Tag: 2020s

Ghost Cat Anzu (化け猫あんずちゃん, Yoko Kuno & Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2024)

Posted on by

It can be comforting, in a way, to think that this world is deeper than we often think it is and that we live surrounded by ancient spirits who touch our lives in ways we never suspect. All of this is, however, a little more palpable in Iketeru, the town of eternal summer, where the heroine of Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s animation Ghost Cat Anzu (化け猫あんずちゃん, Bakemono Anzu-chan) is unceremoniously dumped by her feckless father as he attempts to sort out some persistent trouble with loan sharks. 

Of course, to a girl from Tokyo who hoped to spend the summer break with her cram school crush, being sent to a temple to stay with an estranged grandfather it’s not even clear she has ever met before is not a whole lot of fun. But then as Karin (Noa Goto) says, she’s used to being alone, which might be why she takes against the giant ghost cat, Anzu (Mirai Moriyama), who lives like a human but obviously isn’t one. The funny thing about Iketeru is that no one finds Anzu’s existence odd, if at times troublesome. He’s even patiently arrested by a pair of policemen for not having a proper license for his moped which he didn’t think he needed because, after all, he’s a ghost and also a cat. A pair of little boys who’ve formed their own gang called “The Contrarians” to “defy society” call him “aniki” like some kind of yakuza boss and try to recruit him though being in a gang seems like too much bother for Anzu, which is something he has in common in Karin. 

But the funny thing is, Anzu isn’t really so different from her father in that he too can be somewhat irresponsible. Though he knows he shouldn’t, he spends the money he was keeping for her on pachinko hoping to win big but predictably loses it all. He gets over excited about jobs that pay 3000 yen (£15) a day and overcooks food he’s dropped on the floor because it’ll burn off all the dirt. But like Karin, Anzu can be a little standoffish and it isn’t even until her arrival that he starts to interact with some of the other supernatural creatures in the area who appear to have already set up some kind of club. Having invited them over, Anzu complains they didn’t pay him enough attention and he won’t invite them again while Karin asserts that they seemed “nice”. Though Anzu himself has not yet quite taken to her, the yokai are touched by her tragic circumstances and feelings of abandonment so decide to do what they can to help her. 

Part of Karin’s problem is that she’s still struggling to come to terms with her mother’s death three years previously. Iketeiru calls itself the town of eternal summer, but the summer in Japan is synonymous with the Bon festival during which this world and the other are at their closest and the spirits of the departed may temporarily return. Thus the town itself is a liminal space caught between the living and the dead which the mortal and supernatural co-exist in a very tangible way even if Karin’s eventual descent into hell involves jumping into a broken toilet in a Tokyo columbarium. Even so, she eventually finds herself squaring off against the King of Hell himself in the middle of the Bon festival while straddling the worlds of the living and dead and discovering the will to go on living which is perhaps what the town’s name may actually mean. 

In that sense, it’s a place Karin discovers as much as it’s home to cure her sense of rootless abandonment. The rotoscoped animation and live-recorded dialogue lend a sense of uncanniness to the beautifully animated backgrounds which effortlessly evoke a sense of serenity in the timelessness of a summer in small-town Japan. The juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern, Jizo playing Nintendo Switch, yokai working at the golf course which is perhaps a manifestation of the disruption wrought on the natural world by human endeavour, echo a kind of cosmic irony but also an odd kind of warmth in the strangeness of the world around us with its immortal cat spirits and friendly supernatural creatures that seems a far cry from the sterility of the city with its violent loan sharks and indifferent friends. 

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Gesuidouz (ザ・ゲスイドウズ, Kenichi Ugana, 2024)

Posted on by

According to Hanako, vocalist of the band The Gesuidouz (ザ・ゲスイドウズ), punk is “like this miso soup”. She later describes the soup as soothing, made by her bandmate Santaro who turns out to be an unexpectedly dab hand in the kitchen, though in many ways the band’s selling point is that they aren’t very good at anything, least of all music. Even so, and quite crucially, they have one devoted, though otherwise anonymous fan who comes to all their gigs and dances wildly which just goes to prove that the old lady who becomes a kind of muse to them was right when she said there was probably someone out there to whom their music meant more than anything. 

But Hanako is writing under the shadow of death because she’s just turned 26 and is convinced she’s going to join the 27 club which means she has a very limited window to achieve her musical destiny. Perhaps in a way it’s a kind of quarter life crisis, or the sense of desperation that can be felt while young that time is already running out and you still haven’t made anything of your life. You still don’t know who you are or what you want to be and in Hanako’s case, no one has much faith her except her bandmates who stoically excuse their lack of audience under the rationale that everyone’s very busy these days and they should make sure to consult the calendar when they’re booking gigs. 

