Tag: Korean

The Mutation (사랑의 탄생, Shin Su-won, 2025) [Fantasia 2026)

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Two people largely excluded from mainstream society bond over a shared sense of loss and loneliness in Shin Su-won’s lighthearted road trip movie, The Mutation (사랑의 탄생). Though the English-language title may sound a little harsh, hinting at some kind of science fiction dystopia, the film is in other ways as the Korean title “The Birth of Love,” implies about self-acceptance and mutual solidarity among those that society has continues to other and reject.

The Korean title is quoted in each of the lives of the protagonists, Se-oh (Han Hyun-min), a man with dark skin who was born to two Korean parents, and Sora (Lee Zoo-young), a gay woman whose former partner took her own life after being pressured into a heteronormative marriage by her conservative mother. Se-oh has been rejected by his family as his father refuses to accept him as his son despite his mother’s assurance that she has remained faithful him. He tries asking an old friend of his mother’s for answers, but she tells him that what matters is only that he was born from love. Sora, meanwhile, discovers a letter written by her late partner Min-ji as a omechild that she titled “the birth of love” and recorded her growing feelings for a female classmate along with the fear that her parents would find out.

Sora’s difference is not visibly obvious in the way that Se-oh’s is, but she still finds that she is excluded from mainstream society. She says that she makes tables because they’re something to be shared rather than used selfishly, but it seems that few people are willing to come to hers despite her instructions to Se-oh that if he got a bigger table for his apartment people would soon come to sit around it. It does however signal her own openness and desire for connection, even if that desire is often rejected or goes unmet. After agreeing to accompany Se-oh on his trip, she too has somewhere she does not have the courage to go alone. On returning to the town where Min-ji lived, she discovers her mother being hassled in the market by a group of religious people who appear to be aware of exactly how her daughter died and why but berate her for not raising her “better”. Min-ji’s mother had thought that if she married, Min-ji would settle down and live a “normal” life, but in the end Min-ji could not live that way. Her mother is now filled with regrets wishing she had accepted her daughter for who she was despite what others may have said in their small and conservative town where the local pastor holds sway.

Min-ji’s mother did not tell Sora of her death for some time nor did she invite her to the funeral, hoping that no one would find out. Se-oh wasn’t invited to his mother’s funeral either and his name is conspicuously absent from the list of official mourners at the funeral hall. He is continually treated as an outsider as strangers automatically address him in English. It never occurs to them to someone who looks like him may have been born and raised in Korea and know no other language, and as such they reject his Koreanness. This has also meant that he has struggled to find employment and has been restricted to doing a series of precarious casual labour jobs, the latest of which is ironically playing the white tiger at a local amusement park. People like me better when I wear a mask, he says, which perhaps something Sora can also understand.

But she also says that Min-ji was the only person she ever knew who didn’t wear one, implying that it may not be possible to survive in this society as an authentic person without some kind of boundary between oneself and others. Nevertheless, through their gentle road trip, the pair begin to come to terms with the past and also with themselves in gaining a level of self-acceptance that allows them to move forward, together or apart. Warm and gentle in spirit, the film makes the most of its idyllic country settings while focusing on the simple power of human connection in the face of a world that can often be harsh and unforgiving of those it perceives to be somehow other.

The Mutation screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

My Sassy Girl (엽기적인 그녀, Kwak Jae-yong, 2001)

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A smash hit and social phenomenon on its original release, My Sassy Girl (엽기적인 그녀, Yeopgijeogin geunyeo) is one of a small number of films from the early 2000s that like Japan’s Densha Otoko drew inspiration from the new media of online blogging and message boards. In a meta touch, the film includes these origins within the action as the hero, Gyeon-woo (Cha Tae-hyun), begins writing about his relationship with a strange and intimidating young woman (Jun Ji-hyun) on the internet only to see his work optioned for major feature film.

