P1H: The Beginning of a New World: Pop Your Preconceptions

I think I can safely say that P1H: The Beginning of a New World is one of the weirdest movies I've seen in a long time. An apocalyptic flick in which legions of drones from the star Alkaid (the end of the handle in the big dipper constellation) are injecting humans with a zombie sperm that makes people muderously rageful, this cockamamie sci-fi fantasy has more loose threads then an Anne McCaffrey trilogy. [If you know, you know.] We've got a bullied tween girl (Lee Chae-yun) with a talking teddy bear; a high school breakdancer (Hwang Intak) granted immunity by a razor cut to his neck; a pair of amnesiac frat boys (Yoon Kee-ho and Choi Ji-ung) who gain superpowers courtesy of a charmed ring and a magical wristwatch; and an airhead (Haku Shota) who can destroy a killer drone with a well-aimed brick when he's out of bullets.

Not all these characters exist within the same timeline; unless, you consider the ability to time-travel means everyone lives everywhere all at once. [The Butterfly Effect is not explored!] Hardcore K-pop fans may notice that there are six characters who share the same names — and the exact likenesses — of the six members of the boy band P1Harmony. This is not a coincidence. [Spoiler Alert] Writer-director Yoon Hong-seung's action pic increasingly feels like a crazy, convoluted music video promo for a perfectly good reason. It is one! Come the final scene in which all pretense of this not being an advertorial is discarded, you might expect a big choreographed pay-off. Instead, P1H goes to black. Roll credits. Dark magic in a way.

Death Bell: Their Final Exams Will Be Their Final Exam

Being at the top of the class is a mixed bag at Chang Ahn High School. Straight A's may get you into college but here they could also get you drowned in a fish tank or tossed to death in a dryer if your fellow students don't figure out that puzzle on the chalkboard in time. Death Bell's midterms of murder have something to do with a dead student whose killer remains at large. Since someone at C.A.H.S. did it, heads are going to roll until that someone confesses (and asks for an apology). Scholarship student Yi-na (Nam Gyu-ri) figures this out soon enough. Why not? She was buddy-buddy with the victim and knows what it means to study hard, only to land in fifth place on the honor roll. (That ranking gives her some breathing space when the serial killer is working down the list.) But Yi-na also knows how to have a good time, thanks to her friendship with Hyeon (Kim Bun), the school prankster who sidelines as a DJ and would definitely get better grades if he applied himself. Head teacher Mr. Hwang (Lee Beom-su) sure believes in Hyeon; Ms. Choi (Yoon Jeong-hee)? Not so much. But then she doesn't seem to believe in anyone except director Yoon Hong-seung who's giving her plenty of screen time to scream in his K-horror torture porn.