In fact, her manager’s the least supportive of all. He calls the band “rubbish” though casually admitting the may have forgotten to even release their album though it’s true that no one’s buying it. He’s the one that talks them into taking part in a government-backed scheme to encourage young people to move to the country in exchange for a stipend and place to live. But the weird thing is, unlike the indifference they felt in the city, the local community embrace their eccentricity and support their music even if they find it difficult to see what’s good about it. Despite describing the place where she lives as a “shithole”, the old lady listens patiently to Hanako’s tall tales about headlining Glastonbury while arranging gigs for them to play for such esteemed audiences as the local cows while bemused elderly resents look on stony faced but ultimately supportive. After all, as the old lady says, it’s a rare gift to create something so amazing that other people don’t understand it.

Though obsessed with horror films, darkness, and death, Hanako is strangely touched by country warmth and almost seems to tear up on the simple gift of a bunch of leeks after working in the fields. In a funny way, this village is actually quite like Glastonbury, a small rural settlement with a down-to-earth new age sensibility that suddenly erupts with music even if in this case on a much smaller scale. The old lady who becomes in a way a future echo of Hanako might be the most punk of all, joyfully living her little life in the shithole she’s never been outside of but welcoming these weird youngsters with patience, warmth, and acceptance which eventually allows Hanako to find a way back to herself and to art leading to a kind of rebirth in contrast to the death she was convinced was waiting for her. 

Of course, that all comes from a talking dog giving life advice through he medium of pithy quotes and song lyrics divined through automatic writing while practicing calligraphy. With frequent references to classic horror films, the film is an ode to the strangeness of country life but also its borderless horizons and sense of community solidarity alien to Hanako’s lonely life in Tokyo. But tellingly this is a paradise destined to be lost as the band finds success separating them from the environment that made them successful, fostering their art but also their souls with its gentle sense of acceptance. Often hilarious in its matter of factness, Kenichi Ugana’s anarchic dramedy has true punk spirit which is to say there’s nothing more punk rock than a good bowl of miso soup crafted with wholesome practicality and an altruistic desire for mutual happiness.

The Gesuidouz screens 30th November as part of this year’s London International Fantastic Film Festival (LIFFF)

Original trailer (English subtitles)

THE KILLER GOLDFISH (Yukihiko Tsutsumi, 2024)

Posted on by

“Did the goldfish have a grudge against your husband?” It is a very strange question, but the policeman admits he has to ask it because he knows his contact at Public Security’s Extraordinary Unit will ask him if he asked. Goldfish aren’t something you’d ordinarily think of as dangerous, but perhaps they’re sick of being cooped up in tiny bowls, denied the whole ocean, so they’ve decided to fight back against humanity? Either that or, as Public Security agent Erika (Eriko Oka) suspects, someone is using them to exact a very particular kind of revenge.

Helmed by one of the premier directors of mainstream contemporary Japanese film, Yukihiko Tsutusmi’s The Killer Goldfish is not the schlockfest its name may suggest but a hark back to the anarchic conspiracy thrillers of the 90s. In fact, it’s produced by a director collective, Super Sapienss, of which Tsutsumi is a member alongside Katsuyuki Motohiro, best known for the Bayside Shakedown series, and Yuichi Sato (Kisaragi) which aims to shake off the inertia of the contemporary Japanese film industry by taking charge of the entire process so they can make the kind of films they want. 

You have to admit, it might be difficult to get a production committee to sign off on a such an outlandish series of events that only begins with murderous goldfish and eventually spins off into a far reaching conspiracy involving superhumans, psychic powers, neanderthal migration, missing high school students, a young woman who is somehow connected psychically with goldfishkind, and long-haired jizo that can stir up human appetites to the point of mass destruction. Erika has a feeling all of this is connected, but she doesn’t quite yet know how save that this world is apparently full of strange crimes to the extent that the powers that be are well aware of them but they prefer to keep quiet and let the Extraordinary Unit handle them.

In any case, the action proceeds X-Files style as Erika teams up with sceptical cop Yukine to try to solve the mystery and avoid any more fishy crimes in the future. This conspiracy is it seems located at the nexus of the primaeval and sophisticated, neanderthal rage delivered into the contemporary society in the opening scenes via our ubiquitous technology with a secret symbol broadcasting into the minds of those born to receive it. A professor digs up evidence that suggests early man arrived in Japan earlier than previously thought and is invited on a daytime talk show only to cause consternation with the obscene quality of his find, while further clues are bizarrely delivered through a love island-style reality dating show and its caddish heartthrob contestant. Making contact with the suspect eventually entails solving a riddle, messaging them on social media, and then completing an online questionnaire.