In some ways, these meta themes play into the central ideas of fate and time travel while giving the love story a sense of epic, romantic heft. It could be said that in the character of the unnamed woman, the film undercuts contemporary notions of gender roles and traditional femininity, but at the same time even in subverting them perhaps leans into a societal sense of misogyny. Gyeon-woo paints himself as a feminised man, raised for a time as a girl which is why he is mild-mannered, submissive, and lacks ambition in life. All qualities he associates with traditional femininity. He is attracted to the girl, but also disgusted by her unfeminine behaviour and most particularly by her public drunkenness. Her chewing of her own vomit on the train is apparently inspired by a real-life event and the reason for designating her the “bizarre and freakish” woman of the title. 

Gyeon-woo also suffers physical violence at the hands of most of the women in film including his mother, further marking him out as weak and hard done by in comparison to these strong women while most of the men, such as his own father and that of the girl who is a habitual drinker, are ineffectual and go along with their wives for a quiet life. The girl continues to boss him around, ordering for him in cafes, making him wear her high heels while she takes his trainers when her feet hurt, and generally telling him what to do in the relationship. Gyeon-woo appears to have a slightly masochistic streak and despite describing his discomfort this rejection of traditional femininity, actually seems to like being bossed around and physically abused by the girl, even later seeking out similar women, though the film does also include a transphobic joke that is very of its time. 

Eventually, he begins to realise that the girl’s violence and demanding nature are awkward ways of expressing love while she works through issues of her own that exist to one side of him. There are reasons that all her screenplays are about a heroic woman travelling in time to save someone she loves while simultaneously convinced she is destined to meet someone from the future. Gyeon-woo, meanwhile, an engineering student, is more grounded and down to earth. He nurtures their love in another way, replanting a damaged tree solely so the girl won’t be sad if she returns to find that it has died. Fate deliberately keeps them apart as their paths repeatedly fail to cross with a series of near misses before a fateful encounter, implying that romantic timing is much about the readiness for love as anything else, or as someone puts it, building a bridge of chance. Only once the girl has begun to work through her feelings, and Gyeon-woo has accepted his filial responsibilities, can their love be fulfilled. 

This is perhaps most obvious in the episode in which they become involved in a military siege when a soldier takes them hostage in an amusement park after deserting because his girlfriend has left him for another man. While the soldier’s obsessive love turns dangerously destructive, the girl is able to talk him down by reminding him that if he really loved his former girlfriend he’d set her free and rejoice in her happiness. The film’s quirky atmosphere with its series of weird events in a strange way recall the world of Tomihiko Morimi with its cosmic coincidences and tiny ironies that are nevertheless underpinned by a genuine sense of poignancy and warmth, willing these two star-crossed lovers to finally find each other at the right time as past and future finally coalesce into a more perfect present. 

My Sassy Girl screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Funky Freaky Freaks (충충충, Han Chang-lok, 2025)

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The gentle balance between three outsiders is disrupted by an elite transfer student in Han Chang-lok’s stylish drama Funky Freaky Freaks (충충충, Chungchungchung). Divided into three chapters, Impulse, Collision, and Shock, the film is, in many ways, a slow motion car crash or a path towards an inevitably destructive conclusion as the hero finds himself cast further out and abandoned by those close to him while his dream of becoming a superhero and saving the world by saving the woman he loves drifts further and further away.

Yong-ki (Joo Min-hyeong) doesn’t have many friends at school and is a fairly non-descript presence. He spends most of his time with two friends who, like him, are cast out of the mainstream and battling a sense of powerlessness. Ji-sook (Baek Ji-hye) is a survivor of domestic violence and has developed body dysmorphia that has left her with an eating disorder. She sells used underwear to men with fetishes in order to buy weight-loss drugs and seems to be considered the weird girl at school. Dumbo (Shin Jun-hang), meanwhile, is bullied for two different reasons. The first being that he is simply chubby. The second is however that he is gay and effeminate. He puts on a woman’s voice and chats to men on the internet, often conning them into buying him dinner before, perhaps unwisely, reverting to a more masculine voice to humiliate the person he’s been calling. 

Everything changes for each of them when a new transfer student arrives at the school. Woo-ju (Jeong Soo-hyun) is said to be from a wealthy and prominent family and a candidate for the national Olympic judo team. Of course, it’s a little odd for someone like him to transfer to Yong-ki’s school which is in a fairly rundown backwater and not exactly offering top facilities or teaching staff. Most people don’t think this far, but it’s obvious that Woo-ju has most likely been sent there there because it’s out of the way. His elite father is sick of his antics and is keen to limit the damage. Nevertheless, with his handsome looks and cool demeanour along with a touch of urban sophistication Woo-ju is an instant hit at school all of which inflames Yong-ki’s resentment especially when he seems to become friendly with Ji-sook.

