Tag: Kim Min-Jae

The Truth Beneath (비밀은 없다, Lee Kyoung-mi, 2016)

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10_06_15__574b920705d42Politics in South Korea has never been exactly drama-free, though recent times have seen a multitude of storms engulf its top brass running from the national to the personal. Frequent Park Chan-wook collaborator Lee Kyoung-mi’s followup to her acclaimed 2008 debut Crush and Blush, The Truth Beneath (비밀은 없다, Bimileun Eobda) begins as if it’s going fit into the ‘70s dark political thriller mould but gradually shifts gear to present both a bleak family drama and the story of one woman’s descent into the near madness of grief as she attempts to uncover the true circumstances behind her private tragedy even as it plays out on a national stage.

Married to a prominent candidate in a tightly contested electoral race, Yeon-hong (Son Ye-jin) is perfect first lady material save that she’s from an inconvenient home town. Two weeks before the big day, Yeon-hong’s daughter Min-jin (Shin Ji-hoon) does not return from school as expected which, aside from the obvious distress, is not ideal for her father as his political campaign has largely been run on Min-jin’s face and the slogan “I will protect your children”. Jong-chan (Kim Ju-hyeok), Min-jin’s ambitious father, is reluctant to report her disappearance for fear it will hurt him politically and, after all, Min-jin has “disappeared” at times before. Yeon-hong is deeply worried and unable to understand her husband’s indifference to their daughter’s mysterious absence. As time passes, Yeon-hong steps up her investigation becoming ever more suspicious of those around her.

On the surface of things, Yeon-hong had the ideal life with a wealthy, handsome husband, and a nicely turned out, studious teenage daughter. The first glimpse we catch of them is a celebration of the campaign’s launch in which Yeon-hong is furiously cooking away, a motif which is to be repeated with an entirely different sense of celebration some time later. Yet there’s something slightly artificial about the setup even in its beginning as the conversation between the men takes on a barbed, guarded quality while Min-jin lies to her mother even whilst pledging to straighten up now that the campaign is in full swing.

The more Yeon-hong investigates, the more she realises how much of the life she’d been living was careful artifice. Min-jin had gone off the rails before, though perhaps no more than any other teenage girl and given her father’s position, she’d been under a considerable amount of strain. The “friend” Min-jin had claimed to be meeting does not seem to exist and on visiting her school, Yeon-hong finds out that Min-jin had been ostracised by the other girls, even experiencing violent treatment at their hands.

Min-jin had, in fact, eventually embraced her outsider status by forming a performance art-influenced, punk-inspired rock band with a similarly “uncool” girl, Mi-ok. Mi-ok may have been one of the last people to have contact with Min-jin before her disappearance and quickly becomes a person of interest in Yeon-hong’s investigations but whatever it is she’s hiding, it’s clear that there was a whole side of Min-jin’s life that her mother was entirely unaware of.

As Yeon-hong becomes increasingly desperate, she starts entertaining the idea of conspiracy. Her first thoughts turn to her husband’s rival, Noh, an unscrupulous man who may just be capable of kidnapping Jong-chang’s poster girl in order to punch a hole through his opponent’s ill-advised slogan by demonstrating that he can’t even protect his own child, let alone anyone else’s. Then again, how far would her husband be prepared to go in the quest for power? Would his campaign team really kidnap his own daughter to cast suspicion on Noh and win public sympathy? Jong-chang’s ongoing indifference could be easily explained if he already knows the score, but the more Yeon-hong finds out the more she begins to doubt everything she thought she knew about her family.

Son Ye-jin turns in a career making performance in capturing Yeon-hong’s increasingly volatile emotional state. A once elegant political wife, Yeon-hong’s disintegration is manifested in her untidy hair and progressively relaxed dress sense as she becomes ever surer that there is something larger at play than a runaway teen. Yeon-hong defiantly rejects the entirety of her experience through her appearance at a funeral wearing a bright and colourful floral dress almost as if demanding to be seen, remembered, and addressed. No longer will she remain Jong-chang’s silent partner, Yeon-hong’s grief-stricken, maternal fury requires answers and will not rest until the whole of the truth is known.