Nevertheless, these superhumans are apparently so because of their primaeval genetic makeup that places them outside of contemporary notions of civility. Their atavistic qualities render them, like the goldfish, constrained by the limitations of contemporary society from which they long to break free. Even so, their sensibilities seem to align with a problematic seem of historical nationalism that lends them an edge of danger aside from their potential connection to the unexplained goldfish murders which in themselves may indicate a rebellion against entrenched patriarchy given that they seem to target only middle-aged men. 

These ideas may be fleshed out more fully in the accompanying manga, also produced by Super Sapienss, or explained in the Chapter Two alluded to in the title card following the post-credit sequence but otherwise have an unconstrained, freewheeling quality rocketing between the primaeval past and the ultra modernity of reality television and social media conspiracy. The film makes frequent use of animation to express transformation or transportation between these worlds along with another that may exist in a less visible dimension, and has an unexpected freshness that belies Tsutsumi’s long career in the industry. The script by Hoarder on the Border director Takayuki Kayano similarly has an anarchic sensibility which is both retro and ultra-contemporary blending buddy cop procedural with zany horror comedy and an unfolding sense of unease in modern society. It’s fair to say that with The Killer Goldfish Super Sapienss has made good on its mission statement to disrupt the status quo of mainstream Japanese cinema with hopefully more to come in Chapter 2.

THE KILLER GOLDFISH screens 26th November as part of this year’s London International Fantastic Film Festival (LIFFF)

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Love After Love (第一炉香, Ann Hui, 2020)

Posted on by

A naive young woman’s path from besotted teen to tortured yet masterful courtesan amid the colonial realities of pre-war Hong Kong is elegantly charted in Ann Hui’s stately adaptation of the novel by Eileen Chang, Love After Love (第一炉香, Dì yī lú xiāng). A slow-burn romantic tragedy, Hui’s floating drama at once reflects a sense of hopeless rootlessness and the ruinous intensity of a one-sided love but also the transgressive possibilities for freedom and independence in the rejection of traditional patriarchal social codes. 

Displaced from her native Shanghai by ongoing political tension, Weilong (Ma Sichun), the daughter of a once noble house, finds herself impoverished and left with the choice either of accompanying her family in returning to the Mainland where she will be set back a year in completing her studies or remaining behind alone in Hong Kong to graduate high school. Unable to support herself, she decides to turn to an estranged aunt she barely knows, throwing herself on her mercy and asking to be taken in even while knowing of the animosity which exists between her father and his sister. That would be because her aunt, Madame Liang (Faye Yu), turned down all the suitors her family found for her and chose instead to become the mistress of a wealthy man. He now having died, Madame Liang has inherited a sizeable fortune including a European-style mansion where she hosts society parties and enjoys a hedonistic lifestyle which has earned her a reputation as a seducer of young men. 

On her introduction to this world, one of the maids uncharitably describes Weilong’s entrance as like that of a new girl in a brothel and there is indeed something of that in her new role in the household, dangled like a bauble in front of Madame Liang’s collection of wealthy male associates, though Madame Liang apparently intends her only as decoration rather than gift. Tensions come to the fore as Weilong develops a fondness for a dashing young man, George (Edward Peng Yu-Yan), the mixed ethnicity son of coterie member Sir Cheng (Paul Chun), previously eyed by Madame Liang who understands much better than her naive niece that men like George are dangerous in their destabilising faithlessness. For Madame Liang, so perfectly in control, George may be manageable but as she later tells Weilong, unwisely goading her that her life of comfort is a failure because she will never find love, the only danger that exists to her is in unequal affection a prophecy that will in a sense come to pass in Weilong’s single-minded obsession to possess the heart of George. 

Weilong may describe Madame Liang’s lifestyle as ridiculous, yet as she points out her transgressive sexuality is also currency that permits the opulence and luxury in which she lives. Seduced by this world as much as by George, Weilong disapproves but admits that she is no longer the naive girl who arrived even if she also dislikes this new version of herself, considering a return to Shanghai and a possible reset to become someone else again presumably more in line with contemporary notions of social proprietary. She can’t deny that Madame Liang’s rejection of the patriarchal institution of marriage has granted her an unusual degree of independence otherwise unavailable in the contemporary society. She herself faces a choice in approaching the end of her high school days, either progressing to higher education, seeking work, or getting married naively insisting to Madame Liang that she will earn money in order to support George and his lavish lifestyle even as she advises her to enact a plot of romance as revenge. 

