The Point Men: Pointless

Why in the world would a busload of holy roller missionaries from South Korea choose to "vacation" in a Middle Eastern country ruled by Islamic extremists in the midst of a war? "There are no tourist sites in Afghanistan," says one bearded, turbaned, gun-toting local, and I, for one, believe him. Also, my sympathies do not lie with Christian colonizers who are long on bible quotes and short on compassion. Welcome to The Point Men, Yim Soon-rye's not-so-thrilling thriller based on real-life events but devoid of real-life people.

When 23 Koreans are held hostage by the Taliban, smug Director Jung (Hwang Jung-min) sticks to the book, with no cultural insights while NIS Agent Park (Hyun Bin) plays by his own rules with greater success. A clownish Korean ex-pat Qasim (Kang Ki-young) is the only translator fluent in both languages but they inexplicably drop him from the team pretty quickly. Sound like a typical movie negotiating set-up? Now add cryptic leaders, shameless journalists, neverending traffic, and suicide bombers. "Our aim is to prevent killings, not protect our reputation," quips Jung. Neither objective will be fully met in this film.

Beauty with No Neck: Die of Laughter

It's been awhile since I've seen a film involving disfigured ghosts, a cave of hidden gold, and venomous spiders that can only be killed by fire. Thank goodness for Beauty with No Neck, Lee Yong-min's absolutely cuckoo B-movie about the lengths one greedy man (Lee Ye-chun) will go to become "the richest man in Korea." The plot makes no sense until the last 20 minutes at which point everything is explained. And then... it still makes no sense. But in between a dying man tattooing his baby with clues to the gold's whereabouts and a villain trapped on an island surrounded by a river of acid called "aqua regia," there nuttiness never stops. Here in no particular order are some snippets of absurd dialogue:

1. "I made this myself. Liquor brewed with animal blood."
2. "You're both the killer and the witness!"
3. "I thought you wanted to buy a haunted house."
4. "A devil in human form!"
5. "Your skin's so fair even women would fall for you."
6. "There's definitely some kind of secret in that box."

For the record, that box ends up not containing any significant secret. That animal blood liquor might possess a venom serum. Some femme fatales have sapphic longings, only when they're ready to kill. In Beauty with No Neck, when a character says, "I'll never die," he means it. Even if he dies. And he'll be right!

Influenza: Intentionally Short and Not So Sweet

Watching a short film as my Korean movie of the week can feel a bit like cheating as if, by not dedicating a full two hours to the experience, I'm somehow coming up short myself. Yet, it's hard to argue against "Influenza" as a this week's pic when you consider the director is Bong Joon-ho, the most famous director from South Korea. Initially commissioned for the Jeonju Digital Project omnibus (which also includes Yu Lik-Wai's "Dance with Me to the End of Love" and Sogo Ishii's "Mirrored Mind," Bong's contribution to the trilogy is more an experimental sketch than a full-blown flick. Yun Je-mun stars as a petty criminal who robs old people at bank machines, often accompanied by his thug girlfriend played by Go Su-hee.

All the action is taken from CCTV footage, grainy images ostensibly from Yanghwa Bridge, a parking lot, various ATM foyers, and city street corner. Dialogue is at a minimum since most of the "found footage" is without sound. Occasionally, the violence is unsettling: an attack in a parking lot with a pipe and a hammer is especially unsettling. Same for an elderly man hacked in a vestibule. Better are the scenes that verge on the absurd, like when the two crooks gently trip an old woman then carefully lower her to the floor before making off with her cash, her bank card, and her code. A curio more than a must-see, "Influenza" is strictly for Bong Joon-ho superfans.