Tomb of the River: Paid in Blood

This movie has too much stabbing for my taste. There's also plenty of — somehow more acceptable — men wielding pipes but these secondary gangfights always build to a stabbing so the pipe-brawls feel like they're basically teasers for what's yet to come. As to who's killing whom in Yoon Young-bin's jopok joint Tomb of the River, I don't know if it matters. Everyone's playing king of the hill here: power-grabbing Min-seok (Jang Hyuk), slow-witted if loyal Gil-seok (Yu Oh-seong), eternal second banana Cheong-seop (Lee Hyun-kyun), traitorous Mu-Sang (Kim Joon-bae), and the archetypal godfather (Park Jeong-hak) because where would a movie like this be without him. Most of these thugs are going to take one to the heart (via multiple stabs, regardless of rank). Interestingly, the best standoff ends up being a fistfight between two secondary henchmen. Kapow!

After the majority of ToTR's riffraff gets offed, the central conflict looks as though it might shift from gang versus gang versus gang to dirty businessman versus dirty cop. No such luck. The primary detective (Park Sung-Geun) has verbal swagger but can't walk the talk. A sleazy businessman (Song Young-kyu) enters the game late and leaves early. Stab, stab, stab. The body count is high. The final face-off takes place between exactly whom you'd expect: two well-dressed hoodlums. The underlying question turns out not to be whether the good bad guy or the bad guy is going to come out on top. It's whether there's really any difference when you're building Asia's biggest casino right before the next Olympics.

The Killer: A Girl Who Deserves to Die: Best Babysitter Ever

I don't remember many of my babysitters. I don't think I had that many. Maybe my parents didn't go out that much. I know for sure they never went on vacation without my brother and me so when two middle-aged women go on an extended girl's vacay and leave the mercenary boyfriend in charge of the troubled teenage girl (Lee Seo-young), I can't securely say that what follows is utterly preposterous. Maybe mom and dad never left us alone because there really are predatory crime rings ready to abduct bourgeois adolescents then sell them into underground sex rings. I do feel pretty sure that if an attempt had ever been made in that regard on my older brother and me, none of the babysitters we had would've been able to defend us like Bang Ui Gang (Jang Hyuk) of The Killer: A Girl Who Deserves to Die.

Then again, good help has always been hard to find as evidenced throughout Choi Jae-hoon's bloody action thriller. How else to explain the way the thugs keep coming at the film's protector despite his ability to stab, shoot, and karate chop an elevator full of attackers. Does no one think, "Hmm. Rushing this guy with an axe might not be the best strategy." Very few. And most of those guys aren't very smart either. Well, fear makes you dumb. It does me. Those who don't feel fear — like one bleached blond bruiser (Bruce Khan) and one dirty cop (Lee Seung-joon) — won't necessarily fare better than the scaredy cats. Because the only thing that's going to save you in The Killer is a guy like Bang Ui Gang. Great hair. Patrician overbite. No competition.

The Swordsman: A Simple Slice of History

One of the advantages of writing a passable swordfighting screenplay is that you don't need to create a lot of dialogue. All you need to do is to set up some clang-worthy conflicts. In Choi Jae-hoon's historical drama The Swordsman, the taciturn title character (Jang Hyuk) has two good reasons to unsheath his prong-tipped blade: to defend his king (Jang Hyun-sung) and to rescue his daughter (Kim Hyun-soo). He's sadly less concerned with the fate of the common people or the staff at the local Buddhist temple. Partially blinded by stray metal shards that lodged in his eyes during one fateful duel, he's reluctant to get involved unless absolutely necessary. Although, after watching him slice-and-dice crowds of well-armed enemies (guns included), I question his reticence to support nobler causes. Is stopping slavery and sex trafficking honestly beneath his dignity?