While Weilong’s discarded suitor benefits financially in becoming Madame Liang’s lover, she sponsoring his study abroad, Weilong again attempts to reverse traditional gender roles by trapping George as a kind of trophy husband. He had repeatedly told her he wasn’t the marrying kind, in part because of his insatiable sexual desire and perpetual loneliness in having lost his mother young, yet also because of his father’s perfectly acceptable yet socially destructive romantic history which includes several concubines and illegitimate children meaning there will be little in the way of inheritance. If he married, he’d need to marry well but Weilong’s family is impoverished and she has only her connection with Madame Liang to leverage. As she’d warned her it would be, the relationship between them will always be unhappy, Weilong winning a symbolic victory in coercing George towards marriage but unable to accept the limits of her control while he, paradoxically, is emotionally honest only with her but she can only see this as a slight as if he is so indifferent towards her that she is not worth lying to. 

As Weilong gradually morphs into her aunt, George’s sexually liberated sister Kitty lands on a different path later becoming a nun. The three women attempt to muster all of the advantages afforded to them under an oppressive patriarchal system but none perhaps find true happiness. It might be tempting to read a subversive comment on the nature of colonialism in the various frustrated love affairs and persistent sense of rootlessness, Hui’s drama is at heart a romantic tragedy in which two people become locked in a torturous relationship because they cannot understand each other. Their very idea of love is different. Doyle’s floating camera perfectly captures the fleeting opulence of this unreal society itself lingering on an abyss as the lovers continue to dance around each other looking perhaps for the love after love in immaterial comfort. 

Trailer (English subtitles)

Love in the Big City (대도시의 사랑법, E.oni, 2024)

Posted on by

“How can being yourself be your weakness?” asks a young woman who, more than anything else, is defiantly herself, to a young man who indeed is anything but. The heroes of E.oni’s Love in the Big City (대도시의 사랑법, Daedosiui sarangbeop), adapted from the acclaimed novel by Park Sang-young, are in some ways on parallel journeys that somehow weave through and around each other as they each try to navigate an often hostile society that has no place either of them.

For aspiring writer and in the film’s early stretches student of French literature Heung-soo (Noh Sang-hyun), his “weakness” is that he’s gay and though he seems to have accepted this about himself is firmly in the closet. Free spirited Jae-hee (Kim Go-eun) who spent her teenage years abroad in France catches him making out with their professor but couldn’t care less though Heung-soo rebuffs her attempts at friendship fearing they’re akin to a kind of blackmail or that she plans to out him to their fellow students. It’s not until Jae-hee is publicly shamed when it’s rumoured a topless photo being shared online is of her that the pair finally become friends. Sick of the curious stares and covert giggles, she lifts her shirt in front of the class to prove it isn’t her, earning the nickname “crazy bitch”.

Her response is the exact opposite of Heung-soo. She claims her freedom by baring all, being defiantly herself and outwardly at least little caring for what others think of her while Heung-soo makes himself invisible and says nothing harbouring intense fear of being exposed. They are each in their way pariahs. Heung-soo because of his sexuality which is still unacceptable to many in the fiercely conformist society of South Korea in which Christian religious bodies still have huge influence and loudly oppose LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms. Heung-soo’s widowed mother is also intensely religious and having stumbled on one of his stories about a crush on a classmate is aware that he is gay but does not speak of it and continues to believe he will be “cured”. This is perhaps why she keeps urging him to do his military service believing it will make a man out of him.

For all of these reasons, it’s not surprising that Heung-soo is unwilling to live his life openly as a gay man because of the prejudice he knows he will face from those around him. Jae-hee, by contrast, refuses to hide and lives the way she wants to but is shamed by those who feel a woman should live in a certain way which is to say quietly, politely, and obediently. A man she thought was a boyfriend while he thought of her as a bit on the side publicly slut shames her and asks what sort of idiot would want to date a woman like her. Though we first meet her as a confident, rebellious student we see her gradually beaten down by the world around her and the demands of corporate culture. Considering marrying a man she may not actually like because it’s what you do, she stares sadly at a middle-aged woman opposite her on the train dressed in a near identical outfit and the comfortable shoes that are psychologically at least uncomfortable for Jae-hee in representing her capitulation to the properness of mainstream society. 

Her degradation continues to the extent that she finds herself in a relationship with a domineering, intensely patriarchal man who later turns violent when she tries to leave him. E often cross cuts and juxtaposes Heung-soo’s and Jae-hee’s experiences as they each suffer similar blows and indeed violence from a macho society if in different ways and for different reasons while having only their intense bond as fellow outsiders to rely on. This really is the love in the big city, a deeply felt platonic and unconditional love between two people who essentially have no one else. It’s through this love that each comes to love and accept themselves, Heung-soo eventually gaining the courage to fully embrace his authentic self while Jae-hee finally regains her independent spirit and refuses to let others shame her while standing up both for the LGBTQ+ community and the young woman she once was at the mercy of a male-dominated corporate culture. Warm and often funny, the film paints contemporary Seoul as an outwardly oppressive city of enforced conformity but equally discovers small pockets of freedom and joy along with the wholesome comfort of true friendship and self-acceptance.

