Top 10 Movies of 2023 (Sort of)

The thought occurred to me when putting together this curated list of Korean movies (which once again I had trouble paring down to ten from the 50 I'd watched throughout the year) that it might be helpful to think in terms of "favorites" instead of "best." Because sometimes I really do like movies that are far from cinematic paragons. Some aren't even "good" in the generally accepted sense. Yet every film on this list merits inclusion. They're all memorable in terms of storylines and casts. More importantly still, they tickled my fancy. And so, with this new framing device in mind, I present to you my recommendations for 2023.

1. Decision to Leave (2022): Enjoying a Greek tragedy doesn't depend on being surprised by every twist and turn. Nor does this ingeniously constructed Park Chan-wook crime pic.
2. Voice of Silence (2020): Director Hong Eui-jeong's thrilling feature debut concerns a mute man-child suddenly in the middle of a botched kidnapping crime gone awry.
3. Love & Leashes (2022): The kinky Korean counterpart to stateside's 50 Shades of Grey is surprisingly nuanced, often humorous, and consistently smart. With gender roles reversed!
4. Exit (2019): Lee Sang-geun's heartpounding rom-com follows two recreational rockclimbers who find unwanted adventure when a poison gas hits downtown Seoul.
5. Midnight Runners (2017): In the eternal fight between good and evil, I expect some hyperbole. In Kim Joo-hwan's police cadet mystery, I relished it.
6. Deranged (2012): Director Park Jeong-woo's timely disaster-disease pic somehow feels as if it were a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
7. Night Journey (1977): This period drama about a dissatisfied bank clerk (Yu Jeong-hie) taking stock of her life is a feminist critique with surreal touches.
8. Kill Boksoon (2023): With all due respect to slick action pics The Killer and Ballerina, Jeon Do-yeon's performance as the title character pushed this one into the lead.
9. Space Monster Wangmagwi (1977): The camp factor runs high in this alien-invasion flick in which a Godzilla is remote-controlled from outerspace.
10. Shark: The Beginning (2021): This underdog story with male bonding between sexy guys in the juvie appears set to kick off a series, given its title. Bring it on!

Obsessed: Repressed

I'm aware that the erotic romance Obsessed is all about a Vietnam vet have an extramarital affair with a subordinate's wife. But Kim Dae-woo's suffocatingly repressed film reminds me more of the perverse Reflections of a Golden Eye than Coming Home or The Deer Hunter. There's the way Song Seung-heon fills out his white T-shirt a la Brando; the fawning officer (On Joo-wan) whose marital sexlife is dead. There's a scene in which two men (Song and Bae Sung-woo) dance together for God's sake. I'm not struggling to locate queer subtext here! The sex scenes implicate as well: The first one finds the husband doing all the work (and it looks like work); the second one finds his mistress (Lim Ji-yeon) making all the noise while he looks detached; the third one almost looks like he's giving it to her up the butt, doggy-style.

I don't know that any of this is intentional on Kim's part but goodness, the gender-studies term-paper practically writes itself. What else are we to make of the bit when the mother-in-law tells her cheating daughter that she's glad the young woman's a cheater because the cuckolded son is nothing short of "evil"? From what I observed, he's simply ambitious in the same way that the antihero's wife is. Is smuggling the devil's work? Or am I reading too deeply? Could be. There's a terrific moment midway through the film where a dance instructor (Yoo Hae-jin) comments on the America's televised moon landing: "Damnit there's nothing. Using all that money to get to such a place." I suppose the same could say about my review. Obsessed might just be an exquisitely costumed movie without salacious subtext but definitely with a temperance message.

The Anchor: Dying On-Air

It's not always a bad thing when you know where a movie is headed. In Jung Ji-yeon's psychological thriller The Anchor, for instance, you can tell early on that the dominating, alcoholic mother (Lee Hye-young) may be the major liability for her newscaster daughter (Chun Woo-hee) in the days ahead. To what extent remains to be seen but we know that this mom undermines self-esteem, meddles in the marriage, and serves up slices of rotten fruit without an apology. But to get to the bottom of the matter might require a hypnotist. Luckily, the psychiatrist (Shin Ha-kyun) — who also happened to treat the suicidal woman who boomeranged the aspiring anchorwoman's career handled a similar case years ago — is available to administer treatment.

Unfortunately, everything's a bloody mess by the time the doctor has put the pieces together and guided the client through the dreamscape. As in blood in the abdomen. Blood on the wrists. Blood in the hands. Blood on the lips. The number of ruined wardrobes runs high in this one. That the color of the final outfits worn by two of these women is white is not lost on me! Nor that the fabrics look likely to stain. Network YBC appears to have continued its nightly new program without a blemish. I fear for the next generation though. You see, there's a baby who going to survive this nightmare and that little one's life is going to be crazy.

This Is Korea!: No, This Is Propaganda!

There's something revolting about pretending the worse thing that happened to Korea in the 20th century was communism when the Chinese and Soviets were actually responsible for combatting Japanese occupation. But such is the myth-making of John Ford's This Is Korea!, an agit-prop film produced by the U.S Navy that's really more about American soldiers abroad than the citizens they're supposedly protecting. We hear of men from New York, Georgia, Maine, Idaho, and California; soldiers who haven't had a hot meal in two months come Christmas; fighters trekking across the hills while carrying their homes upon their backs; "...walking when they still can; carried when they can't."

What we hear about the Koreans is that they are refugees in their own country (a curious choice of words!), getting vaccines for typhus and smallpox (which they don't understand) and primarily homeless children taken care of by local nuns. More time is devoted to seeing bazookas in action and tanks and grenades and flame-throwers. Was there a time when people saw the weaponry and thought, "How cool is that?" Were people charmed by an orphan named Little Babe Ruth DiMaggio and moved by a silver star pinned on a uniformed chest followed by footage of napalm being dropped? It's tough to hear the narrator mispronounce the capital city or mutter "Fry 'em out, burn 'em out, cook 'em" and believe that Ford and company care about the Korean people at all in relationship to this war. Delusional, demented, Red scare cinema at its worst? Mission accomplished. What are they fighting for? As the film itself states: "Maybe it's just pure cussedness."

Bodyguard: Protecting Those in Power

You can tell that writer-director Song Seung-Hyeon has put a lot of care and forethought into his thriller Bodyguard. There's recurring imagery (a chess set), recurring gags (the airgun), and an attempt to build a layered narrative (flashbacks, blurred for effect). But Song's film, like the feet of its damsel-in-distress (Yoo Ye-bin), has two many band-aids. Why does a high-ranking businesswoman of a billion-dollar company have only a fancy watch as an asset to offer her protector (Kang Seok-chul) as payment? Why does the third banana in a collection agency blurt out a fast-food dish when he see this same woman's photo? And why do we care what happens to her anyway? The answer in every case is because it serves the overall plot.

Song's inability to make Bodyguard progress from Point A to Point B — as well as the acting that gets us there — feel natural means that the film is never more than an apprentice's contrivance. When a rescue intervention abandons nearly all the characters, you have to wonder what's really going on here! But since Bodyguard is Song's freshman effort (I believe), I wouldn't write him off too quickly. He casts fairly well, and has brought in a good cinematographer, an excellent fight choreographer, and a talented location scout as well. Let's give praise where praise is due. Admittedly, some costume choices give pause — What's up with the baseball hat with three earings in its bill? — and one "surprise" necktwist you can see a mile away, but overall Bodyguard has me guardedly optimistic about what comes next for Song. Might the sophomore slump be this filmmaker's jump? Let's all buy a ticket and see.

The Battleship Island: POW Power

Internment camps are a nightmare. In The Battleship Island, the wartime hellscape is a prison island doubling as a mining facility at which prisoners are forced to dig for coal under inhumane conditions. The best way to escape such a dire fate is to know how to play a musical instrument: So clarinetist band-leader Lee Gang-ok (Hwang Jung-min) and his prepubescent, singing-dancing daughter So-hee (Kim Su-an) have a glimmer of hope, as they entertain the enemy with a small jazz band.

Playing pop songs for your enslavers may sound like a form of torture but working underground and breathing coal dust doesn't sound any better. And there are prepubescent kids — with pickaxes and chizels — in the subterranean realm as well. Thug-turned-good-guy Choi Chil-sung (So Ji-seob) may have fought his way into a line boss job for the betterment of his countrymen but there's only so much he can do. And who needs his help more? Elder Yoon Kyung-ho (Lee Kyung-young) or comfort woman Mallyon (Lee Jung-hyun)?

