Badland Hunters: Ma Dong-seok Survives the Apocalpyse

Everytime I see the words "co-produced by Netflix" (or words to that effect) in a Korean movie's opening credits, my heart sinks a bit. Having worked at a TV network that meddled detrimentally with their shows, I feel qualified to detect inept input — often about making things a little less strange and a little more generic. In martial artist-turned-director Heo Myeong haeng's Badland Hunters what might've been an above-decent zombie movie arrives instead as a fright flick that looks like a video game. And so, like most shooter games, this action pic reveles in bullets to the head, exploding skulls, blood splatters, and bones cracking. Players — I mean, characters — recover from injuries in record time while most of the people onscreen are scenery.

I don't know whether to blame leading man Ma Dong-seok (a.k.a. Don Lee) or bless him for Badland Hunters. He's definitely the film's saving grace, dominating every scene with a prime Bruce Willis persona that relates equal parts worldweariness and bemusement. He's also, like the title of his earlier film, Unstoppable. Whether his opponent is a body-regenerating mutant or a mad scientist with a machine gun, this loveable lug never blinks an eye. They have an arsenal, he has a butter knife? No problem. He's going to make them sorry they thought they had a chance. The human-testing in the post-apocalypse ends here!

Jazzy Misfits: Unbound Relations

Director Nam Yeon-woo's decision to pair an accomplished older actress (Jo Min-soo) with a TV rap star (Cheetah) pays off big time in the wonderfully silly mother-daughter comedy Jazzy Misfits. For while Jo chews up the scenery as a volatile, negligent, alcoholic mother who comes out of the woodwork only after her younger other child (Choi Jisu) robs her of the rent, Cheetah (a.k.a. Kim Eun-young) more than holds her own — outside her effectively deadpan reactions — via extended cuts of her crooning in the nightclub and at the recording studio. As such, these two convey deep emotional realities in different mediums: acting and music.

They're surrounded by a rich cast of characters, too: the mom's former suitor (Jeong Man-sik) who's now a policeman; the local food courier (Terris Brown) who's crushing big time on the singing daughter; and a random white tourist whose unexpected parkour skills hilariously come into play in the movie's best chase scene. With drag queens, lesbian girlfriends, gay tattoo artists, a trans bar owner, a sexy, shirtless downstairs neighbor, and a crewcut Heo Jung-do (from the addictive Kdrama My Demon) as a cheerful sound mixer in over his head, Jazzy Misfits is never anything less than ebulliently screwball.

The Last Princess: Elevating Royalty

There's a pretty powerful disclaimer at the start of The Last Princess: "Incidents and persons portrayed do not reflect historical facts." So then what are we to believe about Yi Deokhye, the subject of this biopic? Was she a royal rebel who bravely snubbed the Japanese emperor's dress code and rallied fingerless Korean workers to rise up against their Japanese oppressors? Did she try to escape her gilded cage and get back to Korea as an act of solidarity with her countrymen? Was she the first to discover the assassination of her father, the king? In truth, much of Hur Jin-ho's costume dram is conjectural; it's a pro-dynastic movie posing as a pro-resistance message. Considering the history we do know, for now I'm okay with that.

And Son Ye-jin makes a convincing princess, struggling to balance her patriotism with her desire to survive. She's got few people in her corner: an adoring servant (Ra Mi-ran), a couple of ineffectual brothers, and a soldier-spy (Park Hae-il) who also doubles as her devoted, sexless romantic interest. She's also got an evil Korean Benedict Arnold (Yun Je-mun) whose sole mission in life is to be her foil, derailing every attempt she makes to escape, to evade, to exalt. As fantasies go, if The Last Princess has any faults, it's that this heinous henchman never gets his just desserts. Director Hur may see this dark detail as a bitter dose of reality. Since so much is already made up, I'm not gonna quibble here. Finally, if Hollywood were more open to performances in foreign tongues, Son's lead turn would definitely have qualified as an Oscar-bait — as she ages from 20s to 70s while screaming, crying, looking fashionable, looking nervous, and ultimately going insane. I was crazy about her in the best way possible.

My Paparotti: Sing Out, Louise

Who you watch a movie with — or who you encounter any type of art with — can have a major impact on how you experience it. I remember hearing a casette of "Everything That Rises Must Converge" with my mother in the car after a particularly tense exchange between the two of us and let me tell you, Flannery O'Connor's bleak short story about an estranged mother and son has probably never had a pair of more attentive listeners — destination forgotten. Happily, my viewing of Lee Jong-chan's feel-good comedy My Paparotti was a less emotionally wrought exchange. To the contrary, this cinematic success story proved effervescent when seated beside by boyfriend who corrected subtitles, mimicked opera singing, and encouraged all my sentimental reactions.

So let others roll their eyes at this underdog saga of a young thug (Sung Yoo-bin) whose passion for singing provides a way out of "thug life" and under the prickly warm tutelage of a disillusioned teacher (Han Suk-kyu) whose music career was derailed by some ill-timed tumors on his vocal cords. And for anyone ready to dismiss this film outright as fantastical nonsense, know this: My Paparotti is based on a true story! Characters like the bossy high school principal (Oh Dal-su), the kooky love interest (Kang So-ra), and the brotherly, middle management mafioso (Cho Jin-woong) may register as pure cartoon but real life has a place for exaggeration, too, especially when it makes you feel this good.