Love in the Big City screened as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Noisy Mansion (백수아파트, Lee Lu-da, 2024)

Posted on by

Could the neighbourhood busybody actually be a force for good? The Noisy Mansion (백수아파트, Baeksu Apateu) at the centre of Lee Lu-da’s goodhearted comedy is a metaphor for the nation itself and also a kind of purgatorial space inhabited by the heroine as she attempts to repair herself by enforcing justice and improving the lives of others though it brings her no other real benefits. Some may brand her an inconvenient troublemaker, a nosy parker poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, but Geo-ul is really trying to do good if in an unconventional way.

It’s this tendency to rock the boat that’s finally started to annoy her brother Duon who fears her problematic do-gooding is going to have an adverse effect on his children while he is also fed up with fending off animosity from the neighbours regarding Geo-ul’s frequent attempts to police them. In many ways, this is a society in which minding your own business is considered a virtue and speaking up is a breach of social etiquette but then if nobody says anything, then nothing will ever change and those who abuse their power will be able to go on doing so unchallanged. 

Of course, Geo-ul’s determination to enforce justice it also her way of overcoming her sense of guilt and resentment towards a world in which a small mistake, the overlooking of something that should have been important, can have tragic consequences. She is quite literally haunted by what she feels was a lapse of responsibility, something she will never allow to happen again. Yet the apartment complex she moves into after her brother kicks her out assuming it will only be a matter of days before he asks her back is also a haunted space inhabited by lonely souls like herself who are being driven slowly mad by ominous banging noises at 4am. Geo-ul becomes determined to discover the culprit behind the maddening noise if only to vindicate herself in the eyes of her brother that she really can accomplish something through her busy-bodying.

But she finds herself at the nexus of the nation’s problematic capitalism as it becomes clear the banging is likely a tactic employed by gangsters trying to get people to move out so the building can be demolished. In fact, most of the units are empty and the building itself is in a possibly wilful state of disrepair which is why Geo-ul was able to move in so easily despite the discouragement of the estate agent who introduced her to it. The people she meets there are also all struggling with their own problems aside from those exacerbated by their exhaustion and while previous attempts to unite to oppose the plans for redevelopment had largely failed, her quest to unmask the noisy neighbour does indeed provoke a sense of solidarity in the community and the conviction that they really could change their circumstances if they work together.

As some say, the most dangerous person is one with too much time on their hands. What some might call nosy, Geo-ul might term taking an interest in her community. Though some may originally be irritated by her desire to root out injustice, they later come to respect her when she starts getting results. Aside from a sense of vindication, her actions have a positive effect on the community liberating the apartment block from the oppressive shadows haunting it which in this case would be corruption, organised crime, violence, and ultimately hopelessness. Above all else, Geo-ul’s dedication proves that it is possible to change the world, to restore peace, order and self-respect by exorcising the evil spirits of contemporary capitalism. The residents even get over Geo-ul’s status as a “renter” who has no place in their struggle as homeowners and affectionally refer to her as “captain” as she leads their accidental revolution. Filled with a cast zany characters and undercut with a sense of tragic melancholy, the film is an advocation for the power of community but also for the concerned citizen standing up for fairness and justice even when it has no real relevance or benefit to them personally and may actually do them harm but less so than living in an unfair society which allows tragedy to occur simply through indifference.

The Noisy Mansion screened as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival.

It’s Okay! (괜찮아 괜찮아 괜찮아!, Kim Hye-young, 2023)

Posted on by

The ironic thing about the title of Kim Hye-young’s debut feature It’s Okay (괜찮아 괜찮아 괜찮아!, Gwaenchanh-a Gwaenchanh-a Gwaenchanh-a!) is that for the most part it really isn’t but the ever cheerful heroine In-young (Lee Re) manages to face her hardship and loneliness with down-to earth-practicality and good grace. It’s her infectious happiness that begins to improve the lives of those around her, many of whom have their own issues often stemming from entrenched patriarchy, classism, and a conformist culture that railroads the young into futures they may not want and will not make them happy.

At least that’s how it is for Na-ri (Chung Su-bin), the star of Il-young’s traditional dance troupe who has developed bulimia partly to adhere to contemporary codes of feminine perfection but also as a means of asserting control over her life which is otherwise micromanaged by her mother, once a dancer herself but now a wealthy housewife who uses her privilege to ensure her daughter is always centrestage. For these reasons she crassly remarks that she envies Il-young whose mother was killed in a car accident leaving her orphaned and entirely alone but in Na-ri’s eyes free and independent. 