Yong-ki sees Woo-ju as an embodiment of everything he’d like to be but isn’t, and is therefore desperate to knock him off his pedestal. Part of his resentment stems from the fact that Woo-ju has large numbers of online followers which seems to be how the kids measure success and social hierarchy. Yet through his investigations he discovers that Woo-ju may simply have paid for them, while there are rumours that he’s a bit of a playboy with a history of callous behaviour towards sexual partners. Others suggest that he was once a wimp and the shortest guy in class until his wealthy family got him growth hormones. His father clears up his messes by forcing people to sign NDAs, but Woo-ju may be a kind of victim too in that his father can’t accept failure and beats him every time he fails to win a judo match.

This fuels Yong-ki’s belief that they are basically the same in that Woo-ju is a loser too and the only difference between them is money, though rather than provoking empathy it seems to deepen his resentment. He becomes determined to avenge Ji-sook who has been seduced and abandoned by Woo-ju, becoming a figure of fun at school, as a means of convincing her to choose him, though she does not appear to have realised that Yong-ki has feelings for her. Abandoned by his mother who has not returned home in two months and has secretly been living somewhere else with a new man, Yong-ki’s sense of loneliness and desperation begins to push him towards an eventual explosion. Woo-ju too may have been fighting back against a sense of powerlessness, but his existence only bears out the ways in which Yong-ki continues to suffer because of social inequality. Han mixes media using CCTV footage, poetic black and white sequences, video cam, and VHS-style imagery to reflect Yong-ki’s childhood dreams while lending a note of ironic absurdity to the bleakness of his life in which the only possible reaction to his despair is violence.

Funky Freaky Freaks screens as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Hallan (한란, Ha Myung-mi, 2025)

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Jeju Island had been at the forefront of the resistance to the Japanese during the colonial era and its transition into the new post-war reality had been more orderly than that of the mainland. Nevertheless, the Korea’s sovreingity had not been returned and the South remained under the governance of the occupying American military while the North was controlled by the Soviet Union. Many on the island objected to the proposed elections which were to take place in South only, fearing that it would lead to permanent division of the nation. Once police fired on protestors making the anniversary of the protest movement, an armed conflict arose between guerrilla fighters who took to the mountains and the police and military backed by the extreme right-wing Northwest Youth League that had been dispatched from the mainland to suppress the rebellion.

Ten percent of the island’s population are said to have died during the massacre, with many more fleeing to North Korea or Japan, though the events were suppressed during the long years of military dictatorships with their history little known. Ha Myung-mi’s Hallan (한란) aims to shed light on these historical events by following a collection of ordinary villagers whose peaceful lives are disrupted by a political conflict that some feel to be very distant and not particularly anything to do with them. To that extent, the film aims for a kind of political neutrality in which it depicts the South Korean soldiers and insurrectionists as little different from other. Sergeant Park is a crazed sadist who is drunk on his own power and obsessed with rooting out “commies”, while Jeongnam  is a paranoid authoritarian. Each of them kill members of their own side with little hesitation. Sergeant Park executes a local soldier who advised a collection of elderly people coming down from the mountain in response to a pamphlet promising their lives would be spared if they surrendered, that they shouldn’t trust the military and would be better to remain in hiding. Jeongnam kills a comrade who wants to look for his family fearing he will expose their plan to blow up an army base with dynamite left behind by the Japanese. The only innocents are the apolitical villagers who are caught between the two. 

But in characterising the rebels in this way, the film leans towards favouring the authorities if while denouncing their conduct and subtly implicating the American occupation forces for tacitly backing them. The only source of resistance comes from a conflicted Christian soldier who is racked with guilt over what he’s been asked to do, but still asks God to help him detect communists which suggests he does not necessarily think this actually wrong if the right people are being targeted. Rooting the resistance in faith further muddies the waters and perhaps just introduces a third source of potential authoritarism in the presence of organised religion, while simultaneously adding a subtly anti-communist sentiment.

