Five Marines: Age-Old Warriors

With only a decade between them, marquee headliners Kim Seung-ho and Shin Yeong-gyun would seem best suited to co-star as brothers for a war pic but in Kim Ki-duk's Five Marines, they play a military father-son duo with a history as potentially woundful as the DMZ. They're not the only family following a wacky Hollywood logic when it comes to ages. Performers Hwang Hae and Hwang Jeong-sun take on the roles of a soldier-son and his seamstress-mother despite a mere five years separating the two. (Crazily, he's older than she is.) I mention these odd details because in some ways, Kim's patriotic paean to the South's infantrymen feels like the cinematic equivalent of asummer stock production, as if the director had assembled a group of actors first, and the material second. Except, it's hard to imagine him picking this script. More like it was assigned.

Given the constraints, he's cast as best as he can. So what if everyone's around the same age. Maybe age is irrelevant when we're wearing standarc fatigues and camouflage helmets. The first half of the film is spent meeting the battallion — which aside from the aforemention army G.I.s — also includes a city smart aleck (comedian Flyboy), a new recruit (Nam Jang-il), a heartbreaker (Choi Mu-ryong), and a chaplain. Eventually, this crew paddles behind enemy lines in order to accomplish a dangerous mission. (Less dialogue and clownery; more action with whispers!) And — in true war movie fashion — only one of these guys is going to survive! Consider that a spoiler? If so, you haven't been watching many war pics. Five Marines is nothing if not standard issue frontline heroics.

Returned Single-Legged Man: Slap the Mustache Off That Face

Taekwondo virtuoso Tiger (Han Yong-cheol) has fallen on hard times. He's given up wearing those Western ties and pinstriped suits for lazy open shirts and bellbottom pants. His boyband haircut may not have changed much but he's sporting a mustache now because he's drinking too much to shave. Will he ever get his reputation and self-respect back? Or is falling out of favor with his adopted gangster-father (Kim Wang-guk) destined to be a tragedy from which he'll never recover? Before we learn those answers, we're going to need to take an extended flashback to a career-defining heist gone wrong. Our down-on-his-luck drunk a.k.a. our lovelorn clotheshorse will find this between-time to be especially sorrowful. A promising engagement is dooomed; a Japanese enemy is made; and endless shots of sojou are imbibed. And that's just the first third of the movie!

Director Lee Doo-yong's madcap martial arts movie is packed with as much plot as punches. But if it's fighting you want, Returned Single-Legged Man has plenty of that, too. Indeed, the Foley artist scored as much of RS-LM as did the super-'70s composer. (A scene highlighting the sound of wooden sandals going down a dirt road is particularly comical.) As for the costuming of a trio of thugs in hot pursuit of this movie's sinewy star, the accoutrements are faultless: a high femme, spotted rope scarf, an ebony walking cane sword, and a snakeskin jacket complimented by an orange neckerchief and a metalic shirt. Who needs character traits when you have outfits like these?

Take Note: Lead actor Han Yong-cheol went by many names in his career including Han Yong-chul, Hon Long-chit, Han Long-zhe, Han Ian, and Han Charles (not to mention Westernized variations in which the surname is placed last).

Take Note 2: A dubbed version, entitled The Korean Connection, though still fun, made less sense with its dumber dialogue.

Starting Point: Lost From the Beginning

There's a lot that's undisclosed in Lee Man-hui's thriller Starting Point. What's in those papers that our most moral mobster (Shin Sung-il) is trying to steal from the office safe? Do they merit killing the security guard? What instructions are passed on to the prostitute (Mun Hie) before she joins him on a mock honeymoon? And why must these two pose as newyweds at a campsite where people dance around a campfire to rock 'n roll? Lee — and his screenwriter Kim Ji-hyeon — have no intention on filling in the gaps. Which makes this 1960s noir a puzzler, that perhaps only repeat viewings can solve.

After a single screening courtesy of the Korean Film Archive's YouTube channel, the movie remained a conundrum. For while the hooker may have be the bait of her mock groom, she's also the one person on his side once trouble escalates. Their faux fieldtrip to Mount Seorak is fraught with peril once the hoods come out to hunt down them down. So will either survive? And would either of them want to, should the other die? Would a stack of money help? You see, they've fallen in love. And how do you repay someone for breaking your heart? I promise you, it's even harder in the snow. And tougher on a staircase!

The Outlaws 2: The Roundup

The Outlaws 2 is a very stabby movie. By which I mean, the weapon of choice is the knife for pretty much everyone. That's true for our villain (Son Sukku). Same for his blade-wielding bestie. Same for the brother assassins our villain hires when his bestie lands in the hospital. Same for a bistro's worth of serial sous chefs hired by a rich man (Nam Mun-cheol) to avenge one disarmed son. Everyone bad favors the knife. I mean everyone. Even the deranged hostage-taker in the movie's opening scene. Even the pathetic scam artist (Park Ji-hwan) who's mainly here for comic relief: The diminutive size of his switchblade is a cause for the titters.

Which begs the question. Who, in this universe of stainless steel stained with blood, prefers to fight by other means? And I don't mean the hatchet which also makes at least one appearnace. Well, our hero police officer (Ma Dong-seok) prefers using his fist. His sidekick of a captain (Choi Gwi-hwa) opts for the handgun should one become available. And the rich man's wife (Park Ji-young) who has her own negotiations with the stabbing maniac, she just uses her brains... and when that doesn't work, she runs! Funnily enough, though, the most exciting scene in Lee Sang-Yong's action-packed sequel isn't one of its many slice-and-dice bloodbaths. It's an extended car chase involving many vehicles and not dependent on endless crashes to create the drama.

Please Note: The Outlaws 2 goes by the title The Roundup and you don't need to have seen the previous film to make sense of the murderous mayhem.