It’s Na-ri’s mother who later refers to Il-young as a “worthless” person who does not deserve and will not have the opportunity to steal Na-ri’s spotlight even if she were good enough to seize it. The other girls in the troupe resent Il-young because her fees are paid by a scheme set up to help children of single-parent families, though technically she isn’t one anymore. They think it’s unfair she doesn’t have to pay when they do and also look down on her for being poor and an orphan when the rest of them come from wealthy backgrounds and are serious enough about traditional dance to consider going on to study it at university. Il-young isn’t a particularly good dancer nor does she put a lot of effort into it, but unlike Na-ri whose dancing is technically proficient but cold Il-young dances with a palpable sense of joy.

That might be why she catches the attention of otherwise stern choreographer Seol-ah (Jin Seo-yeon) who harbours resentment towards Na-ri’s snooty mother but lives a life that seems very repressed, tightly controlled and devoid of the kind of exuberance that comes naturally to Il-young. Her palatial apartment is cold, neutrally decorated, and spotlessly clean while, contrary to Na-ri, she forgoes the pleasures of eating subsisting entirely on green health drinks. Her decision to take in Il-young after finding her secretly living at the studio after her landlord evicted her from the home her mother had rented, may also reflect her own desire for a less constrained life and the familial warmth which seems otherwise lacking in her overly ordered existence. Gradually nibbling at the fried spam Il-young has a habit of cooking in the morning, she begins to open herself to the idea of a less regimented, happier life.

The same is true for Na-ri who is fed up with being forced to live out her mother’s vicarious dreams, literally letting her hair down and abandoning her need for control and dominance to embrace more genuine friendships with the other girls including Il-young. The lesson seems to be that there’s too much pressure placed on these young women in a society that dictates to them who and what they should be while shunning those like Il-young who are defiantly who they are and all the more cheerful for it even in the face of their hidden loneliness. Yet as Seol-ah eventually tells her, you’re the centre of wherever you are and Il-young’s life is her own to live in the way she chooses.

What emerges is a sense of female solidarity in the various ways Il-young is also parenting Seol-ah as she at first perhaps grudgingly offers her support and acceptance while taking on a maternal role that allows her to break free of the rigidity which had left her so unhappy. Told with a true sense of warmth that belies an inner melancholia, the film advocates for laughing through the tears and meeting with the world with an openhearted goodness that in itself allows others to break free of their own grief and pain and discover a happiness of their own bolstered by a sense of friendship and community rather than live their lives isolated and alone to conform to someone else’s ideal.

It’s Okay! screened as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Güle-Güle (귤레귤레, Ko Bong-soo, 2024)

Posted on by

A man and woman saddled with problematic companions find themselves pushed into a space of introspection while on an inescapable Turkish holiday in Ko Bong-soo’s sophisticated comedy, Güle-Güle (귤레귤레). Each of them is perhaps burdened with regrets and wistful for what might have been but for opposing reasons, he facing the realisation that he often runs away from his problems and she that despite her sharp tongue and haughty attitude she lacks the courage to break with a situation that obviously isn’t working and become fully independent.

Dae-sik is there with his bumbling middle-manger boss Won-chang, a nepotism hire who repeatedly calls him a moron and blames him for his mistakes. Jung-hwa, meanwhile, is with her (ex?) husband Byung-sun who continually embarrasses her with his crass attempts to haggle the price down for anything and everything as means of asserting his masculinity through winning a price war. Byung-sun’s drinking and the problematic behaviour that arises from it had evidently strained their relationship with Byung-sun pledging to abstain from alcohol only to immediately break that promise claiming that he assumed drinking with Jung-hwa wouldn’t count. The issues Dae-sik and Jung-hwa face are in some ways the same in dealing with partners that attempt to dominate and overrule them without ever considering what they might actually want. Dae-sik hadn’t even planned on taking a holiday but assumed they’d be heading back to Korea right after closing the deal only to be browbeaten by Won-chang into extending their stay.

Jung-hwa isn’t sure why they’re in Turkey either, while the middle-aged woman and her daughters who are also on their tour drink in all the drama alternately fascinated and irritated that Byung-sun in particular is messing up their holiday. From the way he skirts around her, it seems that Dae-sik and Jung-hwa may have met before or have some unspoken history with each other. They are each dealing with past regrets and the frustrated dreams of the youth even if in differing ways. Dae-sik once had a promising future as a champion snowboarder but gave it up because he needed a paying job to contribute to his father’s medical fees. After a heart-to-heart with Jung-hwa he’s forced to ask himself if in reality he gave up in fear of it not working out and his father’s illness was just a convenient excuse not to have to risk failure. 