And is his royal highness worth fighting for? The Swordsman doesn't make much of a case for the noblest of nobles. Loyalty for tradition's sake comes up short, even if this movie's bad guys are mostly distinguished by their hairdos: there's shaved head (Ji Geon-woo), teased punk bouffant (Ji Seung-hyeon); a braided mohawk (?), and Disney half-ponytail (Joe Taslim), their confident leader. The one time he gets mad is when someone messes with his Instagram model acupuncturist (Angelina Danilova). In this way only is The Swordsman ahead of its time.

The Client: Did He Do It?

Watching The Client is like listening to a certain type of well-told short story. The carefully constructed narrative builds, scene by scene, without ever needing you to re-evaluate your interpretations of "the facts" (like a mystery would) but instead judiciously doles out the details so that you're only able to decisively answer its central question at the very end — In this case: Did that cool cucumber Han Cheol-min (Jang Hyuk) murder his wife or not? The accused isn't particularly sympathetic. The dead woman (Yoo Da-in) has barely any screen time. So what we're left with is a battle of wills between the public prosecutor (Park Hee-son) and the defense attorney (Ha Jung-woo). Nothing wrong with that!

Their efforts to outwit each other is what generates most of the tension in Sohn Young-sung's effective courtroom drama. Will the client's team be able to retrieve the videotape shot in the hall and why won't the police turn this evidence over? Will the cranky five-and-dime owner (Yoo Soon-woong) confess what he saw the night of the crime? Does his mute son have anything pertinent to add? To its credit, The Client never feels like its withholding evidence or dragging things out despite running over two hours. Sometimes, it simply takes time to tell a good story. That's something which The Client most assuredly understands.

Side Note: This movie is a huge improvement over Sohn's earlier flick The Pit and The Pendulum. Credit in part must go to Sohn's co-screenwriter Lee Chun-hyeong.

Searching for the Elephant: One's Crazy, One's Horny and One's Non-Descript

Actor Lee Sang-woo needs to get a new agent. In Jhung S.K.'s Searching for the Elephant (a lopsided portrait of the tawdry affluence experienced by three childhood friends who never really grow up), Lee's saddled with a role so uninteresting that you wonder why he's in the movie at all. Compared to his co-star Jang Hyuk's schizophrenic who hallucinates hacked off fingers and photographs that reassemble in the shape of an elephant's head, and Jo Dong-hyeok's narcissistic plastic surgeon who can't stop screwing his patients because of his addiction to sex, Lee's part appears to be not so much a normal guy as a bland one. A financier with a mysterious history -- he disappeared for twelve years for reasons unknown -- Lee's businessman has invested in many money-making schemes but forgot to spend a little energy on a meaningful personality.

Maybe Lee's agent is prudish. Because the only other thing that distinguishes his character is the absence of screen time for his ass. Jang gives us two nice shots of his rear (one in the shower; the other, getting out of a pool); Jo can't help but share his bare bottom via a number of passionate sex scenes. The raunchiest Lee gets is sucking a paramour's toe while hidden, from the shoulders down, beneath a tubful of soap suds. Murder ensues because this paramour (Lee Min-jung) happens to be the wife of Jo's character and the sister of Jang's.

Who gets killed how eventually proves a bit farfetched, although what's bothersome about Searching for Elephants aren't the unanswered questions, it's the unrequested answers. Why do we need to learn the back story of Lee's renegade psychiatrist Dr. Jang (Hwang Woo-seul-hye)? Why do we have to watch antiqued footage of the three kids at the fair? Why can't Jin-hyeok exist in the Korean police's computer database? Each of these plot points suggest that the three screenwriters were getting paid by the minute (which would also explain the 2 1/2 hours running time).

Side Note: Time Warner Cable has Searching for the Elephant listed as Penthouse Playboys. Don't be tricked by the title. Neither movie is worth $5 via Movies on Demand.

