Escape: You Go, Girl!

You remember the movie trope of the diabolical homosexual? Well, that all-but-obsolete evil gay man is back in Lee Jong-pil's delicious North-Koreans-on-the-run movie Escape. This time he's taken the form of Ri Hyun-sang (Koo Kyo-hwan), a queeny major who we first observe when he's putting on a layer of chapstick with his pinky extended. The stereotype doesn't end at shiny lips either. He's got pomaded hair and high cheekbones, a bottle of hand lotion in the jeep and a backstory of winning international music contests with his flawless piano playing. Naturally, there's a young vaping pretty boy (Song Kang) who's part of that painful past, too.

Right now, this fabulously femme villain -- who never has a hair out of place -- is in mad pursuit of a pair of soldiers looking to escape North Korea's totalitarianism. One is Im Gyoo-nam (Lee Je-hoon) for whom Ri likely has a crush. The other is Gam Dong-hyuk (Hong Xa-bin), his lazy-eyed sidekick who is obviously doomed to die from the very start. Will the cute one make it to South Korea though? It certainly seems possible when a gang of nomadic, pistol-packing women exiled from town show up in the woods with artillery and attitude. Then again, hell hath no fury like a gay man scorned! Plus who wouldn't like the skin-enhancing properties that come with a quicksand mudbath, conveniently located at the 38th parallel.