Jung-hwa, meanwhile, is irritated to learn that in college her fellow students nicknamed her “the viper” because of her sharp tongue and poisonous looks. She admits that she often says things thoughtlessly and hurts people by accident, pushing them away when she doesn’t mean to though this doesn’t seem to be the case with Byung-sun who she otherwise seems incapable of shaking off despite his treatment of her and repeated broken promises. Unlike Dae-sik who admits that he suppresses everything and approaches life with a fear of failure, Jung-hwa charged ahead doing what she thought she wanted and ended up divorced though with a husband that won’t leave her alone.

The holiday with its myriad challenges both interpersonal and physical, along with their impromptu meeting, affords each of them a new perspective and the clarity they each may be looking for to move on from their dissatisfying circumstances in search of greater personal happiness. Meanwhile, the other guests seem to carry on obliviously, Won-chang otherwise continuing to railroad Dae-sik into dangerous situations he feels unable to resist though perhaps he too is only reacting against his own sense of inadequacy as a nepotism hire promoted well beyond his abilities. Byung-sun’s problems seem less easy to solve and his selfish obnoxiousness is annoying not only to Jung-hwa who may finally be losing patience with him, but the entire group.

Like many similarly themed films from Korea, Ko structures the drama around a series of conversations many of which take place on a rooftop bar or walking through the streets of the city which as Dae-sik remarks become brighter and less intimidating thanks to his interactions with Jung-hwa as if his horizons were literally expanding. Yet what each of them is here to do is in a sense to say “gule gule” or goodbye to their old selves and old lives by gaining the courage to risk failure in breaking with the dissatisfying present for a hopefully more fulfilling future.

Güle-Güle screened as part of this year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Tai Chi Master (张三丰, Lin Zhenzhao & Cheng Siyu, 2022)

Posted on by

The funny thing is that, in contrast to contemporary Chinese cinema, Lin Zhenzhao & Cheng Siyu’s The Tai Chi Master casts those who stand up to corruption as the villains. Of course, their insurrection threatens the social order and their subsequent to overthrow the Song Dynasty may be too revolutionary to find much a approval but it’s surprising all the same even if the film also finds fault with officials too focused on the “big picture” rather than the citizens in the townships they’re supposed to be overseeing.

In any case, though it should not be confused with the Jet Li film from 1993 with which it shares both English and Chinese titles, this Tai Chi Master is once again an origin story for the renowned Taoist scholar Zhang Sanfeng which is the name the hero takes at the film’s conclusion having achieved a degree of enlightenment through experiencing near death and tragedy at the hands of the Netherworld Cult. For the most part, he goes by his courtesy name Junbao and is something of a libertine, spending most of his time enjoying fine liquor and trying to craft immortality pills as a member of the Wuji Sect. 12 years previously when the Imperial Court increased taxes to a unreasonable degree, the Netherworld Cult slaughtered the corrupt officials but were condemned by the rest of society for their actions. Junbao has a habit of drinking with Kui Tianxing, the former head of the Netherworld Cult who has been imprisoned in the Wuji’s Sect’s gloomy basement for the last 12 years and in fact transgressively learns from him “evil” techniques claiming that there is no good or bad in martial arts for all depends on the righteous heart of the practitioner.

But there is unrest brewing and it seems some can no longer bear the corruption and indifference of the noblemen supposedly managing their interests on behalf of the court. After taking a liking to a mysterious forest woman who rides a giant silkworm she charms with a flute, Junbao is taken to task for his solipsistic hedonism. She asks him how he can ignore suffering in the world and continue to remain apart from it, but he doesn’t truly gain the desire to oppose injustice until the Wuji Sect is targeted and his master is killed. Even then, his opposition is awkwardly positioned given that the new Netherworld Cult is also motivated by the desire to throw off the authority of corrupt officials, which means in a sense that Junbao is defending that same corrupt social order which he does not otherwise challenge.

In keeping with the teachings of the real Sanfeng, he instead preaches righteousness and harmony but otherwise removes himself from the martial arts and wider worlds, while his brief romance with the mysterious silkworm woman seems to fall by the wayside in his ongoing quest for spiritual enlightenment. Meanwhile, it has to be said that his relationship with the little girl who seems to be in his care is a little uncomfortable at times. In what is presumably supposed to be a sweet and innocent piece of childish banter, she frequently flirts with him, makes statements about becoming his girlfriend, and expresses jealousy towards the silkworm woman all of which seems very inappropriate for a child of no more than 11 or 12.

