Idol: Two Dads, Too Many Crimes

Who's the good guy in Idol? Is it the unflappable politician (Han Suk-kyu) who argues against a nuclear power plant despite being the Chair of the Nuclear Power Plant Committee? Or could it be the melancholic single father (Sol Kyung-gu) who masturbates his mentally ill child up through adolescence and beyond if given the chance? It's certainly not the former man's son who's guilty of a hit and run or the latter man's sister who runs a massage parlor staffed by sex workers. Don't rush to a decision too quickly yet either because in classic noir crime fashion, writer-director Lee Su-jin is going to do a bit of a switcheroo midway through the film. I suppose it's to keep our interest. But for me the turnaround left me baffled. Despite running well over two hours, Idol feels like it's missing a few scenes that would justify one guy's fall from grace and another's lift into it.

If you're willing to put up with the big bump in the road, Idol is pretty engaging with a central femme fatale (Chun Woo-hee) who causes destruction everywhere that she goes. She's got a curse on her, a system against her, a sordid history, and an acute sense of smell heightened by an active pregnancy. Her scenes with the politican's ice-cold mother (Kim Seong-nyeo) are especially charged because neither of these two actresses are afraid to chew scenery. They're the true stars of Idol, bad guys and good guys notwithstanding.

Kill Boksoon: Killer Queen

Murder is big business in Byun Sung-hyun's slyly satirical action epic Kill Boksoon. As the killer CEO Cha Min-kyu (Sol Kyung-gu) succinctly explains, the sloppy work and loose morals of amateurs have caused this line of work to be disrespected. So he's taken it upon himself to implement a new set of rules in order to restore some honor to the profession. Herewith...

1. Do not kill minors.
2. Only do jobs assigned by your company.
3. Always accept an assignment.

But the truth is, there were rules in the old days too:

If you send a bloody knife to a rival, you are inviting that person to a duel to the death.

That's right! Assassins have always had a Code of Conduct. But rules change with the times. As do players. A leader in the field currently is Boksoon (Jeon Do-yeon), a top-tier terminator who has worked her way up that deadly corporate ladder, one offing at a time. She's got her idolizers professionally (Koo Kyo-hwan) and in-training (Lee Yeon) — the latter under a company schoolmistress (Esom) who immediately feels like a rival. But as our heroine points out, "Killing people is easy when compared to raising a kid" (Kim Si-ah). Does being a scythe-for-hire inherently make her an unfit mother? To quote another character: "Making good money is the best qualification"... for that. Yet nothing complicates shady business practices than nosy cops. And love. I welcome such complications!

I also want to add that action pics attain a whole other level when you have a top-notch actor in the lead role: Think Gena Rowlands in Gloria and Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once. And Jeon Do-yeon in this movie, too.

Yaksha: Ruthless Operations: The Thing of It

You may not have heard of the Chinese city of Shenyang but it's bigger than Hong Kong, Rio, or L.A.. and home to one of the largest Koreatowns in the world. It's also the setting of the spy flick Yaksha: Ruthless Operations in which the reinstatement of self-righteous Prosecutor Han (Park Hae-soo) depends on surviving gunfights and fistfights among South Koreans, North Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and Russians what want "that thing you were going to give me" — as top black ops guy Ji Kang-in (Sol Kyung-gu) puts it. (That "thing" probably has to do with reunification!)

So can a small crew completely dressed in black take on every other nation's secret service in order to save an imperiled, orphaned daughter who likely has whatever it is they need? Writer-director Na Hyeon's crime pic has tension aplenty but no true suspense. No sane moviegoer doubts whether the good guys will prevail. This is vigilante justice, which tends to be infallible on screen. "If we were work by the law then we can't accomplish anything." And based on how the American Supreme Court is swinging, you'll likely fantasize about the three musketeers instead. (Enter Lee El, Park Jin-young, Song Jae-rim with guns cocked.)

A Brand New Life: Who's Your Daddy

I, for one, felt uncomfortable watching Ounie Lecomte's semi-autobiographical A Brand New Life because far from feeling sympathetic for Jin-hee, the young orphan girl (Kim Sae-ron) who's been abandoned by her father (Sol Kyung-gu), I felt sorry for the parents that would eventually adopt her. I got that this kid is depressed because she's been ditched and that she's acting out when she throws her food on the floor or rips apart another girl's doll but since she a bit off-kilter even before daddy dumps her at the church-run "child placement agency," I couldn't help but think she was in need of intensive therapy more than a new family.

Why doesn't the doctor (Mun Seong-kun) at the institution do more one-on-one sessions with Jin-hee before he puts her on a plane to Paris? And why wouldn't he give a ticket abroad to one of Jin-hee's infinitely less morose playmates when an opening for adoption came up? Is Lecomte exposing the export of damaged Korean children abroad? Or is she of the camp that believes that Korean orphanages have become baby catalogues for Westerners? Is the zany, Anglo puppeteer who performs half in drag part of an insidious plot to convince young Korean children that white folk are the funniest people around?