Then again, maybe since this is a movie, all of these stories are going to come together for a great escape. So how's that going to happen when you're stuck on an island with no mainland in swimming distance? Teletype machines, copied keys, pornographic distractions, traded cigarettes, and sheer fortitude, that's how! Considering how often it rains and how often there are explosions on this prison-island, it's going to be tough even if things go smoothly. Then again, survival might be enough.

Believer 2: Repeat Crimes

Let's assume it's a given that most sequels are made because the originals earned too much goddamn money. Greedy producers see more cash ahead! Nothing will stop them from getting it either — not talent, not logic, not the passing of years, certainly not merit. With Example 1, Believer 2, that means hiring a new writer (Jeon Cheol-Hong) and a new director (Baek Jong-Yeol) who, in turn, serve up a convoluted plot finessed with torture porn and a final dedication to an actor from the first installment who died in car accident in the time in between. So what's up this time around?

• A dispirited lead detective (Cho Jin-woong) so obsessed with ones drug lord (Tzi Ma) that he'll fund his own flights to Thailand and Norway
• The return of two deaf-mute "cooks" (Kim Dong-young, Lee Joo-young) whose love cannot be stopped by blindness or mutilation
• A ventilated, wheelchair-bound, disfigured drug lord (Cha Seung-won) whose hospital gown remains spotless regardless of nearby blood splatters
• The lead villainess (Han Hyo-joo) — what used to be called a "psychobitch" with daddy issues — who constantly sticks her tongue in her cheek to alert us that... it's all tongue-in-cheek?

Are Bake and Jeon aiming for camp? If so, not everyone got the directive.

Shark: The Beginning: Training Gloves

Bully culture is a real phenomenon. So how do you challenge it? Do you meet might with might? Punch back? Stab in the eye? Kick in the nuts? Or do you form an alliance with someone stronger? Ideally someone with a knockout right hook? The question becomes even more pressing if you find yourself in a juvenille detention center where over half the convicts are adults. (I guess sometimes "a crime is a crime, a punishment is a punishment.") Still, my heart goes out to Cha Wo-sol, the painfully shy nerd who finds himself behind bars after being provoked by a sadistic student. He's learned early on that "Retreat" is a strategy of limited value.

And so Wo-sol (Kim Min-suk) and Mixed Martial Arts loner Do-hyun (Wi Ha-joon) forge a friendship — by way of a physical training intensive — below the barbed wire and within the chained link fence. Both understand what it means to be dealt a bad hand in life. Wo-sol was a victim throughout school; Do-hyun was incarcerated after his mother and sister were killed and he murdered their assailants in revenge. Hence they're primed to bond over pushups, pull-ups, and sit-ups performed under a "don't try, do" ethos. It all leads up to the sweatjacket being shed to reveal the ripped torso underneath. That's the end of Part 1 at least.

Part 2 inevitably puts all the lessons to the test. In Chae Johnny's Shark: The Beginning, the path to redemption or revenge or self-actualization won't be easy. In other words, there will be blood. Blood spills from the lips, the nose, the knuckles, the forehead ... If you're doubting Wo-sol's chances, keep his mentor's comments in mind: "That's your talent. Persistence." And leopard print — no matter who (Jung Won-chang) wears it — is definitely not his kryptonite.

Diva: Diver's Delirium

Diver Lee-young (Shin Min-a) has clearly bumped her head hard in that car accident leading up to the Olympic trials. She's having visions of her dead/missing best-friend/synchronized-partner Su-jin (Lee Yoo-young), both in and out of the water and hallucinating high dives that end in a pool without any water. Ouch! I mean, you know that scratch above her eyebrow goes deep because despite all the time she's spending in chlorinated water, that gash will not heal. Is it a psychosomatic symptom if something that's real doesn't get better? You better your gold medal it is.

So what is it that's driving our neurotic aquatic to the brink since her hospital discharge? And is her new synchronized partner (Oh Ha-nee) going to be safe doing multiple flips with a twist from the same high dive? For that matter, is the performance-enhancing drug "Ju" part of the problem? What about the coach (Lee Kyoo-hyung)? Or the guy who may have sold her friend a pair of incompatible jellyfish at the petstore? I can tell you this much, someone associated with the human aquarium looks like they're going down. In Jo Seul-yeah's Diva, head injuries are practically contagious by the end. Doggy-paddling will get you nowhere. And the cops will throw up their arms as if they were doing the butterfly stroke.

Night Journey: She's Had Enough

I've never been able to fully own the idea that time isn't linear. I believe it. But it's hard to pind down. Because, the occasional deja vu aside, life feels like we're moving in a straight line from past to present towards future unknown. From hour to hour. Or minute to minute. Yet I also acknowledge that when I get caught up in a memory, moments often get interspliced or loop around each other. Which is basically a good way to describe director Kim Soo-yong's technique in constructing the slippery psychodrama that is Night Journey. Kim's portrait of a dissatisfied bank employee (Yu Jeong-hie) who's dragged for her unmarried status flashes back and forth in time, as nostalgia and past traumas act as imbalancers for her melancholic, present-day woes.

Sex with her co-worker/flatmate (Shin Seong-il) is dissatisfying. A rape comes out of nowhere then disappears just as quick. A trip home takes a strange turn when she puts on her high school uniform (still fits!), triggering recollections of a former teacher/soldier/suitor who died in the war. But sometimes, you're not sure whether what's presented is real or fantasy. Which somehow relates to the nature of time, too. Yet despite the inner chaos, our heroine is guiding her destiny — whether she's turning down offers from men in alleys, cajoling an old schoomate for a motorcycle ride, or acknowledging the lustful glance of a military officer on the street. Because of that, Night Journey is more grit than grim.

Doctor: Surgical Insanity

The pursuit of beauty: Who has it worse? The cosmetic surgeon or the patient compelled to go under the knife? In Kim Sung-hong's Doctor, the craziness for perfection definitely goes in both directions: For the scalpel-wielding maniac (Kim Chang-wan) — I mean medic, the drive for perfection can send him into a rage whether he's choosing which tie to wear or catching his wife (Bae So-eun) in the midst of an affair. Admittedly, that last indiscretion could lead many to see red. But you can't blame her for straying. Her gym trainer (Seo Gun-woo) is hot; her controlling husband is not. Plus she's maxed out on all the physical upgrades her physician-esthetician might provide.

Once she's set her husband off, however, no one is safe: not her mom, not her lover, not the homeless man in the street. Even the nursing staff at his clinic is going to have a tough time escaping his bloody bedside manner which includes bludgeoning, throat-slitting, hammer-weilding, and poisonous injections. Oddly, the scariest part of Doctor didn't involve him going after any of his victims with a tool of torture. For me, it was the scene in which he preps to perform eyelid surgery on a woman using only local anesthetic. I didn't know this was even possible. Now I'm thoroughly scared.

Gentleman: No One Is Who You Think They Are

I'm sensing a new genre emerging in movies. Let's call it "liar noir." These new crime pics are modeled after The Usual Suspects, a film in which the action which we see on screen isn't necessarily what happened at all. To the contrary, in movies like Kim Kyung Won's Gentleman (which I saw Sunday) and Yoon Jong-seok's Confession (which I saw a few weeks ago), we're presented with seedy, twisting narratives, only to learn that the tellers are fabricating the stories and what actually transpired is something else...partially. In both cases, that revisionism works against the overall picture. Because you never know if another level of deceit is going to emerge and the explanation, disputed. You're also left to wonder why you've spent the last hour hearing a made-up tale.

No fan of The Usual Suspects myself, I conjecture that this mode of storytelling is the direct result of living in a culture in which facts are repeatedly disputed, falsehoods promoted, videos doctored, and testimonies reneged. As a mirror of reality, Gentleman is not without interest. But as a movie-going experience, I'm left unsatisfied. Ju Ji-hoon is the private detective duped into being a stooge framed for a possible murder. Park Sung-woong is the amoral powerbroker who hustles on the market and markets unsuspecting women. Choi Sung Eun is the indefatigable prosecutor who isn't afraid to take on society's higher-ups. All are good. That is, if that's who they are.

Mulberry: She Gets Around

In an effort to spur online viewership (I suppose), the curators at the Korean Film Archive have resorted to creating new categories for their YouTube channel: Chuseok Comedies, Summer Scenery, and E.R.O.T.I.C. among them. Are the all caps in that new subsection intended to draw the eye or to evade the censorship filters? Whatever the reason, I ended up picking a movie from that playlist — Mulberry, the story of a woman who resorts to sex as a form of commerce after being abandoned by her gambling husband. Be forewarned: Lee Doo-yong sex-driven drama is neither titilating nor tawdry.

