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.

The Deal: Caught Then Cagey

You're going to have to set logic free as a jailbird for So Yong-ho's thiller The Deal. For how can the police be on the trail of a serial killer when all the female victims' bodies are missing? Does missing qualify as dead? Fortunately, lead detective Tae-soo (Kim Sang-kyung), b.k.a. as "Mr. Intuition," defaults to his feelings over the facts. Which means a hit-and-run accident one rainy night seems significant in his pursuit of the killer for reasons only some internal vibe can explain.

That sixth sense doesn't allow him to protect those closest to him, and perhaps he takes to drink partially to deaden this gift which has failed him in a crucial way. ("I cant live withouut a drink," he proclaims after his sister (Yoon Seung-ah) dies. His brother-in-law Seung-hyeon (Kim Sung Kyun) would like to see less of him. His boss Chief Choi (Gi Ju-bong) would like him to get back on track. The serial killer Kang-cheon (Park Sung-woong) smiles whenever anyone's having a hard day and is very good at keeping secrets. But why do movie cops think that punching leads to truth-telling?

Pavane: Resistance Is Futile

Lee Jong-pil's romance Pavance is a movie that sneaks up on you. Two department store laborers -- the gregarious Park Yo-han (Byun Yo-han) and the withdrawn Lee Gyeong-rok (Moon Sang-min) become best buddies for no other reason than they both wore David Bowie T-shirts one day. Weirder set-ups have led to lifelong friends, ultimately. Yo-han chases after life while running away from his past. Gyeong-rok finds an unlikely soulmate in Kim Mi-jeong (Ko Ah-sung), an awkward, grubby delivery person who is even more of a social outcast than him.

Eventually the three form an improbable trio with incongruent dreams: Yo-han wants to be a rock star who also happens to be a best-selling novelist; Gyeong-rok wants to be modern dancer and practices in an underground parking lot; and Mi-jeong wants to be a cool grandma who lets the kids get away with murder. (Not literally) Admittedly, Lee's film resorts to some extreme plot points (a coma, a celebrity father who disowns his kid, a vehicular accident, a snow storm) but everytime the story went off the rails, Lee managed to find a way to get it back on track fairly quickly. Pavance is one of those movies for which you feel compelled to make allowances because when it's good, it's very much so. The emotional truths keep coming up to the surface. The sentimental tears keep flowing from my eyes.

Wild Sing: K-Pop Reunion

The K-pop trio Triangle had a brief moment in the limelight. Breakdancing Hyeon U (Gang Dong-won), sugar-sweet singer Do-mi (Park Ji-hyun), and bad rapper Sang Gu (Um Tae-goo) all found their shared career in shambles once their hit song was revealed to be a Bulgarian tune plagiarized by their manager. Flash forward years later to a benefit concert which seeks to capitalize on the group's former popularity by reuniting them once again: Can these three embittered bandmates rediscover the crowd-pleasing chemistry they had once upon a time? And how will their former rival, crooner Seong Gon (Oh Jung-se), factor into the story, since he crashed and burned even worse than they did after a fateful night of drug experimentation? And what about up-and-comer Na Tae-poong (Kang Ki-young) who's carrying a serious grudge?

The material's hardly the most inventive yet director Son Jae-gon does infuse the proceedings with a spirit of fun so that I, for one, was surprised how caught up I got in Triangle's collective search for pop star redemption. So much so that I was willing to forgive tired tropes like the nagging, rich mother-in-law (Son Jae-gon) and the clueless truckdriver (Park Sung-hyun) who was a former fan of "Trombone." Ultimately, Wild Sing is sweet-natured with fairly catchy music. It may not rise to the level of personal favorite KPops! or global smash Kpop Demon Hunters but a three out of five isn't bad in the end. You could do worse.

Cobweb: Actors Acting, Actors Being

Movies about moviemaking can be so much fun. And there are so many ways to do it. Hong Sang-soo's The Novelist's Film takes a naturalistically deadpan approach from conception to creation. The documentary Yellow Door excavates the roots that led to Bong Joon-ho's career. The farcical Luck-Key makes the most of its amnesiac gangster-turned-actor (Yoo Hae-jin). Kim Jee-woon's Cobweb is the most direct of them all: A ridiculous comedy in which a pill-popping hack director (Song Kang-ho) decides he needs to reshoot some scenes in order to turn his latest dreck into a masterpiece.