I'm guessing Lecomte sees her protagonist'a fate as Tragic with a capital "T." Disagreeing with her feels mean-spirited and uncharitable. But it's also hard to rally around a self-pity party, even if the writer-director's complaints are valid. And maybe my heart would've gone out to Jin-hee had a different young actress been cast in the role. Kim feels incredibly self-conscious and affected. Her fish-eyed stares feel false and the final freeze frame, a cheap reference to The 400 Blows, lands with a thud. I'm not writing off Kim, mind you. Her subsequent film The Man From Nowhere was marvelous. Better luck next time as they say.

The Tower: The Architecture of Laughter and Disaster

In reality, The Tower isn't about a single skyscraper going up in flames. It's about two skyscapers: one damaged when a too-close helicopter -- crassly sprinkling artificial snow -- collides into it; the other threatened by the domino effect should the first towering inferno fall. For obvious reasons, the title can't play up the conflagration of two twin towers. Not on this side of the Pacific anyway, where the World Trade Center attack of 2001 remains a national tragedy. Plus, the parallels are pretty problematic when you consider how hilarious The Tower often is. Sometimes the humor is intentional: two lovebirds spitting out fire extinguisher foam, a lowly maid complaining of a rich lady's dog poop. Most times, the jokes are unintentional: the pregnant lady (Min Jeong) prying open an elevator; a self-centered hotel exec spiraling down to his death. Those last two items might not sound funny but when you see them, believe me, you'll realize they are.

And what else is there to do but laugh at the collective struggle in writer-director Kim Ji-hoon's deliriously nutty disaster pic? You know from the beginning that the Head of Facilities (Kim Sang-kyung), his waterworks-of-tears daughter (Jo Min-ah), and the lady in the white pantsuit (Son Ye-jin) are going to end up a happy family at the end. You also know that the martyr of a squad captain (Sol Kyung-gu) is going to sacrifice his life to save others, although when and how that happens is constantly delayed. Maybe you're not sure whether the lowly maid and her college-going son will be reunited. All said, tension is not The Tower's strong point. What the movie has in its favor is some beautiful cinematography of computer generated flames, explosions, smoke clouds, and even the towers themselves which sparkle like giant pieces of jewelry. I also would like to say I got a kick out of Kim In-kwon who plays the cocky little firefighter who I personally hope gets promoted and forces his compatriots to get matching mohawks once the self-sacrificing captain bites the CGI dust.

Peppermint Candy: Off to a Sweet Start

There are certain works of art -- Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop; Thornton Wilder's Our Town; much of Shakespeare -- that somehow capture the totality of life so completely that they feel practically omniscient. Art-house darling (and mine too) Lee Chang-dong's Peppermint Candy is one such work. Told in reverse chronology with unerring compassion and merciless honesty, this brilliantly searing movie surveys the life of Yang-ho (Sol Kyung-gu) -- a suicidal businessman who initially comes across as the universe's whipping boy -- with a scientist's methodicalness. But as Lee peels back all the layers of corruption and cynicism, self-loathing and loss that have accumulated for Yang-ho, you end up simultaneously confronted by the man's complicity and his misfortune. A person can make grave mistakes and still be worthy of our sympathy. Isn't there an unsure, hopeful, longing being existing in each and every one of us? Isn't the loss of innocence the most universal tale?

If that sounds like sentimental hogwash, take note: Lee's film is a rattling scream of anguish. I didn't cry once although I was pretty upset for most of it. Unrelenting in its intensity, Peppermint Candy keeps throwing cold water in your face the moment you start to get the warm fuzzies. Check out the seriocomic scene in the car where Yang-ho is literally performing on his cell phone for each caller or the surreally discordant marital scene that features his nude wife Hongja (Kim Yeo-jin) running around on all fours like a golem or the seemingly straightforward hospital scene in which he sweet talks his first love (Moon So-ri) while her husband stands in the background. Every time you think you've figured out what's going on, Lee gives a wrenching twist to the action that reminds you that you can NEVER really know what's going on in anyone's life, head, heart, or world.

Peppermint Candy is Lee's sophomore effort as a writer-director and like Oasis, the heartbreaking film which followed it, this movie has a magical quality that's hard to explain. Between each sequence, for instance, dreamlike footage reveals a train's journey but backwards: Nearby cars drive in reverse, people retrace their steps, a dog seems to dance to on unheard command. It's nothing you haven't seen before and yet it feels as though it is. The ability to make the familiar new may be what makes a piece of art, art anyway. Don't you think?

Another Public Enemy: Revenge of the Nerds Who Work for the Law

Justice prevails! What a square sentiment. And what a satisfying one to see played out in a cops-and-robbers movie. In Kang Woo-suk's Another Public Enemy, you're never quite sure if that's going to happen though, whether Public Prosecutor Kang (Sol Kyung-gu) is going to nail his childhood nemesis Han Sang-woo (Jeong Jun-ho) or whether that sneering sociopath is going to abscond with millions after killing his brother and father then dissolving the family estate. What you do know is that the poor-boy-made-good versus rich-boy-so-bad scenario is hard-to-resist if you secretly suspect all wealthy people -- and especially their children with entitlement issues -- are inherently evil. With two killer gang fights within the first half hour, you might expect this action pic to have more physical conflict than it does but Another Public Enemy is really an homage to its hero -- an upstanding, rule-breaking guy who'll go to any length to catch the criminal. He's got no wife; he's got no life. But what he does have is moral integrity and a support team that will put their lives and reputations on the line for him. It's all work and no play but the cause of justice is not such a bad raison d'etre.

