No Other Choice: The Cruelty of Capitalism

The Americans make a brief appearance at the start of auteur Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice. They're a group of cold-hearted businessmen who have come to South Korea to dramatically downsize the devoted staff of a paper company, loyalty be damned. It's clear that Park finds the heartless "money first, people second" ethos as reprehensible. His anti-hero Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), however, doesn't necessarily agree. Or if he does, he certainly gets over it quick enough as he strategizes how he might get back into a high-paying job in his industry, in light of such ruthlessness. His plan: Kill, kill, kill.

Since this is a Park film, Man-su's deadly serious determination becomes horrifically literal as he systematically identifies who the competition before murdering them one by one. Changing professions is not an option. Selling the family home is not an option either. Competing as an equal has not worked in his favor so far. For him, offing his rivals is the best bet. As the title states, he has "no other choice." [His loyal wife Miri (an excellent Son Ye-jin) is more flexible as well as more adaptable but she's not driving the plot.] Once Man-su's masterplan kicks into action, the killings are quirky more than grisly: a shoe salesman gets twisted into a ball as if he were a bonsai tree; another rival (Park Hee-soon) is buried up to his neck after a night of excessive drinking; a third (Lee Sung-min) is fatally shot by his own wife (Yeom Hye-ran), a histrionic actress who's in the midst of a shallow love affair. Park's film may not have the constant cliffhangers of his earlier works like Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, but No Other Choice is nevertheless a powerful indictment of unchecked capitalism gone mad, both here and abroad.

Be With You: Stormy Weather for the Win

The romance Be With You isn't labeled as scif but it could be. It's a time traveling tearjerker in which an amnesiac mother (Son Ye-jin) comes back from the dead, only to fall back in love with her husband (So Ji-seob) and child (Kim Ji-hwan) again. The rebirth of affection for the kid is easy to understand: He's quick, conscientious, loving, and adorable. The return of warm feelings for the dad is tougher to fathom. He seems to be cursed with bad luck, made worse by an inability to act responsibly despite being the sole caregiver for their orphaned child. Upon returning to earth, she might've been better off being smitten with her husband's best friend, a baker (Ko Chang-seok) with a better job and a sweet willingness to take on parenting duties, no questions asked.

Well, there's no explaining love. And to his credit, Be With You's father is handsome, earnest, and hasn't lost his swimmer's build despite dropping out of competition years ago. (Is it all the bike-riding?) He's also devoted if a bit dimwitted. Some people prefer a partner not as smart as them, I guess. I only wish he wasn't telling all those little fibs all the time. Honesty is such an important part of a relationship — especially if it's only going to last the rainy season, no matter how often the cars get washed and how many four-leaf clovers you paste to your window.

The Last Princess: Elevating Royalty

There's a pretty powerful disclaimer at the start of The Last Princess: "Incidents and persons portrayed do not reflect historical facts." So then what are we to believe about Yi Deokhye, the subject of this biopic? Was she a royal rebel who bravely snubbed the Japanese emperor's dress code and rallied fingerless Korean workers to rise up against their Japanese oppressors? Did she try to escape her gilded cage and get back to Korea as an act of solidarity with her countrymen? Was she the first to discover the assassination of her father, the king? In truth, much of Hur Jin-ho's costume dram is conjectural; it's a pro-dynastic movie posing as a anticolonial diatribe. Considering the history we do know regarding Japan's occupation, I'm okay with that.

And Son Ye-jin makes a convincing princess, struggling to balance her patriotism with her desire to survive. She's got a few people in her corner: an adoring servant (Ra Mi-ran), a couple of ineffectual brothers, and a soldier-spy (Park Hae-il) who doubles as her devoted, sexless romantic interest. Unfortunately, she's also got an evil Korean Benedict Arnold (Yun Je-mun) whose sole mission in life is to be her foil, derailing every attempt she makes to escape, to evade, to exalt. As fantasies go, if The Last Princess has any faults, it's that this heinous henchman never gets his just desserts. Director Hur may see this dark detail as a bitter dose of reality. Since so much is already made up, I'm not gonna quibble here. Finally, if Hollywood were more open to performances in foreign tongues, Son's lead turn would definitely have qualified as Oscar-bait — as she ages from 20s to 70s while screaming, crying, looking fashionable, looking nervous, and ultimately going insane. I was crazy about her in the best way possible.

