Road Kill: Really Evil Real Estate

Indeed, there are evil real estate developers who have done as much harm as evil doctors, evil lawyers, and evil cops. And their actions impact whole communities, not solely individuals and/or the land. What a pity then that these shysters don't get more prominent screen time as movie villains! When they do, they're far from boring. I can think of few unsavory types as savory as the sadistic wheeler-and-dealer in Psychokinesis. As for Road Kill's simpering super-sleazy agent Oh-gwang (Lee Cheol-min), he's definitely vile. ((He's rapist, childmolester, and hit-and-run driver as well as being a nasty businessman.) The trouble is he's also a buffoon. The best bad guys are smarter than this.

Which isn't to say his victims are likely to outwit him. Road Kill is populated with dimwits: a simpleton stepdad (Oh Gwang-rok), an airhead mom (Kim Yoon-ji), a hypersexual daughter (Kwon Ye-yeun), and a son (Shin Won-ho) who's got a stare that indicates not too much is going inside outside murderous rage. In truth, none of them register as fully formed characters. They're vessels. Or inbred. Or lost souls. Or ghosts. Whatever they are, they don't create a lot of drama even when the movie turns violents and people are picking up knives and axes and weed whackers as the plot takes a Darwinian turn. Splatter may jar some out of a braindead state. As for me, with Lee Soo-sung's Road Kill, I welcome death.

Wish You: Your Melody Is in My Heart

I used to think my gaydar wasn't that good. Now I think it's too good. Which can be frustrating when watching queer romances that feature actors who play at gay unconvincingly. Trust me, this doesn't have to do with not femming it up enough. My gaydar isn't based on such stereotyping. It might be the way we inhabit our bodies. Or the way we look in each other's eyes. But when is the problem an actor who doesn't understand how to to feign attraction to men and when is it an actor who's afraid of revealing it. And is there a difference?

Sun Do-joon's Wish You definitely doesn't pass my gaydar but who's fault is that? Could the editor who condensed the eight-episode K-drama into a movie shoulder the blame? Would it help if the street musician (Kang In-soo) was flirtier? Or if his obsessed fan (Lang See) was less unsettlingly naive? Definitely, the fan fantasy puts a worrisome kink in this story. Do we really need a movie that tells you that you can meet and fall in love with your same sex YouTube dream? That the harmonies you're crafting on your Casio at home are going to result in a lifelong relationship? Factor in that the lovelorn one works for a recoding agency as a low-level assistant and the creep factor gets worse. But considering the aspiring pop star is in a contentious relationship with his barista-videographer (Baek Seo-bin), his life can only get better from here. Stalkers, right this way.

Crack: Not a Crank Call... Worse (But Better)

There are some dark imaginations out there. I'm looking at you, Ahn Yong-hae whose animated short "Crack" concerns a suicide prevention counselor who gets the second worst call of her life. The first one — flashbacked to briefly — involves the death of a loved one; the second one (and the center of this film) comes from the young lady who drove the now-gone daughter to kill herself. Neither remorse nor forgiveness follows. No one's enlightened. No one achieves revenge. Baby, "Crack" is simply grim.

Situtated at the end of what appears to be a long hallway leading to nowhere, the operator traffics in cliches. Claiming to be on the Han River, the outside caller engages in a nasty kind of socratic dialogue. Who's the victim? Who's to blame? What's the difference? What's enough pain? The viciousness of "Crack" is jarring as is the absense of an upper lip on its cartoon hero. As short films go, "Crack" is tight, and among its small cast of three, actor Kim Bo-ra (SKY Castle) is definitely not phoning it in — even if this flick is all about disconnections.