Top 10 Movies of 2023 (Sort of)

The thought occurred to me when putting together this curated list of Korean movies (which once again I had trouble paring down to ten from the 50 I'd watched throughout the year) that it might be helpful to think in terms of "favorites" instead of "best." Because sometimes I really do like movies that are far from cinematic paragons. Some aren't even "good" in the generally accepted sense. Yet every film on this list merits inclusion. They're all memorable in terms of storylines and casts. More importantly still, they tickled my fancy. And so, with this new framing device in mind, I present to you my recommendations for 2023.

1. Decision to Leave (2022): Enjoying a Greek tragedy doesn't depend on being surprised by every twist and turn. Nor does this ingeniously constructed Park Chan-wook crime pic.
2. Voice of Silence (2020): Director Hong Eui-jeong's thrilling feature debut concerns a mute man-child suddenly in the middle of a botched kidnapping crime gone awry.
3. Love & Leashes (2022): The kinky Korean counterpart to stateside's 50 Shades of Grey is surprisingly nuanced, often humorous, and consistently smart. With gender roles reversed!
4. Exit (2019): Lee Sang-geun's heartpounding rom-com follows two recreational rockclimbers who find unwanted adventure when a poison gas hits downtown Seoul.
5. Midnight Runners (2017): In the eternal fight between good and evil, I expect some hyperbole. In Kim Joo-hwan's police cadet mystery, I relished it.
6. Deranged (2012): Director Park Jeong-woo's timely disaster-disease pic somehow feels as if it were a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
7. Night Journey (1977): This period drama about a dissatisfied bank clerk (Yu Jeong-hie) taking stock of her life is a feminist critique with surreal touches.
8. Kill Boksoon (2023): With all due respect to slick action pics The Killer and Ballerina, Jeon Do-yeon's performance as the title character pushed this one into the lead.
9. Space Monster Wangmagwi (1977): The camp factor runs high in this alien-invasion flick in which a Godzilla is remote-controlled from outerspace.
10. Shark: The Beginning (2021): This underdog story with male bonding between sexy guys in the juvie appears set to kick off a series, given its title. Bring it on!

Deranged: I'll Drink to This One

It's hard to believe that the highly effective disaster pic Deranged was released years before COVID-19 changed our world; director Park Jeong-woo's heartracing horror movie feels as if it were made in direct response to our ongoing pandemic. Apparently, tragedies like the Coronavirus and HIV have followed the same patterns as the flu of 1919 and H1S1 (which is indeed referenced in an early moment of Park's film). Has mankind learned nothing from history? The answer is always, yes and no. In Deranged, the nightmare is ecological and biological, governmental and economical: a lab-generated, mutant horsehair worm has morphed and jumped species so that now humans are being ravaged by the freaky, squiggly parasite.

The onset symptoms are fairly inconspicuous: an increase of appetite, a building thirst. Who hasn't had days — or weeks — when they were especially hungry for no good reason or decided to pursue the idealized eight glasses a day? So you can't expect a drug rep (Kim Myung-min) or a low-level cop (Kim Dong-won) to immediately register that something's wrong with their family members, especially since the two brothers are both burdened by insurmountable debts and working two jobs to make ends meet. What you can expect, per usual, is that the pharmaceutical companies will be putting profit above public concern when the egg-infested shit hits the fan. The worst part is that nowadays, the idea that Big Pharma is actively creating a self-serving hellscape isn't the least bit far-fetched. Everyone has pretty much accepted that drug companies are evil. In Deranged, worms control some people's brains; money controls the minds of others.