The flick within a flick is completely preposterous: pure soap, as one older leading lady (a terrific Park Jung-soo) points out. But the over-the-top storyline — abounding with murders, doublecrosses, and histrionics — are perfect excuses for this talented cast to constantly switch from silly sitcom mode to affected melodrama whenever the story shifts from off camera to on. Everyone's having fun throughout: the cheating husband (Oh Jung-se), the pregnant ingenue (Jung Krystal), the dead studio owner's daughter (Jeon Yeo-been), the exasperated studio chairwoman (Jang Young-nam)... The joy these performers are taking in the shenanigans is contagious. You couldn't get sick of this buffonery if you tried.

Baseball Girl: Not a Hit

The trope is probably as old as sports movies themselves. An underdog overcomes insurmountable odds with a combination of talent and grit. The problem with Choi Yun-tae's Baseball Girl is it doesn't really highlight the talent of its star athlete -- pitcher Joo Soo-in (Lee Joo-young) -- or reveal a perseverance that's especially impressive: She snubs a teacher (Lee Chae-eun) in an amateur league, leaves the gym when a reporter approaches, and keeps trying to perfect a fast ball that's admittedly sub-par.

Once her new coach Choi Jin-tae (Lee Joon-hyuk), a former baseball player who failed to make it in the majors, takes an interest in her, the story gets marginally better. But Baseball Girl oddly never takes off in part because it lacks any love for the actually sport. We rarely see Soo-in in action during a game. Her training sequences are far from impressive. I, for one, kept thinking she needs to get a haircut to get her bangs out of her eyes as much as she needs to perfect her knuckleball. Teammate Lee Jeung-ho (Kwak Dong-yeon) may see potential. I saw someone who was delusional, selfish, petulant, and mean as well as insecure and undermined by sexism and an unhappy family. Of course, I want to see a woman win in a man's world. I'm just not that excited by this one signing a semi-pro contract.

Big Deal: Corporate Cruelty

Choi Yun-Jin's Big Deal is a pretty scary movie. Not because there are vampires or werewolves or a mad slasher on the loose. What's wreaking havoc and causing chills are corporate overlords who have only one thing on their mind: Money. Seok Jin-woo (Son Hyeon-ju) is the nepo baby who's inherited a thriving soju empire that he jeopardizes by making foolish wagers on the golf course among other places. Choi In-beom (Lee Je-hoon) is a business strategist who recognizes the faltering company as his chance to orchestrate a merciless takeover followed by downsizing and a profitable resale. Neither character can imagine a motive outside their bank accounts.

The only one in this cutthroat world who seems to give a damn is divorced, alcholic, all-too-trusting Pyo Jong Rok (Yoo Hae-jin), a high-ranking exec who is about to learn that CEOs, lawyers, judges, journalists, account managers, and so on do not share his code of ethics. Or any code of ethics. The only rule for sleazy powerbrokers like Gordon (Byron Kim), nasty double-crossers like Koo (Choi Young-joon) or backstabbing dealmakers like Mark (Daniel C Kennedy) is win at all costs. The ends justify the meanies! To its credit, Big Deal shows that sometimes a price is paid... but its not by the monsters at the top.

Road to Boston: A Run for Independence

For those who mistakenly believe that once Japan was pushed out of Korea, then South Korea immediately became an internationally recognized sovereign nation, writer-director Kang Je-kyu's Road to Boston may serve as a rousing corrective. The time is the late 1940s. Gold medal marathoner Son Kee-jeong (Ha Jung-woo) is an alcoholic nursing the pain caused by his crowning achievement being credited to the nation that once occupied his homeland. His buddy, bronze medalist Nam Seung-Ryong (Bae Sung-woo), is a running coach hoping to reassert Korea's place on the global stage. The two decide to team up to gain promising athlete Seo Yoon-bok (Yim Si-wan) a spot in the upcoming Olympics, only to find out that first their country must qualify via a sanctioned meet.

The good news is that the Boston Marathon is right around the corner. The bad news is that the American military, South Korea's latest occupier, is largely standing in the way. While the U.S. may not be as overtly oppressive as Japan was, Road to Boston does remind you that imperalism and colonialism come in many insidious forms. So does the underdog story. And this beauteous biopic recounting Seo's unlikely rise as a competitor of global ranking may have you shedding tears of appreciation by the final race. There's something truly heartwarming too in the mutual support club that can exist among "rival" runners, a bond that extends across oceans and languages. Shout out to American silver medalist John Kelly (Jesse Marshall).

