A Mother's Love: An Actor's Legacy

The great actor Ahn Sung-ki passed away earlier this year. But my, what an impressive body of work he left behind. Who can forget him as the master archer in Kim Sung-su's thrilling Musa - The Warriors (2001) or the heavy drinking journalist in Jeong Ji-yeong's moving White Badge (1992) or the nomadic monk in Im Kwon-taek's brilliant Mandala (1981)? Strictly random examples from the latter part of his career! Looking further back, we realize that Ahn was nearly as good as a five-year-old actor in Yang Ju-nam's weepie A Mother's Love (1958) as he was as a 60-something legend in Kim Joo-hwan's pulpy The Divine Fury (2019), decades later.

The earlier film is pure melodrama: Ahn plays a well-behaved young boy dropped off by his ailing mother (Lee Kyoung-hee) at the home of his married dad (Lee Min) who knocked up his mom during a one-night-stand during the war. Daddy's new wife (Jo Mi-lyeong) isn't immediately taken with her new potential charge, even if she's been unable to have any babies herself. So will she abandon the child at a neighborhood playground or a nearby orphanage? Will she let him stay at the house then depart herself as a divorcee? If she's got any sense, she'll keep him close and stay put because Ahn has an amazing future ahead. Trust me. I've seen a good swath of it.

Sweet Dream: She Wants What She Wants

"How can a housewife not care about housekeeping?" Exasperating questions such as this one make the heartless, self-absorbed behavior of Sweet Dream's anti-heroine something to root for. But expecting your sympathies to stick with her as she purchases the most expensive dress in the store out of spite, turns her lover in to the cops out of boredom, and mows down her daughter in a taxi because she simply has to catch that train may be asking too much of audiences -- feminist or not. Regardless of whether you relish her evil nature or hunger for her downfall, this is nevertheless one melodrama that promises to satisfy. Three other things to like about Yang Ju-nam's wicked potboiler. 1. A dance performance by a guy (with amazing thighs) who quips upon receiving a bouquet from the bad girl: "Pretty flowers have thorns." 2. A classroom scene in which young girls are taught that if they're killed or crippled, it's their parents who will suffer. 3. A final, scenery-chewing suicide made more delicious by the entrance of the husband who realizes there's no point in shooting this bitch of a wife because she's already dead. Sweet Dream is among the earliest talkies we have from Korea but its pleasures extend beyond the historic.