Lee Mi-sook's rustic sex worker feels like a pragmatic hustler then demeaned communal property. Her main problem doesn't end up being the men with whom she's swapping "favors" or the husband (Lee Dae-kun) whom she's deceiving or even the gossipy, catfighting wives. It's the dimwitted, lecherous, peeping tom (Lee Mu-jeong) of a farmhand who can't fathom why she won't put out for him too. Why do the men go crazy for her? As one woman at the laundry hole puts it: "Some women are born with a honey bush and some with a thorn bush."

Mulberry isn't arousing, unless you find the sight of a woman's behind while she's taking a pee a turn-on or the sound and sight of rushing water in a mill — in lieu of actual intercourse — hot, hot, hot. The actual sex scenes go from short to comic to depressing. According to IMDb, the original negative got damaged so a few scenes are missing. Whether they've been restored here or not doesn't matter much. It is what it is and it's kind of strange.

Ballerina: A Different Type of Fairy Tale

I don't know when Netflix first posted about the impending arrival of Ballerina but I've been waiting for it impatiently ever since. The image of a messy-haired young woman (played by Jeon Jong-seo), clearly in action-movie mode, coupled with this short description was just so irresistible: "Grieving the loss of a best friend she couldn't protect, an ex-bodyguard sets out to fulfill her dear friend's last wish: sweet, sweet revenge." I suspected the subtext here was "a young-woman/former-assassin in a loving relationship with lesbian undertones takes on the patriarchy, one slay at a time." And I wasn't far off.

Our heroine, Ok-ju (Jeon Jong-seo), is indeed a loner assassin who finds a new life purpose after a reunion with a high school crush Min-hee (Park Yu-rim) inspires her to massacre a mass of misogynist pimps, drug-dealers, and sex traffickers — particularly a long-haired, porn entrepreneur (Kim Ji-hoon) and his drug king boss. Will they be able to survive once Ok-ju gets gun-power from two geriatric arms dealers (Kim Young-ok and Joo Hyun) and further fuel for her fire from a sex traffic survivor (Shin Se-hwi)? Doubtful. Shoutout to director Lee Chung-hyun and whoever the cinematographer was for making the whole affair look so damned beautiful.

Confession: Liar, Liar

Confession is a silly movie. Basically a two-hander about a nefarious businessman (Yoo Min-ho) and a woman (Kim Yunjin) who he's trying to get to be his lawyer, Yoon Jong-seok's not-so-thrilling thriller is built around the conceit that she'll only represent him in court if he tells her every dastardly thing he's done leading up to and following the murder. So while he's proclaiming his innocence for killing the woman (Im Jin-ah b.k.a. After School's Nana) with whom he was having an affair, this guy is quite open to admitting bribery, adultery, hit-and-run, insurance malfeasance, cybercrimes, aiding-and-abetting, destroying evidence, and murder... just not of his love interest!

Preposterous? Yes. I'd even go so far as to say Confession is ridiculous! Because eventually, you realize that everything you're watching is potentially a lie. We're not seeing things as they happen but events as they're being told. A character — the accused, the potential attorney — might revise their story five seconds later and then we'll see actions reflecting the new scenario they've concocted. Since neither character is particularly trustworthy, the single way to find out what's real is when other characters enter the picture (the cops, another lawyer, a husband) and we watch in "real time" what reality unfolds. Per usual, reality attempts to satisfy but falls a bit short.

Return to Seoul: Lust for Life Abroad

The adoption of Korean babies was international big business for decades. According to the American magazine The Progressive, the South Korean government raked in around eighteen million dollars annually via Korean baby adoptions abroad. That ended in 2020 (after a public outcry) but the legacy is still very much with us. Cambodian-French director Davy Chou's intermittently captivating Return to Seoul takes a fascinating look at the cultural disconnects that result when one such adoptee returns to her homeland somewhat impulsively. Admittedly, Frédérique "Freddie" Benoît (Park Ji-min) is neither your typical French expatriate nor your typical Korean ingenue. She's callous and curious, impetuous and petulant, unreliable and ambitious; a lost soul who can't decide whether she wants to find herself or self-obliterate.

In her quest to do one of the other, she bonds with a hotel clerk (Han Guka), reunites with her alcoholic birth-father (Oh Kwang-rok), has an affair with an older arms dealer (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) and causes mischief basically everywhere she goes. Chou creates a sympathetic portrait of Freddie initially — enhanced by some terrific acting by Kim Sun-young as a strugglingly bilingual aunt — but eventually this story goes off the rails. A long-awaited reunion with Freddie's birth-mother leads her to hike in Romania? I'm not saying such things don't happen but when our lead character sits at the piano keyboard to bang out a tune we come to realize that her fingerwork, like this narrative, slips a little too often to be called harmonious.

Dream: Soccer's High Kicks

Sports movies are generally about underdogs. Director/co-writer Lee Byeong-heon knows that and then lays it on thick with Dream. The story of an amateur team composed of homeless men who are all underdogs, this feel-good flick offers a rags-to-riches scenario to the nth degree. And the uplift isn't restricted to the players either. The coach (Park Seo-joon) is a pro with an image issue (and a mother who's a fugitive); the documentarian (Lee Ji-eun) shooting this against-the-odds tale is a filmmaker whose own career has hit rock bottom.

The question is not what do these people have working against them. Because the answer to that one is everything. Including no sponsors, a acutely felt social stigma, a divorce, old age, unemployment, and the sexual assault of one athlete's girlfriend. Somehow the real dilemma is can the coach resist the temptation of money and take his team to victory. Not ultimate victory. Maybe just one victory? Without help from the Brazilians? How about a tie? Or one point? Well, this movie is called Dream so let's go for something big! Like gay rights. I mean, why not?

Champion: Armwrestler on the Rise

Kim Yong-wan's Champion is an incredibly endearing sports movie with a revoltingly slimy character just off center. Clearly, I'm not talking about the film's hero (Ma Dong-seok), a down-on-his-luck armwrestler who's returned to Korea from the U.S. where he'd been working as a depressed nightclub bouncer. Nor am I referring to his armwrestling sponsor (Yang Hyun-min), an extortionist, mini-mafioso, big time gambler, and all-around bully. No. I mean the protagonist's spiffily-dressed BFF (Kwon Yul), a slick con artist with big dreams that bank on his buddy's full cooperation in questionable endeavors. This plot devise — he's hard to accept as a human being — is so transparent in his shady behavior that you may wonder if the hero has a screw loose or has a debt of incalculable magnitude.

Such payments aside, I was much more interested about our main guy's relationship to his newly found half-sister (Han Yeri) and her adorable kids (Choi Seung-hoon, Ok Ye-rin). In fact, I'd argue that there's a better version of this script in which the oily sidekick doesn't exist at all. Isn't an expat returning to his homeland to find a new family and long-deffered success against the odds enough for us viewers? We don't need to lose the thugs, the corrupt system, the adoption, the wins and losses, the party-crashing, the family bonding, the underdog story, the acupuncture scene, the ex-con rival (Lee Kyu-ho), the inevitably upbeat end. I love underdog stories. But I hate the middleman. Let's drop the middleman! Isn't that always a good policy?

Project Wolf Hunting: Animated, Terminated

I'm not suggesting that the sadistic criminals aren't way smarter than the bumbling cops in Kim Hongsun's ultra-bloody prisoner-escape movie Project Wolf Hunting. But there are still some steps I would've taken once I'd gained control of the Frontier Titan ship whether I was overthrowing my captors at sea or guarding the extradited passengers from the Philippines to South Korea. No matter which side you're on why wouldn't you...

1. Throw the dead bodies overboard.
2. Keep the doctor nearby to administer first aid as needed.
3. Handcuff the pilot to the steering cabin.
4. Keep someone alive for repairs in the engine room.
5. Retain one form of communication with the outside world.

Then again, why do I bring up such concerns when there's maggot-mouthed supervillain (Choi Gwi-hwa) enters halfway through to turn the smiling sociopath (Seo In-Guk) — whom you thought was the primary nemesis — into an expendable secondary character? Though it doesn't reveal the fact until late in the game, Project Wolf Hunting is a monster movie, an over-the-top fright flick in which the evil mastermind is a ruthless gay sex addict who fatally gags the man giving him a blowjob and the final three survivors are mutants who undergone serious gene therapy. Who's behind it all? A pharmaceutical company called Aeon genetics. It's the type of situation that asks: Can one tough woman (Jung So-Min) actually save the world from another military experiment gone awry? Or were Ridley Scott and James Cameron wrong?