Lee’s composition is simply stunning making frequent use of dissolves, superimpositions, and a subtle floating of time periods to underline Yeon-hong’s precarious mental state. When Yeon-hong discovers a particularly unpleasant truth, the previously balanced camera suddenly slides into a canted angle, leaving the ordered world of a political thriller behind for a new kind of noir-ish murkiness. Yeon-hong is, literally, unbalanced, wrong footed and wild as she enters into a desperate quest to understand not only the truth beneath the events which have engulfed her, but the essential truth beneath her life. Playing out almost like an inverted The World of Kanako, the Truth Beneath is a similarly bleak tale filled with coldness and duplicity, yet its distressing finale carries with it a fragmentary warmth and the slightest glimpse of hope in the embrace of a motherless child and childless mother.

Reviewed at the 2016 London Korean Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Shameless (무뢰한, Oh Seung-uk, 2015)

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fullsizephoto602641Review of Oh Seung-uk’s The Shameless (무뢰한, Moorwehan) up at UK Anime Network. I read some lukewarm reviews but I actually really liked this one (though I’m a sucker for B-movie noirs and my tolerance for melodrama is sky high)!

Director Oh Seung-uk maybe best known as the screenwriter behind such varied and well respected efforts as Green Fish (directed by Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong), Christmas in August and H, but way back in 2001 he made a minor splash at Cannes with his existential gangster piece, Kilimanjaro. The Shameless sees him one again turn to the shady world of underground crime though this time what he’s interested in is a romantic melodrama laced with deadly film noir morality.

Recently divorced police detective Jung Jae-gon has been handed what seems like a fairly straightforward murder. They already know who the killer is and the motive behind the crime, all that remains is to track the guy down. Luckily they also know that Park, a gangland thug, has a regular girlfriend, Kim Hye-kyung, who works at a seedy downtown bar. Through tailing her they’ll find their man. This is where things get sticky. Said girlfriend is the former lover of the head of another crime syndicate who’d now like to use Park’s current predicament to exact some revenge on the drifter who’s stolen his girl. Roping in a disgraced ex-cop, the gang offer Jae-gon a significant amount of money to cripple Park during his arrest and take him out of the picture for good. Jae-gon is conflicted. The way he sees it, the day you can’t tell which side you’re really on is the day you need to hand back your badge, but Jae-gon’s in need of money, this guy used to be his friend and then, there’s the girl…

Right here you have all the essential elements of your classic film noir. Basically good, if imperfect, detective receives an offer he can’t refuse and ultimately accepts it against his better judgement in part because of a femme fatale that he just can’t get out of his mind even if the more rational part of his brain knows this is something that is never going to happen. Before you know it, Jae-gon has researched Park’s history and adopted the persona of a former cellmate before taking an undercover job at Hye-kyung’s bar and attempting to become close to her in the hope that she’ll eventually lead them to Park’s whereabouts. Of course, he starts falling for her too and though she remains doggedly committed to Park, something in her begins to warm to him in return. This is a situation which can never end well and its classic B-movie style inevitability only adds to the eventual pathos of its deliberately downbeat ending.

The film is called The Shameless for a reason – nobody looks good in this shady world of corrupt cops and vicious gangsters who will stop at nothing to get what they want. The fact that you can barely tell who is on which side is a good indicator of the levels to which this world of chaos has become warped. Even the police are literally “shameless” stooping so far as to indulge in an interrogation technique which is, in fact, a sexual assault. At least the gangsters are abiding by their own rules.

