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.

Time to Hunt: Stop Following Me!

Yoon Sung-hyun's heist-gone-wrong thriller Time to Hunt takes its time building up to its catalyst crime — the robbery of an illegal gambler's den — then turns into a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game in which crazed, corrupt cop Han (Park Hae-soo) stalks the four thieves even after he's retrieved the most-valued goods. Unaware of why they're being so viciously pursued puts these criminal buddies in a more precarious position than usual because they know there's nothing they can offer to make things right. This especially baffles Joon-seok (Lee Je-hoon) who's orchestrated the crime just days after serving three years in prison. He sees a better tomorrow for him and his buddies in Taiwan but first he'll have to make sure that the narcoleptic Jang-ho (Ann Jae-hong), the momma's boy Ki-hoo (Choi Woo-sik), and insider Sang-soo (Park Jung-min) survive for two more days.

You might think that they've got a decent shot at doing so considering their impressive cache of firearms but Han is not your typical hitman. He's more like a super-villain who can take any number of shots to the body and a fall into a river, and still have more than enough energy to reload and get back to shooting his sniper again. That makes for some heart-racing chase scenes that are only enhanced by an incredibly effective soundtrack and some truly lush cinematography. Judged as pure escapist fare, Time to Hunt ranks fairly high — especially since it clocks at well over two hours and this pandemic has left me with hours to fill.

Crocodile: True Love Kim Ki-Duk Style

I'm going to go out on a severed limb, and assert that Crocodile is Kim Ki-duk's most romantic movie. Duk's feature debut isn't a date movie by any stretch of the imagination, but there's definitely an emotional thaw experienced by its title character (Jo Jae-hyeon), a heartless thug who rescues, rapes, then revenges a suicidal artist (Woo Yun-gyeong) who he's pulled out of a particularly filthy section of the Han River. What causes the change is a couple of things.

1. He discovers a well-executed (and flattering) portrait of himself that she's drawn.
2. He's warned by his surrogate grandfather (Jeon Mu-song): "You won't always be young."
3. He's nearly raped himself by a police sketch artist (who ends up with a cucumber shoved up his arse).

Further tenderizing of our hero takes place when his young charge (Ahn Jae-hong) nearly castrates him with a pocketknife and when he's beaten to a pulp by some unscrupulous poker players who hit him with what appears to be a boar's hoof. (Understatement has never been Kim's bent.) So what makes Crocodile romantic?

I guess it's the way that the title character handcuffs himself to the artist's dead body and then slits — no, saws — his wrist as they sit next to each other on a loveseat underwater. This one-ups the saying "To death do us part" with "Look how death brings us together." Very Romeo and Juliet in a street life way.

As first films go, Crocodile is impressive, and feels like an earlier attempt at the same story which Kim would perfect five years later with the brilliant Bad Guy. Both movies star Jo Jae-hyeon, who can certainly be considered one of Kim's primary muses having also appeared in his Wild Animals, The Isle, Address Unknown, and the insane silent sex pic Moebius. Jo, like Kim, is best when he's making you uncomfortable which he does here for 102 minutes.