Tidal Wave: Cheap Laughs Then a Bucket of Cold Water

For much of writer-director-but-hardly-auteur Yun Je-gyun's Tidal Wave, I wondered... Have I been misinformed? Is this a disaster pic or a spoof? It certainly feels like a spoof. No complaints for my part. To the contrary, I'll gladly laugh and snort in derision on cue. The comic antics of the losers who live, love, and loaf at the beach resort of Haeundae serve two purposes too. 1. They make you chuckle. 2. They make you oh-so-eager for that big wave that's going to wipe all that goofy ineptitude away. And yet when the tsunami strikes -- albeit a little late in the game for my taste -- I inexplicably found myself swept up in the various survivor stories. How the hell did that happen? Maybe, just maybe, that guilt-ridden drunk Man-sik (Sol Kyung-gu), that shrewish bitch Yu-jin (Eom Jeong-hwa), and even that psychotic girlfriend Yeon-heui (Ha Ji-won) deserve to live. Oh, hell no. I take that back. Rise, ocean, rise! Non sequitir: I don't usually watch the DVD extras but this time, I decided to check out the gag reel and boy was it NOT funny. There are a few very disturbing excerpts of a child actor getting smacked and later, that same kid not wanting to simulate drowning no matter what his pay scale. Easily the scariest part of the movie.

Jail Breakers: Lame Prisoners on the Lam

There are bad comedies. And then there are god-awful ones. Kim Sang-jin's Jail Breakers falls squarely in the latter category. (This from the same director who brought us the delightful Attack the Gas Station!) A plodding chase movie in which two escaped convicts must find their way back into prison in order to get released properly for Amnesty Day, Jail Breakers is about as funny as solitary confinement. Part of the problem here is it's never clear why Convict 1 (matinee idol Cha Seung-won) wants to escape and whether Convict 2 (a braying Sol Kyung-gu) truly wants to return behind bars. Since the two actors don't exhibit any chemistry either, you're not only wondering why they're doing what they're doing but also why they're doing it with each other. Infinitely funnier (and more focused) is Convict 3 (Kang Seong-jin) who leads the insurrection back at the prison itself. Kang's performance is based on a theory of acting that advocates making a choice and sticking with it. Kang doesn't worry about dimensions, motivations or variation. He just bugs out his eyes and gets angry...over and over again. He can't quite stifle all the yawns but he at least keeps the movie from being a criminal waste of time.

Oasis: When Inside the Heart Is Outside the Box

Before he was a filmmaker, Lee Chang-dong was a novelist. It shows. He's a master storyteller unafraid of the implausible or the extreme. Oasis, his third film as writer-director, starts off like some bit of French New-Wave-meets-Cassavettes filmmaking. It's got the shaky handheld cinematography, the oddball camera angles, and the screwball antihero (Sol Kyung-gu) who you can't help but like. You might call what follows a quirky romance but to classify Oasis as a love story would be to pigeonhole a movie that's really oustide the norm. Does the protagonist fall in love with the severely handicapped girl (a fearless Moon So-ri) who he's befriended out of guilt for past crimes? Yes and no. He certainly doesn't say so. And since he can't think straight and she can't speak clearly, you're in danger of assigning meaning where there's really just a mystery. Except for a few daydreamed sequences, these two characters rarely mirror the classic mating dance because they always read as two separate beings even when he's got her on his back. In fact, Oasis is more than anything a reminder to us of how outsider status is embedded in our deepest relationships even if we're not handicapped physically or mentally in an easily diagnosable way. We're always individuals. We're always struggling to make ourselves heard. And at our best, we're always listening.

Public Enemy: Why Cops Are Tops in Korea

Public Enemy epitomizes the best of Korean film. A certifiable noir masterpiece, Kang Woo-suk's adrenaline-pumping, fast-paced thriller is a cat-and-mouse game minus the cheese. Standing in for the mouse is sympathetic, slovenly Sol Kyung-gu as the dishonest cop about to rediscover his moral code. In the cat corner, we've got perverse pretty boy Lee Sung-jae as a soulless sociopath cut from the same cloth as American Psycho. But even before these two engage in their battle of wits and fists, the first few minutes before the title pack in more suspense and humor (favoring the former) than most crime movies do in two hours. I actually saw the sequel to this movie (Another Public Enemy) a number of years ago and remember liking it quite a bit. But the original's better: The dialogue crackles. The soundtrack rocks. And the chemistry between the performers suggest backstories you never really need to learn. While the jokes can get scatalogical (a man actually slips in his own shit), Public Enemy knows when to take matters seriously and when to turn the tension into titters. Supposedly, another Public Enemy is slated for 2008. Bring it on.