The picture has a slick, stylish aesthetic which is perfectly in keeping with its morally grey, film noir inspired mood. It’s full of existential angst and the ennui of modern, aimless life. As usual for this kind of film, Hye-kyung repeatedly gets the short end of the stick – used and abused by faithless men, so massively in debt it’s almost impossible she’ll be able to extricate herself from the seedy world of hostess bars and petty gangsters before its too late. She’s only one victim of the pervasive sexism that defines this harsh world. Clinging desperately to Park, Hye-kyung’s one and only escape route is to hope one of these feckless men is the one who can take her away from this place.

Needless to say this isn’t one of those films where everyone gets what they want and walks off into the sunset of eternal happiness, but perhaps it isn’t as apocalyptic as the original premise might promise. That is actually something of a problem as the slightly softer ending undercuts the film’s emotional resonance and ultimately leaves one feeling a little less than satisfied. Still, even if The Shameless fails to hit its mark at the very end, Oh has still crafted a stylish and beautifully photographed neo-noir romance that stays true to its classic B-movie roots whilst also embracing the best of the modern crime movie.

Reviewed at the London Korean Film Festival 2015.

 

Ode to My Father (국제시장, JK Yoon, 2014)

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ode_to_my_father_stillReview of JK Yoon’s Ode to My Father (국제시장, Gukjeshijang) – first published by UK Anime Network.

Of late, we’ve seen a lot of films attempt to trace the history of a nation through the story of one man and his family which ultimately becomes a metaphor for the that of the land itself. Many of these have come from China which shares something of the turbulent history that has affected the Korean peninsula over the last hundred years. In Ode to My Father, director JK Youn has tried to pay tribute both to his own father and to all the fathers of modern Korea who underwent great difficulties and suffered immensely in the hope of building a better, happier, future for their own children.

Mostly we view events from the point of view of Duk-soo – an old man at the beginning of the film who has made a success of himself and is surrounded by a large, loving family though seems to retain a kind of unresolved sadness. When we travel back with him, he’s just a small boy fleeing his homeland with his parents and siblings. As the oldest, he’s put in charge of his sister only to have her cruelly snatched away from him during the final escape. This event colours the rest of Duk-soo’s life as he carries with him both the tremendous guilt of having failed to protect his sister and of losing his father has he went back to look for her. The remaining family members gather together at the small imported goods shop belonging to an aunt which becomes another motif of the film.

Growing into manhood, Duk-soo is now the man of the house with both his siblings and his mother to provide for. Making countless sacrifices which see him abandoning his own dreams and travelling abroad to seek better paid work – first in the coalmines of West Germany and later the warzone of Vietnam, Duk-soo puts his family before himself every single time. Working tirelessly, Duk-soo grows up but inside he’s forever the little boy on a boat watching his father drift away him and desperately hoping he’ll some day miraculously turn up at the shop with a smile and an improbable story.

This is a story of painful separations and the shockwaves they send through the rest of one’s life and of all the lives throughout history. Having fled the Chinese and the communists in the North, Duk-soo and his family are excited about the prospect of being able to go home at the “end” of the war. However, this is a war which is still not technically over, merely suspended by a truce, and Duk-soo will never see his hometown again. Eventually, during the ‘80s, 30 years since Duk-soo was separated from his father and sister, a nationwide campaign is held to try and re-unite family members forced apart by the traumatic events of the 1950s. Entire squares in the city are covered with people desperately looking for each other wearing signs with their relatives’ names and point of last sighting, clothing etc all in the hope of finally finding each other again. Needless to say, some of these people are luckier than others and there are tears of both joy and sadness.

Still, all in all, Duk-soo and South Korea made a success of themselves even if there’s a resulting ache from the great wound which has split the nation in two. Much of the story is universal – a father’s love for his family, but Ode to My Father will obviously speak loudest to Koreans who can identify more strongly with the historical context. Yoon has also injected some humorous incidents involving real life Korean historical celebrities which may mystify international viewers even if they’re sign posted well enough that one gets the gist of it anyway.

