Salsali, You Didn't Know: 007 for Laughs

Salsali, You Didn't Know is one of those comedies in which life would be so much easier if the on-screen characters simply said what they meant. Instead, when the title character (Seo Young-choon) goes to a duped acupuncturist (Kim Hee-kap) looking for payment re: just-delivered jewelry absconded by a scheming woman (Do Kum-bong), his lack of specifics lands him in a James Bond plot perfectly in line with the 007 paperbacks he's taken to reading avariciously. Suddenly, crime pops up everywhere he turns. The jewel thief is tied to a gang that also runs a disreputable dancehall; the cellar of the hotel is the site of a counterfeit money-laundering scheme; a stolen meal at a Chinese restaurant must be paid for by entering a boxing match.

Our hero may be thin as a rail but he happens to have a mean punch. He also has a thing for the mincing sister of the movie's femme fatale. He also has a thing for crossdressing... although his reasons for doing so stretch the limits of plausability. Well, at least he has a good wardrobe. Most wild of all, he has a strange gift for using mannequins to save the day, whether it's a nude plastic woman in a shower or a conveniently placed artificial arm under a bedsheet. I would never call novelist Ian Fleming a writer of realism but after watching Kim Hwa-rang's crime-caper-comedy, the derring-do of Fleming's British superspy feels nothing short of reasonable.

Microhabitat: Home Is Where You Crash

As much as reunions are a chance to catch up with people you haven't seen in awhile, they're also confrontations with the self. For constantly having to reintroduce yourself, means taking stock of your life, of acknowledging where you are at that point in time. Oh sure, you could make something up or omit anything that isn't flattering but then the reunion becomes all about hiding, doesn't it? Hiding from others and from the self. Each interaction is a lost opportunity to get real. Each sidestep takes you into the quagmire.

In Jeon Go-Woon's episodic Microhabitat, heroine Mi-so (Esom) has a series of reunions with old friends as she couch-surfs after losing her apartment rather than give up booze and cigarettes. No one she meets is very happy: one's a workaholic, one's in an unhappy marriage, one's unhappily divorced. Has Mi-so made a mistake by putting herself out on the street? Would having her own roof over her head make her happier? And who's helping whom when a cleaning lady comes for a sleepover? "My goal in life is to live debt free," Mi-so says while donating blood in order to scrape together the price of a movie ticket! Her heterosexist, manga-drawing boyfriend (Ahn Jae-hong) is equally strapped. Her parents are dead. A marriage proposal that could take her off the street isn't seriously considered and leads to a bout of paranoia (and a reason to move on to another couch). I guess Mi-so doesn't want to really see where she is or doesn't think her houseless life is as bad as we do. Then again, she is saving money! And her sole client likes her. Until that too passes. Nothing is permanent.

Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy: Never Quit the Game

I've been reading a number of disappointing contemporary novels in which the main character exercises minimal control of their fate so Kim Byung-woo's Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy is a welcome counterbalance. It's leading man Kim Dok-ja (Ahn Hyo-seop) is stuck in a choose-your-own-adventure narrative for which taking drastic action is the only way to survive. You see, he's been propelled into a scenario containing endless parallels to a dissatisfying online novel that he's been reading and recently finished. Now, finally, he has the chance to influence the outcome — as well as who lives and who dies — every time a new crisis arrives. Joining him in his postapocalypic journey are spiderwebby former co-worker Yoo Sang-ah (Chae Soo-bin), insect telepath Lee Gil-yeong (Kwon Eun-sung), muscle buddy Lee Hyeon-seong (Shin Seung-ho), tough girl Jeong Hee-won (Nana a.k.a. Im Jin-ah), loner Lee Ji-hye (Kim Ji-soo) and former fictional hero Yoo Jung-hyuk (Lee Min-ho).

If mentioning the biggest stars at the end seems strange, well, Omniscient Reader is a pretty strange movie. I mean, when's the last time you heard of a scifi pic in which heartless ETs set off a series of disasters on Earth so they could be entertained by human players in a live-streamed reality TV series / videogame? The metaphors aren't hard to decode. Nor is the plot hard to follow despite the reviews I read online. One villain is a politican! Another's a rich guy! Another's a sexually predatory businessman! And then there's quite a variety of lizard-like demons. What's the message? Teamwork and good friends will get you through the worst of times. And let's not forget the small joys that come when little kids mind-control oversized praying mantises.