Six Ball: Action Cues

One should never mix business and sex. Or business and love. Or gambling and sex and love. And billiards. But if no one ever did, we'd never get a movie like Chae Ki-jun's Six Ball. This clever indie concerns a sweet-faced poolshark (Lee Dae Han) whose rapacious boss (Kang Ye-Bin) is jealous of his mentor (Kim Ah-ra) who also happens to be his one true love and the daughter of a former pool-hall owner (Kim Jin-mo) who lost a lot of money and got the first guy's arm injured in a game by the aforementioned boss' boss (Hong Dal-pyo) who sexually coerces his femme fatale employee. The movie's not as hard to follow as that sentence is but Six Ball does have a plot of intertwining lives and conflicting motives, and characters with short tempers and long-standing animosities.

The acting may be inconsistent but the script isn't. It's pulp with plenty of choice components: back stabbing, tight cleavage, twisted violence, enraged shouting, improbable turnarounds, and costumes that look more "ugly real" than you'd like. There's nothing stylish about poverty here! The outcome of the final contest may seem predestined, though not the extent of it. Plus, most of us will have learned a new game for the billiards table in the process. I, for one, say, "Rack 'em up!"

Remember: Jason and Freddy

Since the Korean War ended in 1953, I'm not sure the math totally works out with Remember, a thriller about Freddy (Lee Sung-min), a beloved geriatric waiter at TGIF, who hires his co-worker Jason (Nam Joo-hyuk) as a driver so he can execute a series of vigilante executions for fellow countrymen who profitted from aligning with the Japanese during occupation. That would make all the guilty men tweens which makes their actions seem infinitely less calculating, although not less upsetting. I personally allowed myself to succumb to this revenge fantasy's logic. Justice is in such short supply lately, that a one-man judge-jury-executioner who's going after slimeballs with good PR teams has serious appeal.

Especially when the two lead actors — Lee and Nam — have such undeniable chemistry. Whether they're evading Detective Kang (Jeong Man-sik) or outwitting a middle-management menace (Yun Je-mun), you never doubt these two have each other's back. And writer-director Lee Il-hyeong's script provides plenty of conflicts that find the two in double-David versus gang Goliath scenarios and last-minute escapes. It's weird to have a movie that's so dark elicit "That's so cute" reactions so regularly but the statement was never made without pleasure. Running over two hours, Remember kept me up late without regret.

The Magnificent Wonderman from Shaolin: Golden Gate

When it comes to martial arts movies out of East Asia in the '70s, establishing the pedigree can be a complicated matter. According to City on Fire's deep-diving critic Paul Branhall, Magnificent Wonderman from Shaolin is notorious Hong Kong film hack Godfrey Ho's reworking of Kim Seon-Gyeong's Korean action pic Golden Gate from a few years earlier. The flick definitely has Korean star power: Casanova Wong, Eagle Han-ying, Elton Chong, and Marty Chui Man Fooi are each prominently featured. And if you're noticing a pattern here re: their names, you probably won't be surprised to learn that this flick has been dubbed into English, albeit of the corniest variety. I doubt the translation's faithful. I suspect the earliest version was best.

But Magnificent Wonderman did get me wondering. Why isn't the dumbed-down dialogue in martial arts movies ever given a homoerotic twist? With its original title (Golden Gate) and no shortage of sexy men, you could easily resituate the story to San Francisco then recast the relationships as romantic rivalries. What if the impressive skull grip that causes a foamy mouth had sexual connotations? What if the old monk with the inverted swastika headband was undercover at a neo-Nazi HQ? How might we reframe the swordplay followed by a fatal kick to the groin? Couldn't the hand that burns with each touch or the jumpcuts between two sets of staring eyes get a queer reinterpretation? I realize that was not the intent of Kim or Ho or any of the players. But what's the point of this movie anyway? And where did those Wolverine fingernails come from?

Space Monster Wangmagwi: UFO SNAFU

On paper (if they use paper on the planet Gamma Castle), the plan looked infallible. Beam a radio-operated monster down to Earth where it'll grow to over 500 times its original size (because of gravitational differences) then go on a murderous rampage thereby destroying the human race and opening the planet for colonization. But the silver-suited Gamma guys haven't factored in Korean tween ingenuity. And so, their extraterrestrial war machine may be able to withstand bullets, rockets, and electric shocks but it can't defeat a young orphan who scales its scaly skin, slices through its ear drums, and unplugs the control sockets located on its back. Sound preposterous? It is.

But Gwon Hyeok-jinn's Space Monster Wangmagwi is also a lot of fun. As its urchin hero, Jeon Sang-cheol sees the intergalactic attack as an elevated form of playground combat. Far from scared, this kid embraces the opportunity to hang on for dear life by giant nose hairs and to take a pee once he's cut his way into the monster's body. A bride-to-be (Kim Seon-kyeong) may be less resourceful — and more self-absorbed — but she's also largely unfazed traveling around in the monster's hand as it smashes buildings and crushes cars. Additional comic relief comes courtesy of two co-workers making bets on the catastrophe's outcome and a man who poops on a page of newspaper when he can't find an office bathroom amidst the melee. The traditional leading man, an airforce pilot (Won Nam-koong) rescues his fiance and a soon-to-be-adopted son by parachute. Unlikely. Unbelievable. Irresistible.

City Ninja: Two Men Who Never Meet

In a martial arts movie like City Ninja, which of two rival heroes do you hope to win? Is it Jimmy (Casanova Wong), the South Korean kickboxer whose red underwear shows when he splits the crotch of his white pants mid-fight on the roof? Or Hong Kong's Wang Li (Michael Chan), an international boxing contender who can high-kick in white slacks without getting them ripped at the junkyard? Undecided? Then evaluate the two men as lovers. Jimmy can make his woman orgasm under red light, in shadow, and in the mirror. Wang Li pleasures one woman on an assortment of gym equipment, including a rowing machine. Still torn? How about considering how they'd spend a big chunk of change. Jimmy wants to use the cash on a wedding; Wang Li wishes to open a gym. If you're not feeling particularly keen for either, don't worry. There are other people who'll stop at nothing to get those coded necklaces suspected to unlock untold riches.

There's the mob boss mistress who gets pregnant and attempts to force Wang Li to run off together at gunpoint. There's the mafioso's second banana who has aspirations of being in charge. There's also the gang of black-cloaked ninjas who, in old times, could vanish in a flash of light; and who, in modern day, throw silver balls that release puffs of blue and red smoke. (The movie's opening scene takes place decades earlier and apparently, in the ensuing years, these masked mercenaries have lost some magic powers.) I suppose you don't have to pick a winner. This film isn't about winners. It's about losers who fight incredibly well while also looking sexy when taking a shower.

Idol: Two Dads, Too Many Crimes

Who's the good guy in Idol? Is it the unflappable politician (Han Suk-kyu) who argues against a nuclear power plant despite being the Chair of the Nuclear Power Plant Committee? Or could it be the melancholic single father (Sol Kyung-gu) who masturbates his mentally ill child up through adolescence and beyond if given the chance? It's certainly not the former man's son who's guilty of a hit and run or the latter man's sister who runs a massage parlor staffed by sex workers. Don't rush to a decision too quickly yet either because in classic noir crime fashion, writer-director Lee Su-jin is going to do a bit of a switcheroo midway through the film. I suppose it's to keep our interest. But for me the turnaround left me baffled. Despite running well over two hours, Idol feels like it's missing a few scenes that would justify one guy's fall from grace and another's lift into it.

If you're willing to put up with the big bump in the road, Idol is pretty engaging with a central femme fatale (Chun Woo-hee) who causes destruction everywhere that she goes. She's got a curse on her, a system against her, a sordid history, and an acute sense of smell heightened by an active pregnancy. Her scenes with the politican's ice-cold mother (Kim Seong-nyeo) are especially charged because neither of these two actresses are afraid to chew scenery. They're the true stars of Idol, bad guys and good guys notwithstanding.

The Killer: A Girl Who Deserves to Die: Best Babysitter Ever

I don't remember many of my babysitters. I don't think I had that many. Maybe my parents didn't go out that much. I know for sure they never went on vacation without my brother and me so when two middle-aged women go on an extended girl's vacay and leave the mercenary boyfriend in charge of the troubled teenage girl (Lee Seo-young), I can't securely say that what follows is utterly preposterous. Maybe mom and dad never left us alone because there really are predatory crime rings ready to abduct bourgeois adolescents then sell them into underground sex rings. I do feel pretty sure that if an attempt had ever been made in that regard on my older brother and me, none of the babysitters we had would've been able to defend us like Bang Ui Gang (Jang Hyuk) of The Killer: A Girl Who Deserves to Die.

