Top 10 Korean Movies with Dragon Lee

Because this blog is devoted to Korean movies, I focused this "best of" list on Dragon Lee flicks which were shot — at least partly — in his native tongue. Along the way, I also learned that many of this North Korean heartthrob's films were originally directed by Kim Si-Hyeon only to be re-edited (a.k.a. butchered) then recredited to Godfrey Ho. No respect! I'm not confident this list is infallibly ordered but I do hope it conveys my newfound respect for this underrated performer.

1. Enter the Invincible Hero: An action movie is only as good as its villains and this one has three and what a wild trio they are.

2. The Dragon's Infernal Showdown: You know you're in for a treat when the bad guy quips, "Our only purpose in life is to make as much money as possible."

3. Kung Fu Fever: Nearly every scene, Dragon's sporting a new outfit...except at the end when he brings back the yellow onesie which truly deserved an encore.

4. Martial Arts of Shaolin Temple: The story of loyalty is timeless but there's something so quintessential '80s here: the pleated-pants, black vest, white-T-shirt and gorgeous hair.

5. The Dragon's Snake Fist: North Korea's pulpy male pin-up headlines as a star pupil who eventually must take on a rival school's entire graduating class. Guess who wins?

6. Dragon Lee Vs. The Five Brothers: The real stars here are the mysterious woman in a veiled hat (Qiu Yuen) and the malicious man with the iron hand (Choi Min-kyu).

7. Secret Ninja Roaring Tiger: A variation of The Three Musketeers including a woman and some weird soft core sections.

8. Champ Against Champ: All-but-killed by a poisoned dart, our young hero must have his leg amputated then learns to fight with a steel prosthetic. Oh, the sound effects in this one!

9. The Deadly Silver Ninja: This script, involving fighters dressed like Mexican wrestlers, feels like it was written after the film was shot and based on spur-of-the-moment ideas guided by mouth movements.

10. Mission for the Dragon: If you want to see Dragon fight in the water, this may be your flick.

Also worth watching: Bruce Lee's Ways of Kung Fu, The Clones of Bruce Lee, and Jaws of the Dragon.

The Suspect: Never Enough Heroes

Who's your hero in Won Shin-yeon's intricate thriller The Suspect? You actually have a few choices here. Is it Ji Dong-cheol (Gong Yoo), the former North Korean spy who's desperate to find his wife and child? Or Min Se-hoon (Park Hee-soon), his South Korean counterpart who sees Ji's capture as his redemption? Or even Choi Kyeong-hee (Yoo Da-in), the reporter who looks to both men as a way to resurrect her career? You could even pick Captain Jo (Jo Jae-yoon), the resourceful, gum-smacking military sidekick who's here for comic relief. It doesn't really matter. Because everyone has the same nemesis: Kim Seok-ho.

As the film's just-mentioned, amoral, mercenary, duplicitous NIS Director, Jo Sung-ha gets a lot of mileage out of a shit-eating grin. He flashes his teeth whether he's outsmarting a colleague or making a shady deal, whether he's pointing the gun at his enemy or having that same gun's barrel pressed up against his forehead. No doubt his mother told him he had a beautiful smile as a child but the more he grins the more you'll grimace. I mean that as a compliment. As bad guys go, he's deliciously detestable. The car chases in The Suspect are terrific, the camerawork frenetic, but that sickening smile really takes the cake.

Fallen: The Future Is Weird

For all its meta conversation about science fiction, revenge porn, and film criticism, the opening scene of Lee Jung-sub's Fallen creates a palpable sense of suspense. You sense one of the characters discussing scifi screenwriting sensation Baek Jo-kyeong (Yang Ji) is up to no good but which one and why is a mystery. Shortly thereafter when the antisocial artist wakes up, battered, handcuffed, and leather-masked in an oil barrel, you — like her — are desperate to find out how she got there (and how that mask mysteriously turns into duct tape soon thereafter). Yet what follows isn't so much an explanation or an elaborate escape so much as two dueling narratives — one akin to Six Characters in Search of an Author meets Molly's Game; the other, a tribunal of sorts in which the Twelve Angry Jurors (or thereabouts) must decide whether to grant immunity to two figures who may or may not be from the future and who may or may not have life-saving cures for the sick relatives of all those present. How do these two stories relate?

Well, there's some business about the mother of the scifi writer being a serial killer and the author's daughter being blessed with artificial intelligence (because the humans of tomorrow can be hybrids, don't you know?) but despite scads of exposition, unhelpful flashbacks, and some ever-menacing drones, I'm still not sure why that one guy had cool-looking magic marker lines on his shaved head or what the two young women playing with sparklers were intended to signify. Unwatchable? Apparently not since I stuck with Fallen to its cockamamie end. Recommended? Not to anyone I know... not the scifi geeks, not the literary eggheads, not the radical sisters, not the South Korean cinephiles. I suffered for you. I wrote two paragraphs. Let's all move on. Goodness lies ahead.

My Bossy Girl: A Total Bullseye

Is Hye-jin (Lee Elliya), the pert and pretty archer in a wheelchair, a domineering girlfriend? I wouldn't label her as such. She seems more like a self-possessed and determined young woman who Fate has directed into the caring arms of Hwi-so (Ji Il-joo), an adorable science nerd who's never had a girlfriend, gotten drunk, or driven a car. The two of them make an unbeatable pair whether they're giggling over pork chops at an eatery at the top of a laboriously tall staircase or gently smooching after a victorious game of paintball with his equally square cadre of friends. These two were made for each other and while conflicts exist — an overly worried dad (Lee Han-wi) on her side; a traumatic past on his — the chemistry between these two actors is so intoxicating that the idea of them not ending up together is simply not acceptable. You know it'll work out but you still cry when they hit a bump in the road. At least I did. Multiple times.

Lee Jang-hee's My Bossy Girl is basically one of those feel-good rom-coms in which you want everyone to be happy at the end: the science geek girl and her henna-haired lab partner; the supportive sister with international dreams of her own. And why shouldn't everyone get exactly what they wish? Why can't we have our desires and goals met and not just ours but those of our friends and family? I understand that someone has to lose but can't those be people in minor roles that we'll never see again or if they're robots can they fade into the background? No one's saying that life isn't hard but can't we have two frolicsome hours that culminate in a win-win-win? According to My Bossy Girl, we sure can.