The Truth Beneath: Institutionalized Violence

Now that police brutality has become ubiquitous in your social media stream as sadistic cops in Minneapolis, Buffalo, Louisville, Austin, NYC, LA, and "name that city" are seen engaging in all sorts of unprovoked violence at the anti-racist protests that have literally swept the world, Lee Kyoung-mi's political thriller The Truth Beneath feels almost quaint with its corrupt political campaign of murder, kidnapping, deception, and power-grabbing. (You mean only a handful of people do the devil's work?) Yet the film's protagonist — a distraught mother (Son Ye-jin) who realizes she didn't really know her only child (Shin Ji-hoon) despite their chummy rapport — isn't on a journey confronting the evils of patriarchal, white-supremacist capitalism. She's more like Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole into the world of weirdness.

So... Newsflash! Her daughter's in a quirky girl band, fraternizes with peers with matching haircuts, has her room bugged by her dad's primary political rival, and stars in a few arty videos shot by her adoring schoolmates. Mom herself too has her stranger side which includes self-mutilation to get what she wants and mutilating an art installation with a pink acoustic guitar when she doesn't. Whether the husband/father (Kim Ju-hyuk) will end up an elected official is weirdly not central to the story despite the race being referenced regularly. When everyone's engaged in despicable behavior, who gives a hoot who wins? Politicians will fail us once again.

Split: Bowling for Debtors

Everyone owes something — usually lots and lots of money — in Choi Kook-hee's diverting bowling dramedy Split. The one-time Wednesday Nights league champeen (Yoo Ji-tae) is constantly racking up debts with his competitively disastrous gutter balls. The alley inheritress a.k.a. Split's spitfire love interest (Son Ye-jin) is saddled with extortion-level interest payments caused by her regretful use of the family business as collateral. Even the movie's quirky, somewhere-on-the-spectrum, potentially future lord-of-the-lanes (an excellent Lee Da-Wit) eventually owes his manipulative patron-funders around $20 for a birthday bus trip to visit the current home of his estranged mother and the mausoleum housing his deceased grandmother (who was quite a bowler herself in the city back in the day).

But by the end, Split also owes us, the audience, a few things, too, like that big important game that could go either way and is finally tipped towards victory thanks to the the young bowler's prowess and unusual methods; a romance-solidifying kiss — doesn't have to be post-coital — between the leading man and his pimping promoter; a scene in which the managress sees how bad life would be working as a hostess at the local coffee bar; a pile of Christmas presents that allow one neglected adult to heal his wounds with some help from Santa; and a drunk scene in which the same young man engages in forbidden behavior. The omission of all these scenes is perplexing because the movie actually feels like its building towards them at different times. Which isn't to say this movie is striking out. More that, it's leaves behind too many lone pins that are the marks of a less-than-perfect score.

Blood and Ties: Daddy's Expiration Date

As a gauge to measure the depth of my love for someone, I used to ask myself: Would I harbor this person if they came to me on the run? What if they had blood or their hands? What if they'd actually committed a murder? The answer to these questions clued me in to how I really felt about a person, family members included...at least when I was bored in the middle of the night with nothing better to do. After all, isn't the midnight hour the time when they'd be most likely to come seeking my help? Writer-director Kuk Dong-suk is posing a similar question in Blood and Dies, which finds its central character (Son Ye-jin) struggling with the possibility that her martyr of a father (Kim Kap-su) may have kidnapped and murdered a child years ago (and involved her in the crime). Should she turn him in? Protect him? Serve him up to her boyfriend (Lee Kyu-han), an aspiring police officer, as a way to finagle a marriage proposal? While she's at it, should she write a story about her dastardly daddy and thereby land a job at the local paper? (Apparently, the job market is brutal for bright students from working class backgrounds.)

As she struggles to answer these and many other questions, time is ticking loudly because the statue of limitations is about to expire for this heinous crime, and at least one detective (Kim Kwang-gyu) is breathing down her neck. The process is further slowed down by this young woman's brain, which appears to be working at a less-than-average speed from the get-go. You know this is a woman who earned her top grades through diligence, not innate intelligence. I, for one, became less concerned with who was guilty and who was not, and more curious about whether the Yogi Berra catchphrase "It's ain't over til it's over" was going to be fulfilled in some weirdly creepy way. Alas, it was not. When Blood and Ties ends, despite the carnage and loose ends, it pretty much just feels "over." Too bad, Kuk didn't get all meta during the credits and circled back to the film within the film, a documentary — heard but never seen — exploring the very case which Blood and Ties is about. That would've been a deft touch.

Pirates: High Seas Hilarity

Some movies are elaborate meals, some movies are pure puke, and some are complete confections. Squarely in the candy category is director Lee Seok-hoon's deliciously silly Pirates, a salt water taffy of a movie if there ever was one. To extend this sugary metaphor, Lee's tasty adventure pic manages to be chewy and colorful as it stretches plausibility beyond belief. The individual ingredients may be neither good for you nor even particularly good but the sweetness here is undeniable. And yes, you will want more. Okay, enough toothsome metaphorical talk. On to the motion picture.