Then again, good help has always been hard to find as evidenced throughout Choi Jae-hoon's bloody action thriller. How else to explain the way the thugs keep coming at the film's protector despite his ability to stab, shoot, and karate chop an elevator full of attackers. Does no one think, "Hmm. Rushing this guy with an axe might not be the best strategy." Very few. And most of those guys aren't very smart either. Well, fear makes you dumb. It does me. Those who don't feel fear — like one bleached blond bruiser (Bruce Khan) and one dirty cop (Lee Seung-joon) — won't necessarily fare better than the scaredy cats. Because the only thing that's going to save you in The Killer is a guy like Bang Ui Gang. Great hair. Patrician overbite. No competition.

Midnight Runners: Boy Cops

Gosh, I wish one aspect of Midnight Runners were true: A parallel dimension in which cute nerdy guys want to become cops not because they are sociopathic bullies but because they're dorks hoping to save the day. But Kim Joo-hwan's action comedy is unfortunately a fantasy. And one I enjoyed spending 90 minutes in! Who wouldn't be charmed by a student police officer who adlibs the three principles for an investigation as "passion, tenacity, and big heart"? Innocence versus criminality? Of such are some myths made.

Headlining this idealized vision are a pair virgin law enforcement agents-in-training (Park Seo-joon and Kang Ha-neul) who witness a teen abduction then spend a night going from a seedy spa of female ear-cleaners to human-trafficking warehouse specializing in egg harvesting. Clearly, Midnight Runners isn't all fun and games. Our two young cadets are being asked to grow up fast and, somewhat preposterously, put themselves through an intense personal, physical training regimen that has them ready to physically take on a whole gang of 'hoods (and their supervillian leader) after a mere few days. I wasn't expecting realism though. In the eternal fight between good and evil, I expect a little hyperbole. With Midnight Runners, I frankly relished it.

The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure: Thievery at Sea

Before The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure, I had no idea that seawater made Korean hair kinky too. Director Kim Jeong-hoon's action-adventure of pirate treasure-hunting is like a public service announcement for wavy hair: Self-assured captain Hae-rang (Han Hyo-joo) sports lush, loose, loopy tresses worthy of a romance novel's cover; doublecrossing Mak-yi (Lee Kwang-Soo) flaunts a long, tighter coil that relaying streetwalker realness; and lead rival Moo-chi (Kang Ha-neul) goes even further with a friz that simultaneously sun-damaged and salon-permed. The only bald character that shows up is a female monk who's shave her head and dies without uttering a single line.

And what would a holy woman even say if required to suck air underwater out of an inflated urine-flavored pig-bladder? What wisdom might she discover? She might say that material wealth shouldn't be the ultimate goal in your life. She definitely would proclaim that pirate garb tends to look like a themepark costume in every single movie. And with The Pirates, she'd recognize that there's no life-saving miracle as theatrical and outlandish as getting swallowed by a giant whale moments before you're about to drown. Except getting burped out afterwards.

Tune in for Love: Not a Static Romance

Now that my boyfriend has gone abroad for three months, I've become much more open to seeing the long-resisted romantic movies that normally make me cringe. Oh yes. Since my own lovelife is confined to Kakao video chats, I'm desperately seeking out sappy Korean movies, feel-good fables of the heart, each sneakily awaiting to make me cry. This week's treacly panacea is Tune in for Love, Jung Ji-woo's '90s-era tale of a high school girl (Kim Go-eun) who meets the dream-thug (Jung Hae-in) at the bakery run by her surrogate sister (Kim Guk-hee).

She's an orphaned aspiring writer; he's a high school dropout fresh out of juvie. Will they find happiness together? If so, she'll have to find a better job than her factory gig and overlook the overtures of a smarmy boss (Park Hae-joon). And he'll have to stay out of prison, land a radio gig, and deduce the password code she gave him so they could stay in touch during his military service. In the world of movie romance, these are not insurmountable obstacles. Wedding bells aren't a shoe-in, however. Hence the box of tissues I'd advise you to bring.

20th Century Girl: Adolescent Lessons in Love

There's love at first sight And then there's love at first sighting. Don't know the difference? 20th Century Girl is here to make it clear as one of its two besotted teen heroines, Yeon-du (Roh Yoon-seo), becomes thoroughly enamored of their new classmate Hyun-jin (Park Jung-woo) the moment she spots his silhouette in the doorway of her mother's clothing shop. Sometimes, the heart doesn't even need eye contact! Compare this irrational behavior to that of her best friend Bo-ra (Kim Yoo-jeong) who takes a little longer to warm up to his best friend Woon-ho (Byeon Woo-seok). With tearjerking results.

Because these two girls are destined to get these two boys mixed up. They both will fall hard for Woon-ho but with Yeon-du abroad for a heart operation and Bo-ra trailing the wrong guy unknowingly on her friend's behalf, plenty of seemingly innocent hijinks will tangle up Bang Woo-ri's YA yarn — gang fights and falling plums, first kisses and drunken confessions. But... since Bo-ra can't square her divided loyalties, you're not sure who will end up with whom. Or for how long. You see, the trouble with acting on your friend's behalf in high school, at least, is that your actions may be misattributed and misinterpreted. Especially when you're too embarassed to say how you really feel. Well, maybe not just in high school. In K-drama, too.

Exit: Up in Smoke

A little-known film-fact is that you can sometimes catch an in-flight Korean movie that is not currently free to stream at Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon. And so, flying from NYC to Portland is when I unexpectedly came across the A+ disaster pic Exit. Lee Sang-geun's hilarious, heartpounding rom-com follows two recreational rockclimbers who find unwanted adventure and unexpected purpose after a poison gas is released in downtown Seoul. With nowhere to go but up to escape the fumes, unemployed Young-nam (Jo Jung-suk) and disrepected Eui-joo (Im Yoon-ah) find themselves falling in love as they frantically scale walls and jitterily jump from roof to roof while simultaneously working to save a drunken family, a classroom of kids, and themselves...in that order.

Young-nam's not your typical hero — even after he's gained some confidence; Eui-joo's not your typical damnsel in distress — in truth, she's the better cragsman of the two. Yet their bourgeoning romance is pure classic as the pair grow increasingly fond of each other as they navigate endless death-defying risks. And aside from an enchanting cluster of populace-powered drones, these lovers are very much on their own. An eventual "happily ever after" doesn't seem far-fetched either. Who wouldn't fall for someone who saved their lives multiple times in one night. "In sickness, death, and the apocalypse." Is that how the wedding vow goes?

The Bros: Siblings in Death

How many times have I started The Bros? Four times? Six times? More? A comedy you don't find funny is always a tough film to finish, even if it's the only Korean feature in the Netflix lineup that you haven't seen. Yet today, I am committed. And so, once again, I cue up the movie, hit play, and watch the story of two antagonistic brothers seeking resolution and riches at their grandfather's fortune-making funeral. Brother number one is Suk-bong (Ma Dong-seok), an impoverished history professor in search of two gold Buddha statuettes; brother number two is Joo-bong (Lee Dong-hwi), a low-level exec who works for a development company that wants to plow through the hometown.

Once the family secrets come out, as they often do at such occasions, nothing will be as it was: bloodlines will be questioned as well as who is alive and who is dead. Despite the dire predicaments, a happy ending seems inevitably ahead. But this comedy of manners requires a greater understanding of Korean cultural rituals and mores than I have, even with my many years of reviewing Korean movies, in order to generate laughs. Would the slapstick, fashion choices, family dynamics in Jang You-jeong's silly satire be riotous if I understood the references, taboos, and transgressions throughout? Until I get there, I'll have to settle for a kooky mom (Lee Hanee) and fraternal love.

Manchurian Tiger: The Hero's a Kitten

Right off you suspect the pulp movie Manchurian Tiger is going to be a sadistic affair. One man gets face-stomped by a wooden clog; another is mercilessly whipped on the floor. Neither puts up much resistance. Whether we watch these acts as bemusedly detached as the cigarette-smoking hotelier Wang (Kim Wun-ju) and the combover mastercriminal Sasaki (Bae Su-cheon) is a matter of taste. When it comes to martial arts B-movies like Lee Doo-yong's Manchurian Tiger, you can either giggle or groan at the grotesque fights. In this instance, I'd suggest the latter. For these Japanese and Chinese villains are about to learn their imported brutality is no match for the Taekwondo mastery of Mr. Lee (Han Yong-cheol).

