sacrifice everything (for a price) and Cho Seung-woo as an always suited prosecutor frantically trying to get out of the trenches. One could argue that Inside Men is actually Cho's movie since so much of the screentime is devoted to his aspirational quest. But his life dream's success would be impossible without Lee, and frankly, so would the heart of this movie. Beautiful!

The Drug King: High on the '70s

Tarantino isn't the only director fetishizing '70s noir. Director Woo Min-ho and his cinematographer, costume designer, and music director are all channeling peak Scorsese, Schlesinger, and Penn in the sumptuously filmed, nattily attired, and impeccably scored The Drug King. The latest South Korean export helmed by acting legend Song Kang-ho, Woo's sprawling biopic concerns Lee Doo-sam, an actual cook-dealer-addict who operated on an international scale. Yet despite its lush look and sound, The Drug King avoids glamorizing its drug of choice crank by reminding us that those who get a taste of this upper will get hooked, go crazy, then crash and burn.

We see this scenario play out with Doo-sam himself naturally as well as his brother Doo-hwan (Kim Dae-Myung) and a handful of ancillary characters but really most of this cast is set dressing. The Drug King is Do-sam's story; everyone else is walking prop, an extra maybe with lines. Luckily, Song is an actor who can carry a two-hour movie alone. We may wish that actresses Kim So-jin and Bae Doona had more to do as his clear-eyed wife and his calculating mistress but Woo's script isn't concerned with anyone outside of its leading man. An ostensible plot involving a determined police detective (Lee Hee-joon) on Lee's trail is irrelevant. What works in The Drug King, and it's no small thing, is Song doing his thing — rising up to the top then sinking to a soiled bottom. You'll never look at a bucket of piss the same way again.

The Man Standing Next: Not The President's Last Bang

Will the multiple Oscar accolades for Parasite result in larger crowds for new Korean movies at the multiplex? Not immediately from the looks of it if a recent screening of Woo Min-ho's big-budget political thriller The Man Standing Next is any gauge. (A recent matinee screening had the usual six or seven suspects in attendance at Times Square's AMC Empire 25.) In this case, that's probably all for the best since this film about the 1979 assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee (Lee Sung-min) is neither as layered as Bong Joon-ho's latest masterwork nor as stylishly seductive as Im Sang-soo's The President's Last Bang which covers similar territory. Which means this one is truly for cineastes with a taste for "Hallyuwood."

In its favor, The Man Standing Next is more forthcoming with historical details than glammy The President's Last Bang; less fortunate is how belabored the set-up part of the movie is. I learned more and cared less since The Man Standing Next only kicks into gear when the action turns decidedly violent. There's a terrific scene in which a kidnapped Kwak Do-won fights his way out of a car, which leads to an exciting final scene in which the KCIA Chief Kim Kyu-Pyeong (Lee Byung-hun) orchestrates the killing with his hired thugs as well as the cooperation of the duplicitous Deborah Shim (Kim So-jin). Most interesting of all however is the archival photos and audio of the real-life men portrayed in the film, a short aside which pops up right before the end credits. Getting upstaged by reality isn't uncommon but as a stand-in for The Man Standing Next's anti-hero of a leading man, a former-revolutionary-turned-frustrated-bureaucrat, Lee Byung-hun has certainly done better.