The Girl Raised as a Future Daughter-in-Law: Ye Olde Bride

Who's the meanest woman in town? The mother-in-law (Han Eun-jin) in Choi Eun-hie's The Girl Raised as a Future Daughter-in-Law is surely a frontrunner. Category: Shrew. She's what an overly generous contemporary might categorize as a Conservative, an overbearing woman who's constantly complaining, arguing, demanding, and, insisting that her son's bride-to-be (Choi Eun-hie) submit to their future household per tradition. And just how mean is this nasty woman? Well, when the fiancee-in-waiting gets sick, new mom banishes her from home and hearth. Marriage prospects, be damned.

Lucky for our rejected woman, all the townsmen are relatively kind. Did I mention this film is a fantasy? Her working class ex (Park Nou-sik) seeks to buy her out of servitude. The clownish servant (Seo Young-choon) will meow like a cat to give her a helpful distraction. Her goofy father-in-law (Kim Hee-kap) hires a blind fortuneteller to speak on her behalf. And her betrothed (Jang Won-bae), a boy young enough to be her child, eventually defies the mean mother. Will these collective efforts shift dynamics quickly enough? After all, the prospective groom has yet to hit puberty so this arranged marriage may leave him with a new wife (nee former babysitter) about to enter menopause.

As far as age appropriate casting, Choi may have miscast herself in the female lead in her directorial debut. Yet such a decision probably ensured her the necessary financial backing. To her credit, The Girl Raised as a Future Daughter-in-Law abounds with lovely touches. Some are amusing: The young boy can't untie his sash so he pee along the road. Others are sweet: This same kid offers his ailing love a piece of taffy after she's drank some bitter medicine. Delicious!

Salsali, You Didn't Know: 007 for Laughs

Salsali, You Didn't Know is one of those comedies in which life would be so much easier if the on-screen characters simply said what they meant. Instead, when the title character (Seo Young-choon) goes to a duped acupuncturist (Kim Hee-kap) looking for payment re: just-delivered jewelry absconded by a scheming woman (Do Kum-bong), his lack of specifics lands him in a James Bond plot perfectly in line with the 007 paperbacks he's taken to reading avariciously. Suddenly, crime pops up everywhere he turns. The jewel thief is tied to a gang that also runs a disreputable dancehall; the cellar of the hotel is the site of a counterfeit money-laundering scheme; a stolen meal at a Chinese restaurant must be paid for by entering a boxing match.

Our hero may be thin as a rail but he happens to have a mean punch. He also has a thing for the mincing sister of the movie's femme fatale. He also has a thing for crossdressing... although his reasons for doing so stretch the limits of plausability. Well, at least he has a good wardrobe. Most wild of all, he has a strange gift for using mannequins to save the day, whether it's a nude plastic woman in a shower or a conveniently placed artificial arm under a bedsheet. I would never call novelist Ian Fleming a writer of realism but after watching Kim Hwa-rang's crime-caper-comedy, the derring-do of Fleming's British superspy feels nothing short of reasonable.