The Girl on a Bulldozer: Inherited Mystery

Hye-yeong (Kim Hye-yoon) doesn't take the time to grieve when her unlucky dad (Park Hyuk-kwon) ends up "brain dead" at the hospital. Maybe her life has been sad so long that she's lost the propensity to do so. Understandable. Plus, her refusal to mourn ensures she's got plenty of time and energy to devote to solving the surrounding case -- investigated by cops and insurance company alike, and involving a wide array of people. Surely, her father can't be blamed for every crime: reckless driving, broken arm, construction site accident, striking a former employer, totalling someone else's car... His daughter knows her dad better than that.

Auntie (Yang So-min) knows some things, too. The voicemail on dad's phone details even more. But will this troubled eldest child ever be able to achieve justice, given her own public record of reactive violence. Park Ri-Woong's The Girl on a Bulldozer kicks off with a girl fight involving hair-pulling, punching, kicking, and a pair of scissors. Our anti-heroine's choice to slap the slimy politician who may be responsible for her dad's undoing is certainly an act with viral online potential but does she really think such an impulsive smack is going to work in her favor? In truth, Hye-yeong makes a number of choices that strain the viewer's credulity. And plot points like a lighter that malfunctions right when she's about to torch someone's apartment say much the same about this movie's screenplay.

K-Pops!: American-Made Korean Music Sensation

I have a few friends who work in academia and my lover just graduated from an MFA program so talk of syllabi is always in the air lately. Which got me to thinking: What films would I include if I were teaching an Intro to Korean Film class myself? Obvious choices such as Parasite (2019), Oldboy (2003), Bad Guy (2001), Stray Bullet (1961), and A Flower in Hell (1958) all come to mind. So do lesser-known works like Save the Green Planet! (2003) and Enter the Invincible Hero (1977). But I might include a movie like K-Pops! (2024), too. For this American film by multi-Grammy winner Anderson .Paak speaks to Korean-American identity, crossover Korean culture, and has plenty of dialogue in Korean too.

Set mostly in South Korea, this feel-good story concerns a Korean-American drummer-singer-songwriter (.Paak) who undergoes a maturation process after he lands a gig in the houseband of a televised competition show for pop vocalists -- only to meet the son he never knew he had in the process. Throughout, K-Pops! has a light touch even as it addresses matters of cultural heritage/exchange/cross-polination on both sides of the Pacific. The performances are universally enchanting, from .Paak's turn as the lead to Jee Young Han as his ex to Soul Rasheed as his talented son to Yvette Nicole Brown as his upbeat mom to Jon Park as his mom's potential love interest. The music likewise is irresistible. How this movie slid under the radar in 2024 is a mystery to me. So I'm hereby writing K-Pops! in large letters on the virtual chalkboard to ensure this fun flick gets your attention.

Husbands in Action: Bubbly, Bumbling-Buddy Comedy

Husbands in Action is straight up goofy. I say that appreciatively. For Park Gyu-tae's kooky bromantic comedy gradually ingratiates itself to the viewer by never letting its silliness falter. Ex-husband Hwang Choong-sik (Jin Seon-kyu) is the kind of supercop who uses his handcuffs like numchucks and will frame his frenemy for his farts; new husband Lee Min-seok (Gong Myoung) is a veterinarian who drives a van decked out with ears and a tail and can crack walnuts with his barehands; drug-dealing husband Ma Do-joon (Kim Ji Suk) is a dimwit with a strong inner dog and courts his brilliant scientist-wife (Lee Da-hee) by pummeling others. All three men must unite in order to save their loved ones from Kim Yong-gang (Yoon Kyung-ho), a behind-the-times ex-con who wants to get his turf back now that he's been released from jail.

The film abounds with silly details: a reporter (Jeon So Min) whose motives are more romantic than investigative; a police chief (Lee Soon-won) whose got a crush on his star detective. Well-executed character parts like one criminal second banana (Lee Hyun Kul) and Yong-gang's flashy wife (Lee Yoon-a) keep the laughs coming as does a delightfully absurd sequence in which the three main women defend themselves from a gang of attackers by using frozen fish as hammer-like weapons. A true knockout. Just the latest winner from Park who also wrote the touching A Great Chinese Restaurant.

Kingmaker: Whose Life Is It Anyway?

I've been trying to figure out why Byun Sung-hyun historical drama Kingmaker decided against being a biopic about the early political days of eventual Korean president Kim Dae-jung and his unorthodox strategist Uhm Chang-rok. Why are we instead watching a film about a fictional Kim Woon-beom (Sul Kyung-gu) and his sidekick Seo Chang-dae (Lee Sun-kyun)? Why indeed are so many of the main characters based on real-life figures but renamed as if they were someone else? Was there a fear of lawsuits related to defamation of character? Was there too much conjecture and not enough fact?