Windstruck: He Died Then Went to Heaven on a Breeze

When you watch movies via websites like Mysoju, Todou or YouTube, they're often broken up into chapters, which alters your viewing experience for better or worse. With Windstruck, writer-director Kwak Jae-young's 2004 romance, serialization works in its favor. Here are eight mini-reviews encouraging you to view this feature as a web series.

Episode 1: First Encounter
Kooky cop Kyung-jin (Jun Gianna) mistakes Myung-woo (Jang Hyuk) for purse-snatcher then hauls him to station to charm coworkers by sketching portraits. Kyung-jin's clobbers Myung-woo then schoolkids. Love blooms

Episode 2: Hand in Hand
Handcuffed, Kyung-jin and Myung-woo land in middle of huge shootout. Back at the police station, Myung-woo goes ballistic, pretending to be crazed criminal to save Kyung-jin's rep. Love to the rescue!

Episode 3: Sudden Changes
Kyung-jin and Myung-woo become boyfriend and girlfriend while carrying groceries upstairs. While playing house, she reveals that she's an identical twin and her sister is dead. Meals are shared. Love deepens.

Episode 4: Drive
Myung-woo gets a jeep so they can bond to oldies music. Kyung-jin relates origination story of the pinky swear. An avalanche sends jeep into deep waters where Myung-woo drowns and Kyung-jin cries. Love's tragic.

Episode 5: Baby, Come Back
By pounding (in frustration) on his chest, Kyung-jin revives Myung-woo. When he's shot again as she's chasing bad guy Chang-soo (Jeong Ho-bin), Myung-woo dies again. Kyung-jin considers suicide. Love defies death.

Episode 6: Punk to the Rescue
Two runaways convince Kyung-jin to treat them to pizza instead of killing herself. She tries suicide afterward by jumping off a building yet survives. A paper airplane announces Myung-woo's soul. Love knows no boundaries.

Episode 7: A Second Chance
Kyung-jin tracks down Chang-soo then gets shot. Myung-woo's ghost re-appears minus one lung. He instructs her to go on without him. She agrees because she believes in reincarnation. Will love be reborn?

Episode 8: Wind
In a house filled with pinwheels, Kyung-jin and Myung-woo's ghost say good-bye so she can meet a new cutie (Cha Tae-hyun) on a subway platform. Love, baby, love!

Five Senses of Eros: Speak No Hot Sex, See No Hot Sex, Hear No Hot Sex

Memorable short films? I don't know many. Memorable short erotic films? I don't know any. The enervating anthology Five Senses of Eros didn't change that fact either, especially since there's actually not an arousingly erotic short in the bunch. The opener, Byun Hyuk's "His Concern," is a grating voiceover accompanied by images charting the first stage of a romance resulting from a chance encounter at a train station. (She's way too good for him even if he is played by matinee idol Jang Hyuk.) Number two -- Hur Jin-ho's "I'm Here" -- isn't much better: a twee 20 minutes of a husband (Kim Kang-woo) and wife (Cha Su-yeon) playing hide-and-seek even after she ends up dying of something or other. (This woman likes to spoon even when she's gone!)

On to the third mini movie "33rd Man" which gets more pornographic by kicking off with a naked humping couple undone once the ghost (Kim Gyu-ri) appears. She's not really a spook, mind you, she's simply an actress on a shoot with a frustrated director (Kim Su-ro) and an experienced leading lady (Bae Chong-ok) who oddly enough happens to be a bisexual vampiress. By film four, things get weirder and dykier. With Min Kyu-dong's "The End and the Beginning," now we've got a bitter, horny widow (Eom Jeong-hwa) who decides to shack up with the magician-girlfriend (Kim Hyo-jin) who her hunky husband (Hwang Jeong-min) was banging when he got killed in a car accident. (Just wait until she finds those S&M videotapes.)

