A Public Prosecutor and a Teacher: What a Coincidence

The likelihood is incredibly great that director Yoon Dae-Ryong and his co-writer Kim Chun-Kwang must've seen the 1940 movie Tuition since their own A Public Prosecutor and a Teacher so closely follows the hard-times plot of its predecessor. But whereas the older flick focuses primarily on one poor young boy's constant struggle to get a decent education despite his ailing grandmother and his missing parents, its 1948 successor is ultimately about that down-on-his-luck student's sympathetic teacher who ends up moving out of town, getting married, then harboring an escaped criminal with disastrous results. Featuring a voiceover by a byeonsa with a quavering voice, this update with its narrative expansion defies expectations by packing in twice as much plot despite running a significantly shorter amount of time.

The impact of these changes is so dramatic that it seems ridiculous to compare the two despite a few scenes that are almost mirror replicas of the original. Because in the end, A Public Prosecutor and a Teacher is more pure melodrama, right down to the poses many of its characters periodically assume at times of great crisis: a look to the heavens at a time of mercy; hands raise to the face at a moment of terror; the collapsing on the ground when suffering pangs of hunger. This is not a criticism as such touches are part of the pleasure of A Public Prosecutor... In a world when vengeful husbands fall on knives and abandoned children wander around at night, nothing less than a bitten knuckle will do to convey the tension.

A Day Off: An Off Day

Watching Lee Man-hui's late-'60s melodrama, you get the feeling that the director was a big fan of L'Avventura, La Notte, and the other great existential romances of the decade. Like those two Antonioni films too, A Day Off is beautifully shot in black-and-white and involves characters futilely searching for a deeper meaning in life. (Good luck, right?) This time around however one major practical concern is also at play: One of the film's two leading ladies, Ji-yeon (Jeon Ji-yeon) is six months pregnant and needs to get an abortion. (Even the doctor thinks she's unwise to carry to term, people!) Unfortunately for her, both she and her shady boyfriend (Shin Sung-il) are damn flat broke.

And so, a good chunk of A Day Off is spent following the unlucky love of her life as he attempts to scrape together the necessary funds from a ladies' man, a drunk academic, and a chubby guy who really likes to take baths. But where the movie gets especially interesting for me is when he goes on a bender with a different woman, an equally down-on-her-luck Seoul-mate who wants to drink this particular Sunday — hell, every Sunday — into oblivion. As these two souses careen from one drinking hole to the next, A Day Off begins to feel both more real and more surreal — capturing the recklessness, giddiness, and danger of getting blind stinking drunk with someone who can match you drink for drink. How's it all end?

Well, the censors banned it for being too depressing back in the day despite a coda that's like a little poem to "being". Is life a flower growing in the crack of a city sidewalk? This poetic flick wants to believe so.

Empty Dream: Dental Fantasies

What is it that aligns the art of expressionism with the world of medicine repeatedly in film? Is it utter madness? It sure seems like it as some of the most vivid cinematic manifestations of the genre are associated with some seriously demented doctors. Who can forget The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T? From South Korea comes another example: Yoo Hyun-mok's no-less-outrageously loopy Empty Dream, a largely silent black-and-white fantasy that concerns two patients of a dentist with an odd methodology. One toothaching woman (Park Su-jeong) will undergo a perversely intimate form of resuscitation after fainting during her procedure; her male counterpart (Shin Sung-il) will find his novacaine shot sending him into a weird sexual fantasy that involves that woman in the neighboring chair.

But was it actually novocaine? It's questionable. Because his drug-induced daydream is going to take him to some pretty twisted places via scenes that mix bondage and electrocution, a cabaret crooner and a dancing contortionist, strategically torn clothing and animated mannequins. Where else can the sun be put out of existence by a single gunshot fired by a madman? The waking world is no less strange as characters' minds are flooded with equally bizarre imagery like whirring circular saws, lewd mouth rinses, and teeth cleanings that apparently cause orgasms. Does your dentist's office stock erotic magazines in its waiting room? Does your dental hygienist remove your stockings to help you relax? The office smelling salts may not work when they need to in Empty Dream, but you're also unlikely to fall asleep.

Three O'Clock on a Rainy Afternoon: A Love Pentagon

Three O'Clock on a Rainy Afternoon is one of those tragic romances that's so fraught it seems likely that someone might kill themselves while listening to opera. The only question is who? The Korean-American war correspondent (Lee Min) whose bride abandons him before the honeymoon? The violin player who unknowingly crushes on his best friend? The young woman (Kim Ji-mee) who's promised herself to two possible husbands? The homegrown veteran (Choi Mu-ryong) with severe depression and a cane? The undergraduate music student who seems to fall for everyone while no one really cares? Oh yes, there's a lot of frustration in this love pentagon. But as to leaping into oblivion, as one character puts it, "I was too weak-willed to go through with it."

There's also a lot of Western references in director Park Jong-ho's heartbreaker circa 1959: a jazz band at the army barracks, another one at The Pagoda nightclub, a ballet company doing pas de deux, a music class with a few bobbysoxers, some wedding vows spoken in English, and a professed proficiency in the cha-cha. They've even adopted one truly unsettling American ethic in this post-war Korea. Per one drunken, former G.I.: "I miss the battlefields on a night like this. When I felt frustrated, I would point my gun at the enemy. After a round of firing, my heart would feel much lighter." Gun therapy! (And yes, this is the type of guy who would take a slug a woman... and does.) Soon enough, you're no longer wondering if one of these character is going to slit wrists and taking bets on which one might pull out a pistol and shoot another in a fit of passion. Well, someone does die. But not in that way either.