Top 10 Movies of 2022 (Sort of)

Last year, I took a deep dive into 1960s cinema from Korea. I wasn't consciously looking to escape the present. I didn't even realize I was focusing so much on a single decade. You'd think all that black-and-white footage would've clued me in! Yet here I am, mid-December, surprising myself with the data: Nearly 20 of the 52 films viewed in 2022 premiered in the '60s. Inevitably, perhaps, directors Im Kwon-taek and Lee Man-hui are both well-represented in my year-end list, reminding me they don't make 'em them like they used to. Not that they should. But boy am I glad that they did when they did.

1. Mandala (1981): Im Kwon-taek's profound buddy pic recounts the relationship of a nomadic ascetic and his excommunicated mentor.
2. The Road to Sampo (1975): Lee Man-hui's magical road flick — about a love triangle of outcasts — celebrates friendship, not passion.
3. The Bell Tower (1958): By keeping it simple, In Yang Jun-nam's folk tale about a bell-maker's life resonates in soul-stirring ways.
4. The Coachman (1961): Neo-realism with a happy ending? I didn't know it was possible 'til Kang Dae-jin's Silver Bear winner.
5. Deliver Us From Evil (2020): Who's the hero of Hong Wan-cho's neo-noir? The career assassin or his trans sidekick?
6. Sopyonje (1993): A fading artform can't quite hold the family together in another career highlight for Im.
7. The Devil's Stairway (1964): Lee's pulpy K-horror goes to wonderful extremes when a doctor wants his nurse-lover...gone.
8. Homebound (1967): Douglas Sirk would've loved Lee's women's pic about a military wife with her own PTSD. So do I!
9. The Water Mill (1966): In Lee's filmed fable, a peasant gives his all for the love of his life then ends up with basically nothing.
10. Bloodline (1963): The havenots have a roughgoing in Kim Soo-yong's group portrait of North Korean defectors.

Honorable Mentions: Kongjul & Patchul (1978), The Outlaws 2 (2022), Whistle Blower (2014), and Dream (1955).

Father and Sons: The Courtships of Four Bachelor Brothers

How did this movie happen? What misguided movie executive decided that a comedy about four grown men acting like 10-year-olds would make for a barrel of laughs? Yet here we are with director Kwon Yeong-sun's bizarre Father and Sons — a ridiculous sitcom about a sporting goods shopkeeper (Kim Hie-gab) whose four overaged bachelor babies dream of being the next Patridge Family. All they need now is a couple of Shirley-Joneses and Susan Deys. (Lyric sample: "My favorite type of girl is more beautiful than I am.")

So which of the longtime children will find true love first? Will it be the oldest son (Yang Hun) who wears a toupee and runs his own barbershop? The rubber-faced second son (Lee Jong-cheol) who drives a spotless taxi? The third child (Kim Twist) who dusts the album covers at a well-stocked record store? Or the baby (Nam Bo Won) who aspires to a gig at Carnegie Hall? Since Father and Sons is a comedy, I felt pretty confident that each would find his match eventually. The overhanging question was — to quote an Abbott and Costello routine — "Who's on first?" If that reference feels out of place, let me explain: This is a farce that's not shy with the insults. (Sample putdown: "You sure like to change your words, like a horse moving its butt.")

The film's got a lot of slapstick, too: roughhousing at the breakfast table, shoving money into a sibling's open mouth, the classic running into closed doors... What it doesn't have is natural romantic interests for its four overgrown boys. The four women who become these men's individual obsessions come aren't yins to their yangs so much as foolish ladies who get suckered into a dismal future. I can excuse the bride-to-be who falls for the guy who knows hypnotism but going gaga for a trumpet-playing bandleader who does blackface? Um, not so much.

Steel Rain 2: Summit: Negotiating

One unforeseen legacy of the international disgrace Donald Trump's four years in the White House may be how American presidents are portrayed in foreign films in the near future: In the Cold War drama Steel Rain 2: Summit (2020), for instance, scruffy U.S. President Smoot (Angus Macfadyen) comes across as a not-too-bright blowhard who makes — and tweets! — inappropriate remarks that serve no objective but hiw own self-aggrandizement. Compare him with South Korean President Han (Jung Woo-sung), a squeaky-clean, fawning career diplomat who's like the one dolphin swimming in a pool of sharks. Or North Korea's Chairman (Yoo Yeon-seok) who's grounded by a heartless determination exacerbated by anger issues. Each man has his limitations and his faults but only one comes across as a moron. "USA! USA!"