Last and least erotic if most interesting is Oh Ki-hwan's "Believe in the Moment," a fragmentary little flick about six incredibly edible young things who confusedly swap partners as they struggle to find out the meaning of intimacy. Lots of kissing! No nudity! I've actually seen previous films by many of the writer-directors featured herein but I don't feel that any of them qualify as an auteur just yet. This project probably appealed to them as something to do before they got to work on a more serious project. Maybe they're auditioning actors. Maybe they're testing out cinematographers. Maybe they're trying to flesh out an idea about carnal desire or the eros-thanatos connection or a dream they once had but don't remember too clearly anymore. Maybe that's it. But only maybe.

Please Teach Me English: No White Actors Speak Korean

I got this Kim Sung-su movie not because of how much I loved his Musa: The Warriors but because I honestly have begun to feel guilty about not knowing any Korean. I thought maybe the classroom scenes in Please Teach Me English would include simple translations like how to say "My name is Drew" or "It looks like rain." (It's "Che eerum-un Drew imneeda" and "Piga ol goht katahyo" if you're curious although I had to look up those two phrases online.) But there was nothing to learn like that here. Not only was I not building my Korean vocabulary but I was repeatedly cringing as actress Angela Kelly (who plays the English teacher) was having her Korean lines dubbed by another performer. Oh, the horror! The shame! With no useful lessons to be found, this hokey film must be judged as rom-com alone. Well, it fails as a romance since there's no chemistry between the pining dork of a clerical cog (Lee Na-yeong) and the cute shoe salesman (Jang Hyuk) who's eager to learn English because his long-list sister is returning from America. And it fails as a comedy since it's laughs are based on the idea that it's funny to see a pretty actress act goofy while wearing eyeglasses. I bet an actual instructional video would be funnier. If I learned the word for love, it would be more romantic too.

Volcano High: The Remedial Students of Chopsocky

I sense two possibilities here. The first is that writer-director Kim Tae-gyun commissioned a storyboard for Volcano High but was given a manhwa (a Korean manga) instead. The second is that he found the manhwa first and used it as his storyboard. Either way, this movie is really just a series of four-color panels in which actors do everything overemphatically as they strive to become cartoons. There's plenty of talk about destiny, screams shouted at the heavens, and even guys with superpowers and Matrix coats. But character development and a nuanced plot.... Well, you'll have to look elsewhere for those. You won't find much comedy either despite all the hammy acting and a ludicrous storyline about rebelious students who want to rule the high school by getting access to a magical scroll. I'll be damned if I could figure out who I was supposed to cheer on: the dorky blonde transfer student (Jang Hyuk), the ice princess (Shin Min-a) who helms the Kendo team, or a group of adult outsiders brought in as disciplinarians. MTV re-edited the film then dubbed it with hip hop artists (Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Mya) and I say why not. For all its excesses, Volcano High has very little to recommend it in its original form. It's hyper-boring.

Jungle Juice: Stupid Is as Stupid Does

Take out all the curse words in Jungle Juice and you'd be left with a silent movie colorized with Dayglo spraypaint. This cornball comedy's two numbskull-punks (Jang Hyuk and Lee Beom-su) cuss if they're bragging, cuss if they're clowning around, and cuss if someone's smacking them silly...which happens pretty often. The non-stop profanities and the aggressively bloody slapstick which, true to the word's roots, really does involve equal parts slap and stick, quickly gets tedious given the lack of plot in the meandering first half. By the time an actual story emerges -- involving stolen cocaine, intra-gang warfare, and a prostitute who goes by the name of Meg Ryan (Jeon Hye-jin), writer-director Cho Min-ho has his work cut out for him in terms of winning over an audience. That he does even partially is kind of amazing. The final halfhour is tight: multiple storylines intertwine and the goofy highjinks take on unexpected gravitas. In the end, it's still a stupid buddy pic with yuk-yuk gags and actors making silly faces but you're also clued in to the fact that Cho's capable of much more. He's the class clown who's smarter than he'd like to admit. Hey Cho! There's nothing wrong with being brainy. Try it sometime.