Whatever the reasons, don't them distract you. In truth, the less you know about South Korean politics from the 1970s, the more Kingmaker may captivate your attention. For the story this movie tells is a fascinating one: an election campaign in which idealism is catapulted by clever trickery despite unfavorable odds. Theft, misdirection, and betrayal all come into play as Kim struggles to put forth his populist, socialist agenda and loosen the dictatorial grip the current regime held on the country. Kingmaker has you rooting for the underdog and searching the American political landscape for a national figure akin to NYC's recently elected Zohran Mamdani. But given the backroom scheming that's able to manipulate a republic the sie of New Jersey, you know it's a big dream for the USA.

Project Y: How Much Does She Love Her

When is lesbian noir not lesbian noir? At first, Lee Hwan's Project Y registers as a sapphic thriller. Aren't femme escort Mi-seon (Han So-lee) and butch driver Do-gyeong (Jeon Jong-seo) pooling their resources so one can open a flower shop and the other can make goo-goo eyes at the owner? Yet before I could settle into the pleasures of their complicated criminal romance, these two end up in a room with maternal figure Ga-yeong (Kim Shin-rock), a manipulative, drug-using elder who both refer to as "mom." Eventually, it comes out that one is the birth child; the other, adopted... so perhaps their connection is more than familial; perhaps the relationship retains the erotic. But if so, this sisterhood has definitely upped the kink factor.

Now throw in hyperviolent henchwoman Bull (a bald-headed Jung Young-joo) and you'll find it impossible to let go of the queer framework. Even the presence of the gigolo bar, frequented as it may be by rich ladies dissatisfied with their husbands, connotes a gay millieu. I've been to those bars and the women are in the minority as clientelle. As for the male leads, neither comes close to creating a strong fascination: Club impressario To Sa-jang (Kim Sung-cheol) is a pretty boy who gets hard by cheating people of money. He's a nepo villain. He feels as though he's inherited his dastardliness and learned his viciousness as part of a bloody bloodline. Like many in real life.

The Old Woman With the Knife: Stainless Steel Is Gray

One of the surprises of getting old is that you get hit with ailments for which you hadn't planned. For me, it's been creaky knee joints, acidic reflux, and high cholesterol. For Hornclaw (Lee Hye-yeong), the aging assassin in The Old Woman with the Knife, it's waning endurance, a shaky hand, and slower reflexes. I can do stretches, eat dinner earlier, and take a nightly dose of Atorvastatin. She's going to have to perservere with her grueling physical regimen and find a kind, widowed veterinarian (Nam Myung-ryul) to stitch her up should "accidents" occur. Gone are those days in which her younger self (Shin Si-ah) could singlehandedly take out 28 men with a knife. Now she's having to resort to guns and a Spiderman-style rope to eliminate a gang of enemies who lack her timetested expertise.

And so, the illusion continues. We can do anything we used to be able to do, if we try a little harder. In fact, we can even adopt a stray dog named Braveheart and forge new allegiances with the "pest control" agency's office manager Cho-yeop (Ok Ja-yeon) who's modeled her look after Bettie Page, if we're inclined as well. But we'll also have to confront our messy past. (Career choices do make a difference!) In Hornclaw's case, that means facing off with Bullfight (Kim Sung-cheol), a bloodthirsty sadist who wants to unseat their shared agency's current queen. You see, many years ago, he had a nanny who... Oh, check out Min Kyu-dong's fun action pic and find out.

Unforgivable: Understandable, Less So

Directed by Lim Kyoung-ho and So Jun-beum, Unforgivable is undeniably a message movie about homophobia but what exactly is it trying to say? The film seems to be taking a stance against LGBTQ-focused prejudice yet it also recoils from labeling anyone as gay with even the likeliest queer man (Yoon Dong-won) being defended by his mother (Gil Hae-yeon) as likely to grow up and get married with kids if given the chance. Delusional? Unquestionably. Does it make for a stronger message if we confront the label of gay without any acknowledged gay characters on screen? Unlikely. Furthermore, were there misssed opportunities to confront internalized self-hate in the LGBTQ+ community? Undeniably.

The lead detective (Kim Jung-hyun) might be gay. His statistician sidekick (Choi Chan-ho) might be gay. An old friend who's a bartender might be gay. Et cetera. And while you're trying to figure out if anyone actually is a friend of Dorothy's, who isn't gets unncecessarily complicated as the actors playing younger, flashback versions of the characters unnervingly bear no resemblance to the men they'll become. And while I'm unreservedly thankful that the film producers did not resort to bad gray wigs and/or digital toolboxes for youthenizing, I unreservedly wish the casting agency had spent more time and shown more care in pairing up performers who play the same role at different ages. I would, however, like to commend all involved here for detailing how teasing quickly turns to tormenting, and how a culture revolted by male intimacy negates the love of bromance as well as M4M romance in board rooms and prisons and boot camps and junior highs. For that alone, Unforgivable is unforgettable.

