Decibel: Is That a Bomb I Hear?

Pure popcorn entertainment, Hwang In-ho's Decibel pits beloved Submarine Commander Kang Do-Young (Kim Rae-won) against former Staff Sergeant Jeong Tae-Ryoung (Cha Eun-woo), a madman planting explosives around town; specifically, bombs triggered by high sound levels meaning the kids at the neighborhood playground, at the public pool, and at the soccer game all need to hush. Good luck with that! As the uniformed Kang scrambles from one potential mass murder to the next, he's assisted by his wife Jang Yu-Jeong (Lee Sang-hee) who happens to be bomb squad brass and CBC reporter Oh Dae-oh (Jung Sang-hoon) who's oddly nonchalant when it comes to protecting his own son. (Happy to report he can take care of himself.)

Some people do get blown up, though. An underwater accident, revealed in flashback, has deaths in store fos us too — albeit of a nobler variety. Per the psychopathic-driven disaster movie genre's preset rules, the crazed mastermind does have a legitimate reason for causing citywide mayhem but his choice of a target feels a little misguided. When you're that filled with that much rage, directing your ire at the right person is often challenging. Inevitably, there's gonna be spill. In this case, there's also going to be debris. And a big news conference at the end where one now-wiser journalist asks,"What did you learn from all this?" As a viewer, feel free to skip that question.

My Name Is Loh Kiwan: Tough Life

You think you have it rough? Consider the life of Loh Kiwan, a North Korean refugee (Song Joong-ki) who flees with his mother to China, only to flee again on his own to Brussels where he's got no friends, no family, and very little money (which he loses soon enough). To stay, he's going to have to prove his nationality but how do you do that exactly when your country of origin doesn't share birth records and your first second home has its own bureucractic complications compounded by the fact that you were — by necessity — living a secret life. There's more. You can't get a legal job. You don't know the language so you can't argue on your own behalf. The first non-governmental person you meet who also speaks Korean is a pretty drug addict (Choi Sung-eun) with a criminal history and a massive debt tied to it. Still think you've got it rough, fellow Korean movie fan?

Personally, I've lived in a bare-bones SRO with not much money to my name; I've survived off a diet of hotdogs, cornflakes, and low-cost liquor but I've never been this alone, this dependent on the kindness of strangers, this out of my element. Thankfully, there are some kind strangers out there: a Chinese-Korean meatpacker (Lee Sang-hee) and the father (Jo Han-chul) of the woman who stole his wallet (and his heart)... Sure, they're flawed and make his life worse at times but since there's so much bad in this life, taking the bad with the good isn't so bad when it comes with some good. My Name Is Loh Kiwan made me appreciate my life. It also made me appreciate some people's ability to salvage a stylish wardrobe from the discard bin.