Conversely, the presence of the village’s shamaness adds a slightly less problematic voice of moral authority as she does her best to protect the villagers while staying behind to fulfil her role in service to the gods. Much of the film focuses on a little girl, Hae-sang, trying to find her mother in the mountains after surviving the massacre in her village conducted in retaliation for losses on the army’s side. That she becomes mute after witnessing so much trauma mimics the way in which these events have been suppressed and continue to haunt the island into the present day. Hae-sang’s mother Ajin had wanted a “better world” for her in which she could be educated and wouldn’t necessarily be left with no other option than to be a diver like she was, though the film’s melancholy conclusion largely renders this desire along with the idea of Hae-seng has a historical witness rather moot. Nevertheless, the film takes it’s title from a local wild plant sprouting all over the mountain that comes to stand in for the local people whom the authorities may have attempted to ruthlessly weed out but instead have endured and grown stronger in the face of hardship and adversity.

Hallan screens as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Trailer (Korean subtitles only)

Top Star (톱스타, Park Joong-hoon, 2013)

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Fame is good, but can turn you into a monster, according to entertainment industry veteran Won-joon (Kim Min-jun) in the directorial debut from actor Park Hoon-jung, Top Star (톱스타). Apparently inspired by the time park was caught smoking marijuana, the film explores the cutthroat nature of Korea’s entertainment industry in which stars are often held to unfairly high standards, but equally the pressures of success and the lengths some people will go to to maintain it.

Tae-sik’s (Uhm Tae-woong) problem is that he started out as Won-joon’s manager, or really more like a personal assistant in which he was responsible for all of Won-joon’s life including covering for his various indiscretions which Tae-sik did without a second thought. For his part, Won-joon tries to be a cool boss, but when he gives Tae-sik the night off for his birthday it backfires for both of them. Tae-sik is refused entry to a posh club he goes to all the time because he’s not with Won-joon, ramming home to him how insignificant he really is. Won-joon, meanwhile, irresponsibly gets behind the wheel of his sports car after a few drinks. He ends up knocking a delivery driver off his bike, but in consideration of his position, just drives off. Though he later considers turning himself in, his management team won’t allow it. Tae-sik ends up taking the blame, though in return Won-joon promises to make his dreams of becoming an actor come true by getting him a part in his latest TV drama.

It’s not really explained why the drunken hit-and-run would end Won-joon’s career but is apparently not a barrier to Tae-sik starting one. His star soon starts to rise to point that he begins to rival Won-joon by pinching some of his advertising gigs. Won-joon can’t help but see this as a kind of betrayal, feeling professionally threatened and also a little resentful that Tae-sik does not appear to value their friendship. There is a curiously homoerotic tension between them, but part of the problem is that despite what Won-joon says they can’t really be friends because of the power differential and the fact that they have now become rivals. Won-joon has almost become a target to hit for Tae-sik, while Won-joon continues to look down on him, making constant cracks about how he used to be his dogsbody to put him back in his place.

At the same time, others in the industry regard Tae-sik as “tasteless” and “low class”, a vulgar upstart who is too overt in his ambition and too crass to fit into the pseudo-upper-class world of show business given his working-class background. A subplot sees him wrestling with the expectation that he will take care of a father that abandoned him and has since developed dementia. In some ways, he’ll always be the driver who was turned away from the club. A film director keen enough to work with him to wait hours sitting in a park even point blank tells him that he’s not a good actor and that all he has going for him is “energy”, so he shouldn’t be so picky about his projects. Yet these kinds of comments only seem to spur Tae-sik on to prove himself by living a superstar lifestyle.