Hidden Face: Caged Heat

What up-and-coming conductor (Song Seung-heon) is going to hire a replacement cellist (Park Ji-hyun) based solely on the USB drive that she's brought with her to the audition? And who wants to see a pseudo-non-consensual sex scene between this now-drunk woman and her new boss with the surfer hair, regardless of how pretty they both are? Well, whoever falls into that latter demographic is definitely going to get a little bit of what they desire in Kim Dae-woo's teetering-on-softcore, pulpy suspense pic Hidden Face> Because the two beautiful actors get naked and fornicate a few times.

Does the movie improve or deteriorate when the conductor's nepo ex-girlfriend (Cho Yeo-jeong) resurfaces then turns out to be the sapphic lover of his now new girlfriend-cellist? And when the two women are revealed to have a long history of bondage and dominance that took place in a hidden, soundproof room with two-way mirrors are we mortified or amused? Sadly, the only person truly concerned about the first girlfriend's disappearance is her ultra-rich momma (Cha Mi-kyung) who, naturally enough, funds the orchestra. That's okay. Because you should never underestimate the resourcefulness of a mother. Or the healing powers of kimchi soup.

Harbin: Revolutionary Movies

As the U.S. government slides towards white-supremacist, patriarchal fascism, Hollywood is not exactly taking up the call to arms with escapist fare like The Devil Wears Prada 2 and the new Michael Jackson biopic. Which is why we'd do well to turn towards Korea for movies like Woo Min-ho's Harbin, a 2024 release that glorifies the resistance movement that followed Japanese occupation in the early part of the 20th century. This is no hagiography, however. The rebel leader (Hyun Bin) disastrously lets the enemy free without weapons so children won't die fatherless when his Japanese counterpart (Park Hoon) would have gladly killed himself to save face. Poor decisions lead to mass collateral damage and a basement of peers are eager to take on the parts of judge and jury.

How do you defend stupid actions in a war? You often can't. What can you do to make things right? Revenge, assassinate, self-sacrifice, the usual. Although Harbin is very much a movie about leaders pitted against each other within and without the resistance movement, this movie equally belongs to its supporting characters: Gong Boo-in (Jeon Yeo-been), Russian translator and dynamite resource; Kim Sang Hyun (Jo Woo-jin), bespectacled, former POW with PTSD issues; Woo Deok-soon (Park Jeong-min), the pragmatic soldier who just wants a drink; and Park Jeom-cheol (Jung Woo-sung), the one-eyed, furcoat model and munitions dealer. Perhaps the underlying message here is that sometimes a group has to pitch in to remedy a mess made by higher-ups; and that being a traitor never works in your favor. As one character puts it, "If Japan writes history, no one will remember us." Then another rejoins, "When you're dead, you're dead." You might as well be true to yourself while you can. Because "we live in place of our dead comrades." Always true. "Korea! Ura!"

Boss: Meth Acting

Being head honcho of a mob isn't the respectable job it used to be in Ra Hee-chan's jopok comedy Boss. High ranking gangster Soon-tae (Jo Woo-jin) would rather pursue his dream of being a chef with a restaurant franchise; recently released convict Kang-pyo (Jung Kyung-ho) fantasizes about going back to school to study tango. The only person who wants to be the new don is Pan-ho (Park Ji-hwan), the son of the old don (Lee Sung-min) but nobody wants to elect that clown. He's stupid and has anger management issues. Family lineage no longer holds the clout it once did.

Four senior hoods with an unofficial leader (Oh Dal-su) work to ensure a smooth succession for this crime organization. So does Kang-pyo's over-the-top mother Lady Hong (Gil Hae-yon). But apparently it's not as simple as letting the next-in-line step up since two out of the three nominees want nothing to do with the recently opened position. Throw in a bumbling undercover cop (Lee Kyu-hyung) with endless spyware, a disatisfied wife (Hwang Woo-seul-hye), a grifting daughter (Cho Si-yeon), and another underworld organization called The Triad, and this screenplay gets overly complicated. Would it have been such a crime to keep the story less layered? When this movie shifts from "stabbing to a catchy soundtrack" to "backstabbing to facilitate dealing meth," the "say no to drugs" message is about as ineffective as when Nancy Reagan first uttered the phrase. Except this time, we've got incredibly effective comic bits in the finale.