Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy: Never Quit the Game

I've been reading a number of disappointing contemporary novels in which the main character exercises minimal control of their fate so Kim Byung-woo's Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy is a welcome counterbalance. It's leading man Kim Dok-ja (Ahn Hyo-seop) is stuck in a choose-your-own-adventure narrative for which taking drastic action is the only way to survive. You see, he's been propelled into a scenario containing endless parallels to a dissatisfying online novel that he's been reading and recently finished. Now, finally, he has the chance to influence the outcome — as well as who lives and who dies — every time a new crisis arrives. Joining him in his postapocalypic journey are spiderwebby former co-worker Yoo Sang-ah (Chae Soo-bin), insect telepath Lee Gil-yeong (Kwon Eun-sung), muscle buddy Lee Hyeon-seong (Shin Seung-ho), tough girl Jeong Hee-won (Nana a.k.a. Im Jin-ah), loner Lee Ji-hye (Kim Ji-soo) and former fictional hero Yoo Jung-hyuk (Lee Min-ho).

If mentioning the biggest stars at the end seems strange, well, Omniscient Reader is a pretty strange movie. I mean, when's the last time you heard of a scifi pic in which heartless ETs set off a series of disasters on Earth so they could be entertained by human players in a live-streamed reality TV series / videogame? The metaphors aren't hard to decode. Nor is the plot hard to follow despite the reviews I read online. One villain is a politican! Another's a rich guy! Another's a sexually predatory businessman! And then there's quite a variety of lizard-like demons. What's the message? Teamwork and good friends will get you through the worst of times. And let's not forget the small joys that come when little kids mind-control oversized praying mantises.

Confession: Liar, Liar

Confession is a silly movie. Basically a two-hander about a nefarious businessman (Yoo Min-ho) and a woman (Kim Yunjin) who he's trying to get to be his lawyer, Yoon Jong-seok's not-so-thrilling thriller is built around the conceit that she'll only represent him in court if he tells her every dastardly thing he's done leading up to and following the murder. So while he's proclaiming his innocence for killing the woman (Im Jin-ah b.k.a. After School's Nana) with whom he was having an affair, this guy is quite open to admitting bribery, adultery, hit-and-run, insurance malfeasance, cybercrimes, aiding-and-abetting, destroying evidence, and murder... just not of his love interest!

Preposterous? Yes. I'd even go so far as to say Confession is ridiculous! Because eventually, you realize that everything you're watching is potentially a lie. We're not seeing things as they happen but events as they're being told. A character — the accused, the potential attorney — might revise their story five seconds later and then we'll see actions reflecting the new scenario they've concocted. Since neither character is particularly trustworthy, the single way to find out what's real is when other characters enter the picture (the cops, another lawyer, a husband) and we watch in "real time" what reality unfolds. Per usual, reality attempts to satisfy but falls a bit short.

The Swindlers: Worth the Wait

For awhile now, The Swindlers has been appearing whenever I narrow my Korean movie search results on Amazon down to those films rating four stars and up. Because of that, I've tried streaming this 2017 crime pic a few times before. Sadly I've never made it past the first 20 minutes. Every time I'd learn that a Ponzi scheme had left numerous people broke and driven a few to suicide. Then I'd fall asleep. I just couldn't give a hoot. Last night, I decided to stay awake and find out how this thriller could possibly merit 4.6 stars. Would Jang Chang-won's directorial debut improve if I hunkered down and stuck it out?

Yes. It does. The Swindlers improbably evolves from terminally boring to deliciously exciting. A cat and mouse game that keeps changing whose the cat and whose the mouse, the cleverly crafted plot leaves you secondguessing the young mastercrook (Hyun Bin) and the aspirational prosecutor (Yoo Ji-tae) as they keep turning the tables on each other while trying to nab the Grand Poobah of Ponzi. What they lose sight of, however, is the movie's sole con woman played by Nana. She steals the movie despite second billing. Never underestimate an underdog.