Nevertheless, he disapproves of the way Won-joon behaves with women and particularly his treatment of secret girlfriend Mi-na (So Yi-hyun), a producer, on whom Tae-sik also has a crush. His relationship with Won-joon may have begun as a kind of hero worship that Won-joon wilfully used to his advantage, but soon descends into toxic rivalry while Tae-sik’s own insecurities lead him to ruin what he has in always seeking more. He begins to treat those around him badly. Having made his own best friend his manager, what began as a friendship between equals is soon disrupted by the same power imbalance that marred his relationship with Won-joon. Betraying his management company, he strikes out on his own producing a project he pinched from the veteran actor but becomes an on-set tyrant demanding endless retakes in search of a perfection that doesn’t exist because of his own insecurities. He will stop at nothing to maintain his position as “top star”, but eventually suffers an ironic fate that nevertheless humbles him and finally reminds Tae-sik what it was he really wanted as a lowly manager dreaming of showbiz success. Won-joon was right, fame really does turn you into a monster one way or another, and even in Tae-sik’s desire to start over there’s a kernel of desperation that suggests once it’s got its claws into you, it’ll never really let go.

The Romantic President (피아노 치는 대통령, Jeon Man-bae, 2002)

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A pure-hearted politician finds himself falling for an uncompromising teacher in Jeon Man-bae’s nonsense comedy Romantic President (피아노 치는 대통령, Piano chineun daetongnyeong). This president is indeed “romantic” in the sense that he is an idealised vision of a political leader. The film doesn’t go into his politics at all and it’s ambiguous where he belongs on the political divide. Instead, he is depicted as a man of integrity who is good and kind. In short, the kind of political leader that might not really exist in real life.

Min-wook (Ahn Sung-ki) first appears in disguise having gone undercover to talk to a group of homeless people living at the station. While talking to them, he himself is harassed by a policeman overstepping the bounds of his authority. The policeman calls the men “trash” and says that they disgust ordinary people. Little knowing who he is, the policeman bullies Min-wook who then identifies himself by striking the same pose as on as his campaign photo.

Something similar happens later when Min-wook decides to take a day driving a taxi in order to get closer to the people he is supposed to be serving. All of which marks him out as someone who is genuinely interested in the lives of the electorate and how to make them better. Though references are made to other political scandals, Min-wook seems to be held to a different standard and is a figure of integrity and incorruptibility. This is, however, why his romance is so dangerous in that It complicates his image and the secrecy involved because of his position makes it seem like he’s done something wrong or that there is an illicit quality to his relationship with schoolteacher Eun-soo (Choi Ji-woo). However, at the film’s conclusion, Min-wook admits that the “piano-playing president” was a persona he constructed for the purpose of winning the election, which is to say inauthentic. He has been lying all along, but his romance with Eun-soo has made it impossible for him to continue with the subterfuge. Only by being his true self can he gain romantic fulfilment even if it comes at the cost of his political career.

For her part, Eun-soo may also be harbouring a secret that paints her as something of a political rebel and possible extremist. She has failed to keep a job for more than six months because of her eccentric behaviour and intense interest in teaching in which, like Min-wook, she is invested in her pupils lives and wants to do what she can to make them better. On arrival at her new school she poses as a pupil to find out the class gossip and then becomes determined to save Young-hee (Im Soo-jung) who has become a delinquent little knowing she is the president’s daughter. No one else is willing to go against the Blue House with the consequence that Young-hee has become drunk on power, rebelling in the hope that someone will push back. Eun-soo is that person and soon earns Young-hee’s trust precisely because of the genuine interest she takes in her that is undaunted by her father’s position.

Young-hee too responds to authenticity and gradually becomes more authentic herself through her interactions with Eun-soo. Nevertheless, at the same time, the film suggests that society remains judgemental and is not always prepared to recognise an individual’s authentic identity. Eun-soo’s roommate is a transwoman who is repeatedly deadnamed and then eventually outed by the invasive press when Eun-soo’s relationship with Min-wook is exposed. Nevertheless, Eun-soo strives to protect her friend while accepting that she may have to deny her feelings to protect Min-wook’s position.

Despite all the silliness and zany antics, the film has a degree of earnestness at its heart in which it believes that it shouldn’t be wrong to express one’s true feelings. Authority figures can fall in love too, and it’s better for everyone if they do, otherwise you end up with the toxic combination of power and unhappiness that causes the policeman to abuse his authority to bully the homeless. Even so, the irony is that on becoming Min-wook’s official partner, Eun-soo must again play another role, radically altering her appearance to conform to the image of the president’s wife. Nevertheless, once authentically embraced, their love is accepted by the wider society which is then itself improved as a result.