I've seen Han before — specifically a memorable performance in the more entertaining The Korean Connection a.k.a. Returned Single-Legged Man. And while he's no Dragon Lee in terms of charisma, Han does have his own particular appeal. Lithe and limber, he kicks with elegance and tosses his hair like a true teen idol. He also radiates innocence despite his character's debauchery. So while he may be able to triumph over a sea of challengers, he also comes across as insouciant more than dangerous. His ability to cause a sales boom for the casket-maker (Choe Jae-ho) has little meaning for him. Same for the one woman (Woo Yeon-jeong) who throws herself in his path only to get disciplined with a snap. ("Chastity is a woman's life.") I'm not implying his tan leather vest signifies anything significant. If only it did, I'd happily serve a matchmaker on his behalf. For payment, he can give me one of those smuggled bars of gold.

Alienoid: Star Wars for Warlocks

Just like there are good humans and bad humans, there are good aliens and bad aliens. And good sorcerers and bad sorcerers too. In other words, the eternal, universal battle between Good and Evil plays out on multiple, mindbending levels throughout blockbuster auteur Choi Dong-hoon's deliriously fun Alienoid. What else can you expect when humans possessed by imprisoned aliens and aliens masquerading as everyday humans find themselves in conflict with each other, the law, and medieval merchant magicians who are also masters of mixed martial arts. That the film is able to bounce effortlessly back and forth in time — while throwing a good-cop/bad-cop twist into the mix — is another truly remarkable aspect of this irresistible sci-fi fantasy.

I'd also like to say that when a film runs well over two hours, I sometimes break it into parts, like two acts over two days or even a series of webisodes that'll last a week. But with Alienoid, I watched from start to finish as the interplanetary guard (Kim Woo-bin) and his sidekick "program" Thunder (Kim Dae-myung) handled everything from childcare (Choi Yu-ri) to spaceship dogfights to bounty hunting a rogue rebel in the present; and as a bumbling wizard (Ryu Jun-yeol) and his humanoid cats (Shin Jeong-geun, Lee Si-hoon) collaborated with a gun-toting heroine (Kim Tae-ri) and an odd couple of occultists (Yum Jung-ah, Jo Woo-jin) to combat the same dastardly extraterrestrials centuries ago.

Now about that ending...

Kill Boksoon: Killer Queen

Murder is big business in Byun Sung-hyun's slyly satirical action epic Kill Boksoon. As the killer CEO Cha Min-kyu (Sol Kyung-gu) succinctly explains, the sloppy work and loose morals of amateurs have caused this line of work to be disrespected. So he's taken it upon himself to implement a new set of rules in order to restore some honor to the profession. Herewith...

1. Do not kill minors.
2. Only do jobs assigned by your company.
3. Always accept an assignment.

But the truth is, there were rules in the old days too:

If you send a bloody knife to a rival, you are inviting that person to a duel to the death.

That's right! Assassins have always had a Code of Conduct. But rules change with the times. As do players. A leader in the field currently is Boksoon (Jeon Do-yeon), a top-tier terminator who has worked her way up that deadly corporate ladder, one offing at a time. She's got her idolizers professionally (Koo Kyo-hwan) and in-training (Lee Yeon) — the latter under a company schoolmistress (Esom) who immediately feels like a rival. But as our heroine points out, "Killing people is easy when compared to raising a kid" (Kim Si-ah). Does being a scythe-for-hire inherently make her an unfit mother? To quote another character: "Making good money is the best qualification"... for that. Yet nothing complicates shady business practices than nosy cops. And love. I welcome such complications!

I also want to add that action pics attain a whole other level when you have a top-notch actor in the lead role: Think Gena Rowlands in Gloria and Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once. And Jeon Do-yeon in this movie, too.

Love & Leashes: Learning & Lusting

I've avoided Love & Leashes for a year because I assumed it wasa trashy Korean-style take on 50 Shades of Grey. But whereas the latter is a self-described erotic romance, the K-counterpoint is a rom-com that vacillates between after-school special and workplace satire. And so, the heroine (Seohyun) isn't merely an office worker being initiated into the fine art of BDSM by an junior exec (Lee Joon-Young), she's also a woman who should've had his job and is likely working out some inner frustrations via the cords and whips and leashes. So can a courtship be pure kink? And I'll be honest: There is something romantic in seeing a man who's that vulnerable and a woman who's in control. But as a YouTube tutorial pretty quickly points out: "It's hard to engage in S&M or Dom/Sub relationships within a romantic context since lovers are ideally equally partners." (Major paraphrase!) An online forum teaches her everything else she needs to know.

Once these two have signed a written (!) contract, the training begins — she's exploring dog play at semi-respectable hotel; pressing the stilettoes of her fancy red heels into his back; and dripping hot wax on his body while he's ballgagged. Will love emerge? Well, in real life, I've known two women who fell into long-term, currently ongoing relationships that started with role-playing so why the hell not. That Park Hyeon-jin's Love & Leashes also confronts the rampant sexism in office culture and the violent misogyny that undermines kink practices of veterans like the lead's best friend (Lee El) results in a surprising film that's shockingly good.

Hostage: Missing Celebrity: Shooting Star

Hostage: Missing Celebrity is asking us to believe a buttload of improbabilities. Like that kidnapped movie star Hwang Jung-min (played by Hwang Jung-min) is going to give his murderous abductor (Kim Jae-bum) access to his apartment but not the pin for his bank account. Or that a cop who gets hit by a cab is the one who's going to drive the police car as opposed to his uninjured partner (Baek Joo-hee). Or that the gang-leading villain would think a different hair part — without so much as a hat — would be enough of a disguise to go back out in public after an APB. Or that a crazy old man who lives in the woods would have the cell phone number of the Chief of Police. But let's say a viewer is willing to accept any and all unlikelihoods. How does writer-director Pil Gam-sung's 2021 thriller fare?

Well the kidnapped actor is definitely a narcissist with entitlement issues, the kind of guy who starts talking about how many times he had to audition while chained to a post with a young woman (Lee Yoo-mi) who's face is bruised, battered, and bloody. As for the rest of the cast, this movie has too many cops, too many crooks, and too many reporters with too few lines. Bodies are piling up at the end. But some will also rise again. You never know who's actually dead in this movie as people survive hand grenades and homemade bombs. The determining showdown? A mudfight in the rain! The big question: Who's gonna get the final chokehold? (And will the loser rise again?)

Unlocked: Personal Hangups

Anyone who has lost their phone knows that such a misfortune can seem like the end the world. In the case of Unlocked's Nami (Chun Woo-hee), such a supposition might not be a gross exaggeration. Because the creep (Yim Si-wan) who has recovered her missing phone is a hyperskilled hacker. And an identity thief. And a serial killer. Soon enough, this triple-threat of death is making our heroine's life a living hell — poisoning her career, kidnapping her dad (Park Ho-san), and alienating her best friend (Kim Ye-won). What's working in her favor is a detective (Kim Hee-won) who quickly surmises who the killer is; what's working against her is this same detective may be the father of the maniacal cyberstalker.

Once she realizes her phone is at the root of all her problems, does she get a new one or at least stop using her cell so often? Not immediately. As a typical member of Generation Z, she's way too invested in Instagram and Instant Messaging to put her device down for more than a Seoul minute. Which makes spying on her so much easier. Especially when the spyware expert she chooses to hire turns out to be ... the serial killer again! Yes, Unlocked has plenty of coincidences. And yes, we're asked to overlook some major narrative holes. Like a second police officer (Jeon Jin-oh) who, despite recognizing what's going on, defers to his partner's faulty judgment over and over again. But Kim Tae-joon's technothriller has such a timely conceit at its center that you'll likely be experiencing anxiety for the full two hours, regardless of its lapses in logic.

Voice of Silence: Stolen Childhoods

What's the old adage? Never share the stage with a pet or a child? Frankly, it's a terrible piece of advice. Because if performers adhered to it, we'd never get a movie like the wonderful (and often devastating) Voice of Silence, one of the most impressive big screen debuts to come out of South Korea in the last decade. For Director Hong Eui-jeong's first feature abounds with powerful scenes between adults and children. And while the film isn't exactly told from a kid's perspective — at the center of the movie is Tae-in (Yoo Ah-in), a mute man-child who finds himself in the middle of a botched kidnapping crime — you really do sense the precariousness and danger that are inherent to being at the mercy of adults.

As the abducted child, Cho-hee (Moon Seung-ah) must do her best to appease her captor, forge alliances with a fellow youngster (a brilliantly feral Lee Ka-eun), and attempt to coordinate her own escape. Adults are neither reliable (including her unseen parents) nor trustworthy. Which is unfortunate for what is our role as grown-ups if not that of caretakers? What are we doing as a species if not collectively working for the well-being of the next generation? And, on the other end, what options do we have as kids, except to make the best of the situation in which we find ourselves? And how can we not turn out to be the same muddle-headed people repeating the destructive patterns of those before us. It's what we saw and know as the way to survive.