Nevertheless, the fight choreography is often interesting if sometimes marred by imperfect CGI and mid-level production values for a streaming film. The injection of fantasy-style lore with its demons and underground, cave-like bases gives the film’s internal universe a degree of consistency in reflecting the yin/yang philosophy espoused by the Netherworld Cult in the white-clad, surface-living Wuji Clan and the dark, anarchic world of the often masked rebels. The mysterious silkworm and the flute-playing woman meanwhile seem to occupy a liminal space caught between each world and whatever she says like Junbao not really a part of either until pulled into the final battle. Perhaps troubling or at times contradictory in some of its implications, the film does at least have a degree of charm in its likeable characters and fleshed-out backstories that hint at the possibilities of an ongoing franchise.

The Tai Chi Master is available digitally in the US courtesy of Well Go USA.

Trailer

The Last Dance (破·地獄, Anselm Chan, 2024)

Posted on by

When serving the living doesn’t pay, why not make money from the dead? That’s the advice that’s given to former wedding-planner Dominic (Dayo Wong) in Anselm Chan’s touching spiritual drama The Last Dance (破·地獄), but after pivoting towards organising death rituals it’s the living he continues to serve. In many ways, Dominic stands at the borders of life and death, but he’s also an onlooker in a wider debate about tradition and modernity, what we inherit and what we choose to pass on, along with the departing soul of an older Hong Kong as the young flee abroad leaving those who stay behind to carry what may seem to them a burden too heavy to bear alone.

The irony is that though Dominic had been a wedding planner until the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic killed his business, he is not in fact himself married and according to his long-term girlfriend Jade (Catherine Chau) did not see the point in a marriage certificate. One might infer that if he thought weddings were essentially meaningless exercises in vanity then he might feel the same way about funerals and his initial behaviour after taking over the funeral parlour run by Jade’s ageing Uncle Ming (Paul Chun) might confirm that suspicion. Not only does he start selling tacky trinkets as some kind of funeral favours, but makes a huge faux pas with an ostentatious stunt at his first funeral that causes upset and offence to the family. At the very least, it would have been useful to confirm how the deceased passed away before trawling their instagram account in an attempt to reconstruct their personality.

It’s this kind of insensitivity that irritates intensely grumpy Taoist priest “Hello” Man (Michael Hui) who brands Dominic an “amateur” believing that he’s only obsessed with money and intent on exploiting the grief of bereaved families. But on the other hand, Man is only really interested in the sanctity of ritual and doesn’t get involved with the living nor is he very sensitive to the emotional needs of those in the process of sending off a loved one. His entire life has been in service of the ancestors to the point that it’s soured his relationships with his two children. He has no faith in his son Ben (Chu Pak Hong) to inherit his position as a Taoist priest, while Ben resents being forced to inherit a burden he has no desire to carry. Daughter Yuet (Michelle Wai), perhaps ironically a paramedic, would have happily have carried it, but has endured years of being told that “women are filthy” and is prevented from inheriting these traditions because there is a taboo against women undertaking the role of a Taoist priest. The continual sense of rejection has left her with huge resentment towards her father and resulting low self-esteem that sees her engage in a no strings relationship with a married doctor.

Ultimately the film suggests that these traditions themselves are too large to bear, at least in their entirety, and do nothing more than crush and oppress the young. In part, they embody the spirit of an older Hong Kong which is itself in danger of fading away as seen in Dominic’s innovative new bespoke funeral planning services which to traditionalists might seem like they play fast and loose with ancient ritual, but the resolution that each Dominic and Man come to is that funerals are for those who remain behind and while Man liberates the souls of the dead Dominic does the same for the living in taking a more compassionate approach to dealing with those grieving a loss. Not only does his acceptance of the strange requests of a heartbroken mother (Rosa Maria Velasco) branded a “nutcase” and rejected by the local area bring her a degree of comfort, but his decision to allow what seems to be the same sex partner (Rachel Leung) barred from a funeral service the right to say goodbye albeit in secret demonstrates the necessity of doing right by both the living and dead.

As Man later says, in some ways he’s shown him how to do funerals and awakened him to the ways his oppressiveness in his adherence to tradition has prevented him from being a better father. His decision to wear a western suit for his own funeral might indicate a desire not to take this rigidity into the next world while hoping to liberate his children from the burden of tradition and show them that they were each loved and accepted even if it did not always seem that way. Which is not to say that the tradition should not be saved or that this is itself a funeral for the soul of an older Hong Kong, but only that if you let some of it, such as its inherent sexism, go it will be easier to carry when everyone carries it together. “Living can be hell,” Dominic admits and the funeral is a liberation both for the living and the dead. A touching yet surprisingly lighthearted meditation on life and death, what it comes down to really is that death is coming to us all but there’s no point spending your life worrying about it when you should just try to enjoy the dance until the music stops.

The Last Dance is in UK cinemas from 15th November courtesy of CineAsia.

UK trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)