Though there's a lady swashbuckler (Son Ye-jin) front and center, Pirates doesn't break new ground in comedy or gender-blind casting. To the contrary, it serves up stereotypes and cliches unapologetically. There's an evil, petty guy (Kim Tae-woo) with the requisite eyepatch, a despotic, vengeful patriarchal figure (Lee Kyeong-yeong) who drowns only to reappear having not drowned after all, a king who must learn life lessons from his patriotic servants, and a pair of mismatched lovers (Son and Kim Nam-gil) who find out they were meant for each other. Which isn't to say the film has no novelties. It abounds with them! A momma whale who bonds with a young girl? A tethered shark that can turn a sailboat into a motorboat? A drunken bandit-monk (Park Cheol-min) who drinks gasoline without consequence? Pirates is nothing if not full of quirks.

Quirks and gags, that is. A running joke about peeing in the ocean while standing next to your beloved gets increasing laughs as does a bumbling thief (a marvelous Yoo Hae-jin) whose promotions and demotions occur with every changing tide. The utter, unending preposterous is Pirates greatest asset. As stupid comedies go, this one does dumb jokes smartly. Something Lee did before with the high school comedy See You After School and the equally corny, campy Dancing Queen. But if See You After School and Dancing Queen are good examples of ridiculousness, Pirates is ridiculousness at its best. Practice makes perfekt.

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.

Lovers' Concerto: This Love Triangle Works Every Angle

Before it spins off into a cuckoo weepie of the three hanky variety, Lee Han's Lovers' Concerto is actually a damned good romance, and I'm speaking as one who isn't a fan of that particular genre. But this periodically sweet, youthfully true, emotionally complex love story about three directionless friends just out of high school -- one boy named Ji-hwan (Cha Tae-hyu) and two girls, Su-in (Son Ye-jin) and Kyeong-hee (Lee Eun-ju) -- conveys a certain freshness (in both senses of the word) by constantly shifting who is pining after whom, even as they're all constantly falling in love with each other all over again. So while Ji-hwan claims love at first sight for Su-in, you can immediately see that Kyeong-hee is just as quickly smitten with him. Soon thereafter, Su-in warms up to Ji-hwan even as Ji-hwan is fast realizing that Kyeong-hee has her unique charms. Even Su-in and Kyeong-hee have special feelings for each other. In a way, you kind of wish they'd all have an orgy sanctified by the state. Without question, Lovers' Concerto has an overabundance of passion that reminds you what it was like to give of yourself without getting too caught up in the caution that comes after your first real breakup, your first real betrayal and your first disillusionment. Each characters in Lovers' Concerto is untried when it comes to amor so while they may be nervous about taking a leap, they're not bitter. That two of them are suffering from unnamed but fatal diseases is just tragic icing on the cake.

Did the cake need the icing though? I'm not so sure. I saw a few possible endings that weren't so treacly but Lee is clearly committed into making the audience feel a varieties of bittersweet pain, and since he pulls off most of them, I, for one, will forgive him the film's minor failures. A secondary plot involving Ji-hwan's younger sister (Moon Geun-young) and her crush -- the handsome guy (Kim Nam-jin) who works at the bookstore -- somehow feels organic to the whole. It's nice to have some moments to breathe between all that heaving by the exquisitely fraught threesome that is Lovers' Concerto.

Into the White Night: Fashioning an Imperfect Murder

I don't know what to say about this one so how about director Park Shin-woo's mystery is filled with symbols galore: a police detective (Han Suk-kyu) who's slowly going blind, a killer (Go Soo) who wields scissors for art and murder, and a rape victim (Son Ye-jin) who desires nothing more than to launch a line of ugly clothing for men. Fighting interpretation, each lexicon of Into the White Night's cinematic semiotics loses significance as quickly as it gains meaning. The more you study it, the less the movie reveals. So put aside that imagery! You're better off sticking with who kills whom how, when and why as the action rewinds and fast forwards with all the stylishness of a ten-year-old operating a VCR. That same clunkiness trips up most of the characters who feel only half-developed. One of the more complex roles -- a tough private eye (Lee Min-jung) with a good sense of intuition -- gets knocked off too soon; a largely forgettable police chief (Jeong Jin) gets reincorporated too late. Stick around long enough and you'll witness a perverse scene in which the rape victim psychologically victimizes the sexually assaulted daughter of her husband-to-be but I'd rather spoil that plot twist for you here and save you the trouble.