Singing Praise for Actor Song Kang-ho

If there’s a better actor working in South Korean cinema than Kang-ho Song that’s news to me. And for the record, I’ve been watching about one Korean movie per week for the last 15 years. In my opinion, no other actor is as capable of effortlessly shifting from comedy to drama within his or her career or within a single flick either. And partly because of that, he’s excelled whether the movie is a feel-good sports comedy (YMCA Baseball Team), a dystopian, art house hit (Snowpiercer), or a Ramen Western (The Good, the Bad, the Weird). And that’s not even getting into his five best performances outside the Oscar-winning Parasite — which I assume you've already seen.

The Host (2006)
As a narcoleptic single dad who loses his daughter to a gigantic mutant amphibian with a taste for humans, Song displays his full (and formidable) range of talents in director Joon-ho Bong’s heartbreaking Godzilla-movie with a twist. He’s lovable, maddening, resourceful, inept, bumbling, pathetic, intense, and most memorably of all, sleepy. I’ve always been amazed by Song’s ability to milk “being tired” for laughs. Just when you think he’s exhausted the set-up, he revitalizes it with a new bit of shtick that you’d never considered before. The Host earned Song his first and only Asian Film Award as Best Actor, although he’s been repeatedly nominated many times since.

Memories of Murder (2003)
With a plot ripped straight from the headlines (about South Korea’s first documented serial killer), Bong’s immensely gripping crime pic is unique in how satisfying it is despite never solving its central crime. A large part of that satisfaction comes from Song’s incredibly naturalistic performance as one of the two lead detectives assigned to the case. (Kim Sang-kyung plays the other.) In one particularly exciting chase scene during which Song’s character and two partners run after the suspected killer, your eye constantly goes back to Song. It doesn’t matter if he’s leading the pursuit, falling behind, scanning a crowd or zeroing in on a construction worker’s red panties, he’s always the most interesting person on the screen. As per usual.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Song doesn’t truly enter the story until nearly a fourth of the way through the second entry in Park Chan-wook’s genius Vengeance Trilogy. And although he’s arguably Sympathy’s hero – a business exec whose only daughter accidentally drowns during a kidnap gone wrong – Song’s coolly calculating vigilante elicits one of his most contained performances yet. Stand-out moments include an autopsy during which he’s struggling to contain his grief and his first sadistic act of revenge. (Watch how he preps the ears of the woman he’s about to electrocute.) Song’s always been a fearless actor willing to take big risks but Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance shows he also knows how to reign it in.

Thirst (2009)
Vampires are sexy. Okay, so what about a vampire who’s also a self-sacrificing priest? As Song plays him, he’s kind of like the nerdy librarian from Transylvania who, when he takes off his wire-rim glasses, suddenly becomes a perversely oversexed creature... albeit one wracked with guilt and plagued with blisters. And while Song hardly has the matinee idol looks of a frequent costar like Lee Byung-hun, he’s still got plenty of charisma to spare. Who knew he could be so hot? Well, I did! Plus, with Thirst, his longtime collaborator and director Park provides Song with yet another unexpected credit as Song became the first male actor to show full frontal male nudity in a mainstream Korean movie. Now that takes balls.

The Show Must Go On (2007)
Song has played gangsters more than a few times – Green Fish, Hindsight, No. 3 – but never has he done so as entertainingly or enthrallingly as in this South Korean variation of The Sopranos. For this Show, he plays your typical bourgeois patriarch trying to reconcile the responsibilities of a father with the duties of a mobster. As you’ll see throughout Song’s oeuvre, drunk scenes – many a performer’s undoing – are just another place where he shines; one contritely inebriated encounter with his daughter is especially a wonder to behold. Like auteurs Bong and Park before him, director Han Jae-rim went back to Song again after The Show Must Go On for his next film, the historical drama The Face Reader. Smart directors learn very quickly: Song is one of a kind.

Honorable Mentions: J.S.A. (Joint Security Area) (2000), Secret Sunshine (2010), Secret Reunion (2010) and The Attorney (2014)

Note: An earlier version of this article appeared on Tribeca Film Festival's now-retired blog Outtake.

Fist & Furious: Cut to the Knife Fight

Fist & Furious isn't worried about being too obvious. A voiceover informs us immediately that Detective Yang (Jung Doo-hong) is a good cop who's been compromised by a gambling debt. His latest partner Yoon (Kim Sa-kwon) announces, upon his arrival, that he's a newbie who owes Yang his life. [Cue substantial flashback.] These details are important to get across quickly because the dialogue is intended to framework one excellent fight sequence after another.

Neither we, nor the North Korean expat / Dongjim TV News Reporter Nam (Ryu Deok-hwan), has rarely seen the 1 versus 100 battle done so consistently effective. Yang takes on a fireside gang of thugs with the lid of a pop-top can of tuna as his weapon; Yang knife-fights a gang of thugs who run across the top of pews inside a church between slayings. To describe Yang as tough is an understatement. We literally hear him crack bones under his foot. He's also survived having a knife embedded in his head. Not so lucky is the guy who gets bashed on a guardrail after he's underestimated Yang's fury.

That aforementioned knife, by the way, once belonged to the whore-mother of Yang's nemesis, a diabolical drug-dealer named Jung (Jung Eui-gap) who's got his own score to settle. We know this because Jung tell us as much for no compelling reason. As for the far-from-helpless young women caught in the middle of the drama — two sisters played by Seo Eun-ja and Kim Hae-In — they're as much props as people. They're here to get us, and director Ha Won-jun, from Point A to Point B. And by point, I mean a knife.

Mr. Housewife: Quiz King

Unlike Mrs. Doubtfire, Yu Seon-dong's sweet-natured Mr. Housewife knows that a man doesn't need to don a dress to understand the worth of taking care of a child, cooking meals, cleaning an apartment, et cetera. Jin-man (Han Suk-kyu), the man in the apron and at the stove, takes personal pride in caring for his wife Soo-hee (Shin Eun-Kyung) and daughter Da-na (Seo Shin-ae), even as he hides his role from his conservative father. Yet this hiding-in-plain-sight act is about to end when daycare daddy ends up in debt and see his one viable way out as a game show for stay-at-home moms — a program where his talent agent buddy (Kong Hyeong-jin) happens to have some connections. A master of trivia, Jin-man dolls up in drag to qualify as a contestant then rips off his wig after getting goosed in the elevator. Whether skirted or pantsed, he's going to meet with resistors and champions.

Mr. Housewife's wife, however, is on the less-than-thrilled side. She fears his newfound celebrity as a spokesperson from stay-at-home dads as a potential derailer for her new gig as a TV host, leading her to rent a hotel room to figure out ... HER NEEDS! Sympathetic, she's not. That coldness is why Mr. Doubtfire never emerges as an outright rom-com. By the time Jin-man re-proposes to Soo-yi on live television in the game show's finale, she's rebuffed him so often that we kind of wish that he'd find someone else. But perhaps Yu's film is ultimately about second chances. Early in the film, Jin-man gambled away a family fortune, without consulting his better half, so if she can let that go, then maybe we should cut her some slack as well.

Hot Blooded: Once Upon a Time in Korea: Vodka Wars

Middle management sucks. Per Cheon Myeong-Gwan's gorgeously shot gangster pic Hot Blooded, that maxim holds true in the mafia, too. Mid-level mobster/hotel-manager Hee-su (Jung Woo) is its shining example, a career thug so in debt from gambling that "once you're out, your organs are all mine" — according to his neighborhood loan shark (Yun Je-mun). But how can he break out on his own without losing the little rank he's attained? Is loyalty not worth a dime? Has he aged out of his own future? This movie's message seems to be that greed has really messed everything up! A valid point of view.

Which is why Hee-su decides to traffic in black market vodka. He sees hustling stolen booze as his big break, his final chance to make a name for himself in the port town of Kuam. And you know what? In a different movie, his chances might not be so iffy. Upper mobility in Hot Blooded, however, is going to require a complete lack of morals. This is soul-selling time! Can you be good and rich? Or more specifically, can you become rich and stay good? Rarely, my friend. Rarely.

In fact, what once was the American dream is now the Capitalist nightmare, an international phenomenon in which every transgression can be forgiven if you're making money hand over fist. Drugs, drink, gambling, prostitution, murder... everything is excusable. How you earn your bank is secondary to how much ends up in the kitty. It's a distasteful POV, despite its global sweep, and one which puts no value on a human life. Including that of a childhood friend (Ji Seung-hyeon). All that matters is glamorous independence. Today's reality acknowledges that money's a more effective shield than innocence. Perhap it always has been that way. As George Bernard Shaw once quipped: "Morals are a luxury of the rich."