Unabashedly sentimental and oftentimes overblown, Ode to My Father nevertheless succeeds in tugging at the heartstrings in all the intended ways. A paean to the post war generation and all that they endured in building the modern Korea that their children could live in without fear or hunger, Ode to My Father is in the end far too sugary but also, it has to be said, affecting.

Reviewed at the London Korean Film Festival 2015.

 

Veteran (베테랑, Ryoo Seung-wan, 2015)

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1439210220_베테랑1Review of Ryoo Seung-wan’s Veteran (베테랑) – first published on UK Anime Network.

One of the top Korean box office hits of 2015, Ryoo Seung-wan’s Veteran is a glorious throw back to the uncomplicated days of ‘80s buddy cop crime comedy thrillers. A little less than subtle in its social commentary, Veteran nevertheless takes aim at corrupt corporate culture and the second generation rich kids who inherit daddy’s company but are filled with an apathetic, bored arrogance that is mostly their own.

Seo Do-cheol (Hwang Jung-min) is, as one other officer puts it, the kind of police officer who joined the force just to beat people up. He loves to fight and isn’t afraid of initiating a little “resisting arrest” action just to make things run a little more smoothly. However, when he strikes up a friendship with a put upon truck driver and his cute as a button son only to miss a crucial telephone call that eventually lands said truck driver in the hospital, Do-cheol’s sense of social justice is inflamed. After trying to join a trade union, Bae, the truck driver, is unceremoniously let go from his company. On taking his complaint directly to the head of Sin Jin Trading, play boy rich kid Tae-oh, Bae is subjected to the most cruel and humiliating “interview” of his life before apparently attempting to commit suicide after having realised the utter hopelessness of his situation. Incensed on his new friend’s behalf, Do-cheol is determined to take down these arrogant corporatists what ever the costs may be!

Veteran makes no secret of its retro roots. It even opens with a joyously fun sequence set to Blondie’s 1979 disco hit, Heart of Glass. Like those classic ‘80s movies, Veteran manages to mix in a background level of mischievous comedy which adds to the overall feeling of effortless cool that fills the film even when things look as if they might be about to take a darker turn. The action sequences are each exquisitely choreographed and filled with sight gags as the fight crazy Do-cheol turns just about any random object that appears to be close to hand into an improbable weapon.

Make no mistake about it either, this is a fight heavy film. Though Veteran has a very masculine feeling, it is to some degree evened out by the supreme Miss Bong whose high class high kicks can take out even the toughest opponents and seem to have most of her teammates looking on in awe, and the withering gaze of Do-cheol’s put upon wife who seems determined to remind him that he’s not some delinquent punk anymore but a respectable police officer with a wife and child who could benefit from a little more consideration.

Indeed, Tae-oh and his henchmen aren’t above going after policemen’s wives in an effort to get them to back off. Though this initial overture begins with an attempt at straightforward bribery (brilliantly dealt with by  Mrs. Seo who proves more than a match more the arrogant lackeys), there is a hint of future violence if the situation is not resolved. Tae-oh is a spoiled, psychopathic rich kid who lacks any kind of empathy for any other living thing and actively lives to inflict pain on others in order to breathe his own superiority. Probably he’s got issues galore following in his successful father’s footsteps and essentially having not much else to do but here he’s just an evil bastard who delights in torturing poor folk and thinks he can do whatever he likes just because he has money (and as far as the film would have it he is not wrong in that assumption).

He also loves to fight and finally meets his match in the long form finale sequence in which everything is decided in a no holds barred fist fight between maverick cop and good guy Do-cheol and irredeemable but good looking villain Tae-oh. Veteran never scores any points for subtlety and if it has any drawbacks it’s that its characterisations tend to be on the large side but what it does offer is good, old fashioned (in a good way) action comedy that has you cheering for its team of bumbling yet surprisingly decent cops from the get go. Luckily it seems Veteran already has a couple of sequels in the pipeline and if they’re anywhere near as enjoyable as the first film another new classic franchise may have just been born.

Reviewed at the first London East Asia Film Festival and the London Korean Film Festival.