Not that Yang Woo-seok's political thriller is a sophisticatedly satirical cat-and-mouse game. Characters wear flag pins to remind you who's representing which country; history is explained as if the writing team were periodically mandated by an in-house Korean War scholar to drop data points. As for the central drama, it's strictly Tom Clancy hyperbole when a rogue general (Kwok Do-won) from Pyongyang takes takes our three world leaders for a bank-making submarine ride. Whee! Ka-ching! My final takeaways: The evils of capitalism are now recognized as a global problem; greed continues to be the ugliest of sins; nuclear war remains an option for our worst politicians; the American myth somehow survives despite the staggering pile of evidence to the contrary. One question: Is the movie's temporary Commander-in-Chief (Kristen Dalton) stateside modeled after a hawkish Hilary Clinton?

Midnight: Silent Night, Deadly Night

We live in a world where simply watching a lone woman walk down an abandoned street at night in a low-trafficked part of town can make for an unnerving moment, irrespective of the country. Make that potential target of violence a deaf woman and the tension only increases. On such scares has Midnight been built. Kwon Oh-seung's thriller revolves around a young deaf office-worker (Jin Ki-hoo) and her deaf seamstress mother (Kim Hae-yeon), who together unwittingly interrupt a serial killer (Wi Ha-joon) during his latest slay. That's not a bad start. This is not a particularly consistent nailbiter however. To wit, when the latest victim's brother (Park Hoon) — who happens to be a security guard — confronts the killer, our boys in blue are hanging outside the precinct headquarters, chatting, then let the bad man free for fairly sketchy reasons. In what reality, do police officers trust a total stranger (with a briefcase of knives) without taking a report? Why wouldn't they rush out to track him down once they've realized they'd made a mistake? Oh, Kwon, what were you thinking?!

Perhaps Midnight is a film about police incompetence. Which gives its bloodthirsty villain free rein to stalk and torment his witnesses at home and in their oddly underpopulated neighborhood. I don't think I've ever run down so many late-night streets without a homeless person or fellow drunk in sight, regardless of the hour. Then again, I also can't explain the satisfaction that comes from people chasing each other through a maze of alleyways, regardless of the plot-holes and the potholes. But since Kwon's screenplay fails to incorporate vibrations, peripheral vision, and neighbors who can hear a young woman cry out for help, I never doubted for a moment that this "final girl" would survive. I did like the how of it though!

Deliver Us From Evil: Essential Neo-Noir

What's needed to make a movie a film noir? An unsavory underworld? An avenging antihero? A dominoed sequence of dastardly crimes? Well, yes, all those things can come into play and more. But a noir also isn't a noir without some seriously considered cinematography enhanced by the moodiest of lighting. For the great Fritz Lang, the noir of the '40s/'50s was distinguished by arty camera angles and strategically-cast shadows; for writer-director Hong Wan-chon, the amoral action gets a richer palette if not the crackling dialogue. No longer black-and-white, his update on noir abounds with fireside yellows, silvery blues, and scarily splashy reds. (Literally, "splashy" since the blood does splatter.) Set in the asphalt jungle (where else?), Deliver Us From Evil has neo-noir's ravishing visuals and vigilante vibe down pat.

Hong's sinister screenplay is better than basic, too. Much better. A world-weary assassin (Hwang Jung-min) — is there any other kind? — heads to Bangkok to right wrongs out of the past, after his never-quite-forgotten ex-girlfriend (Choi He-seo) suddenly resurfaces on his radar only to vanish once again. Naturally, the villainy only spirals out from there. Beyond a reasonable doubt, Hong next-levels the reliable black-market-organ trope (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Man From Nowhere, Traffickers). Equally potent is the wardrobe of the retaliating nemesis (Lee Jung-jae) who shows up at one point in a zebra-print shirt paired with aviator glasses. Killer, for sure. The same can be said for the acting of Park Jeong Min whose turn as a trans nightclub performer who serves as the "good" assassin's most-reliable sidekick adds just the right amount of sparkle to a world dominated by doom and gloom.

Some may say that Deliver Us From Evil has too many moments that go too far: How could a layperson know how to perform surgery on themselves? What allows an individual to outmaneuvre a full police SWAT team without even spraining an arm? Why would a bloodbath be followed by a snifter of booze? Those looking for logic are likely to end up as shell-shocked as the movie's kidnapped little girl (Park So-yi). As one character says, "The reason doesn't matter anymore." But Hong's film sure does, if you're thirsting for a thriller.