The Golden Belt: Category Is...

Cheesy, low-budget martial arts movies — as opposed to their classy counterparts — should be judged primarily on their fight sequences. An absurd plot with decent (dubbed) one-liners may occassionally amuse but without some well-choreographed action sequences to enthrall us, who wants to sit through a convoluted plot interrupted by bland hand-to-hand? Which unfortunately brings me to The Golden Belt, Ko Young-nam's lackluster pulp movie about a medicine man who's life work is to protect the helpless (after failing to do so with his own family).

Definitely, The Golden Belt could've featured some fancier fisticuffs. As the barechested hero, actor Kim Il may be built like a linebacker but he's got gracefulness to spare, too. He's also as cuddly as a bonecrusher could possibly be. So why are his talents at kicking and punching being wasted by having him throw porcelain white dinner plates like playing cards or having him tied to a post then whipped? One character rhetorically asks: "What is the worst thing in this world, do you know?" Then answers matter-of-factly: "Betrayal." In The Golden Belt, the greatest sins may be how they've overestimated the appeal of villainous white eyebrows and underestimated the talents of the movie's lead. (Who likely earned that gaudy WWE Championship Belt that he's carrying around from town to town.)

Title Note: This film is also known as Sujeja and The Best Disciple.

The Puzzle: Video Diary of a Repressed Serial Killer

I don't know about you but if I were looking to hook up with someone for a one-night-stand and the moment I got to this stranger's place, an unseen voice started telling me where to go over a speaker system in moodily lit halls with video cameras overhead, I'd turn around and leave. I've never been that horny! Yet Jung Do-jon (Ji Seung-hyeon) doesn't heed such warnings. Missing his shallow wife and tween child (who are abroad longterm), he's tired of being the celibate square at the office so he's going to choose from a pretty strange menu at a pretty strange saloon that serves sex instead of shots. Unfortunately, the secret desire this club's drugged wine is going to expose is Jung's misogyny. Which leads to murder.

What follows is the cover-up that backfires (a.k.a. the movie). So is anyone really cheering on this killer, except maybe the enthusiastic readers of his bestselling novel? (He pens books on the side.) Don't we all want to see him go down? Or does writer-director Lim Jin-seung assume our sympathies are going to be with the lead actor simply because... he's hot? Is he suddenly noble because he's worried about the well-being of his wife and daughter? Lucky for him, he studies martial arts (on the side) so he's ready to take on his newfound enemies when they start coming out of the walls. He's well-trained to murder again and again. So what's the message here? The Puzzle is one weird-ass puzzle. And no amount of false endings — and this movie has a few — is going to change that.

Deranged: I'll Drink to This One

It's hard to believe that the highly effective disaster pic Deranged was released years before COVID-19 changed our world; director Park Jeong-woo's heartracing horror movie feels as if it were made in direct response to our ongoing pandemic. Apparently, tragedies like the Coronavirus and HIV have followed the same patterns as the flu of 1919 and H1S1 (which is indeed referenced in an early moment of Park's film). Has mankind learned nothing from history? The answer is always, yes and no. In Deranged, the nightmare is ecological and biological, governmental and economical: a lab-generated, mutant horsehair worm has morphed and jumped species so that now humans are being ravaged by the freaky, squiggly parasite.

The onset symptoms are fairly inconspicuous: an increase of appetite, a building thirst. Who hasn't had days — or weeks — when they were especially hungry for no good reason or decided to pursue the idealized eight glasses a day? So you can't expect a drug rep (Kim Myung-min) or a low-level cop (Kim Dong-won) to immediately register that something's wrong with their family members, especially since the two brothers are both burdened by insurmountable debts and working two jobs to make ends meet. What you can expect, per usual, is that the pharmaceutical companies will be putting profit above public concern when the egg-infested shit hits the fan. The worst part is that nowadays, the idea that Big Pharma is actively creating a self-serving hellscape isn't the least bit far-fetched. Everyone has pretty much accepted that drug companies are evil. In Deranged, worms control some people's brains; money controls the minds of others.

Jung_E: She Works Hard for the Money for Her Kid's Operation

As devoted mothers go, you'd be hard-pressed to find one as committed to the well-being of her child as Jung_E (Kim Hyun-joo) in the somewhat philosophically inclined sci-fi movie that bears her name. After spending her young daughter's formative years fighting the inevitable robot takeover of Planet Earth in order to raise money for her kid's cancer treatments, she then spends a posthumous second-life as an eternally cloneable brain inserted into a metal humanoid body that is the basis for that same child's military experiments. That her adult daughter (Kang Soo-yeon) has grown up to run a pilot program for the military industrial complex proves a disturbing way to honor her mother's memory, considering the work is all about mom being being pummelled and tortured in a recurringly fatal combat re-enactment. To reference the James Bond theme sung by Madonna, this noble lady survives only to "die another day."

The movie documenting mom's inability to become the ultimate war tool raises timely questions about immortality, genetic inheritance, human commodification, and, most of all, mankind's downward slide. But personally, I had a tough time admiring a woman who could make it her life's work watching her mother get beat up. I also didn't see the benefit in saving one of thousands of replicate brains so the android encasement could forge out its own existence... where and to what end? Yeon Sang-ho's action-packed flick should be commended for not devolving into pure video game nonsense (which is basically where it starts) but given his previous zombie classic Train to Busan, I wish he'd pushed his Woman vs. Machine narrative a little further than "one mimeographed mother has finally broken free of the System." That's good. It just could've been great.

The Battle of Jangsari: Teens at War

Call me a sentimental fool but The Battle of Jangsari is one of those war movies that makes me gasp then cry. Co-directors Kim Tae-yong and Kwak Kyung-taek — and their team of screenwriters who've divided the English- and Korean-speaking dialogue — trot out familiar types: the wild outcast (Kim Seong-cheol), the sensitive leader (Kim Min-kyu), the big-hearted ox (Jang Ji-gun), and the quiet one (Lee Ho-jung) with a secret you'll guess early on. But then they ratchet up our sympathy by making these characters teens without training. This is a war pic about earnest young soldiers who are largely expendable, a troop of rosy-cheeked recruits who are treated like cannon fodder, a secondary concern, collateral. Actually, the behind-the-scenes talent didn't make that happen. The Battle of Jangsari is based on a true story; in the Korean War, over 700 real high school students really were recruited, uniformed, armed then sent on this Pyrrhic mission before they'd even finished boot camp.

Their easily avoidable predicament makes the adults a despicable lot. Imagine sacrificing a high school as a diversionary tactic! The Korean general (Myeong Gye-nam) behind the operation is loathsome; the smooth-talking American general (George Eads) doesn't come across much better. He just a better bullshitter. There are two adults who truly rise to the occasion. One is a self-sacrificing soldier (Kim In-kwon) who knows they've no business puttings these kids' lives on the line so he keeps putting himself in harm's way. The other is a stylish reporter (Megan Fox) for the New York Herald-Tribune. She's the one who advocates against their deployment and pesters about their rescue; she's the one who recognizes their collective tragedy even before it's begun. She also looks fabulous, as if she'd miraculously walked out of a noir film from the early '50s. I think both sides of the war could agree on that.

Exchange: Deep Trap: Don't Have Kids

How far would you go to get pregnant? I'm not talking surgical operations or fertility pills. I'm talking drinking booze spiked with giant centipedes, eating a boiled eyeball, downing a shot of fresh boar's blood, and chewing on a fetal egg. Would you do that? Do you want a baby so bad that you'd basically do anything suggested by some crazy guy (Ma Dong-seok) who runs a backwoods cafe that you discovered on the internet? Would you let your husband (Jo Han-seon) sleep with this guy's mute sex slave (Ji An) — who may his sister, his wife or his adopted daughter — simply to combat erectile dysfunction? Before you answer that, let me ask one other question: Does the person who says "yes" to these questions sound like someone who would make a good parent?

I've certainly never wanted a kid that bad. Nor have I suffered the pain of a miscarriage. (And director Kwon Hyeong-jin's Exchange acknowledges that such a loss can be traumatic for the man as well as the woman.) What I do know, however, is that when such a person (Kim Min-kyeong) is willing to go to such extremes, the price is going to be higher than expected. Violence in all its forms will be in no short supply. One ridiculous touch: The impotent husband is repeatedly seen wearing the brand Le Coq Sportif! There's little humor in this film, though. This is Ma at his grimmest. Not fun.