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Target (표적, Chang, 2014)

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A doctor finds himself dragged into conspiracy after saving the life of a man framed for murder in Chang’s South Korean remake of the French action thriller Point Blank (표적, Pyojeok). Despite having seen off an assassin, Tae-jun (Lee Jin-wook) doesn’t take too long wrestling with his medical ethics when his pregnant wife is kidnapped and immediately decides to give up his patient to whoever is looking for him, but just like the bad guys, he’s picked the wrong man to mess with because Yeo-hoon is a former mercenary with nothing but revenge on his mind.

Tae-jun’s determination does however make it clear the extent to which people are prepared to compromise their morals when something important to them is threatened. The person that kidnapped his wife thought he no choice either and is only trying to protect someone close to him. They are all at the mercy of a corrupt system. It turns out that Yeo-hoon has been framed for murdering a businessman who manipulated the market to buy an apartment building at a cheaper price, but his partner would rather have all the money for himself so decided to knock him off. Corrupt police officer Song (Yoo Jun-sang) has been running a side business as a hitman aided by his team of equally compromised subordinates and decided that Yeo-hoon’s brother, who has learning difficulties, would make a good fall guy because they assumed he was an orphan with no family to go asking questions. What they didn’t bargain for was dealing with a ruthless and highly trained opponent like Yeo-hoon.

Tae-jun didn’t really bargain on that either and is originally unsure how far he can trust Yeo-hoon (Ryu Seung-ryong) though technically, they’re on the same side. The loyal police officers have the same issue, resentful of Song because he’s pinched their case rather than realising he’s only done so to cover up his own corruption. Nevertheless, like Tae-jun and Yeo-hoon, policewoman Soo-jin (Jo Eun-ji) is also after revenge for the loss of someone close to her. In truth, her tearful distress and inability to dispose of female superior’s belongings hints at a deeper connection than simple loyalty to her fallen comrade. Her need for revenge is as hot as Yeo-hoon’s, though she too originally believes Song’s version of events and is only motivated to look deeper precisely because it matters to her how her friend died.

There is then a theme of frustrated familial reunions that runs under that of the overriding corruption that surrounds them. Yeo-hoon returned home to reunite with his brother but is too late to stop him being drawn into Song’s web, while Soo-jin wants vengeance for her friend, and Tae-jun to save his wife and unborn child. Though not everything can be repaired, there is a final restoration of the family in the closing scenes in which Yeo-hoon is reunited with his dog and is symbolically adopted as a brother to Tae-jun and a new member of his family. To that extent, the film suggests that familial bonds are the ultimate defence and rebellion against the corruption of men like Song whom, one of his subordinate says, would even sell his parents for money.

Nevertheless, the real focus is propulsive action and Chang keeps the tension high as Ryu Seung-ryong shows off his skills as an action with several high-octane hand-to-hand combat scenes, along with shootouts and explosions even before the police station finale in which Yeo-hoon must attack the very structure of law enforcement to clear out its inherent corruption. Tae-jun, meanwhile, is more of a hapless stooge left with little other choice than to follow along behind Yeo-hoon while trying to weaponise the righteousness of the good police officers to locate and rescue his wife before the bad guys can take care of what they see as a loose end. For her part, Hee-joo (Cho Yeo-jeong) is mostly reduced to a damsel in distress, but at the same time in her role as a psychologist and is able to extend sympathy to Sang-hoon helping him see the error of his ways and further emphasising the film’s familial themes. Though incomplete, justice of a kind at least is served in the exposure of the corruption and the final moment of healing which exists outside the system in the reinforcing of the simple bonds between people.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Traffickers (공모자들, Kim Hong-sun, 2012)

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The one with money and power wins. The ones without it lose everything they’ve got. In many ways, it’s the overriding message of contemporary Korean cinema, but the words take on an even darker hue when uttered by the villain of Kim Hong-sun’s illegal organ transplant drama, Traffickers (공모자들, Gongmojadeul). The film’s Korean title, Conspirators, hints at the ways that this world reduces everyone to one degree or another to something less than human as they chase often small dreams of health, comfort, and happiness, in which the central conspiracy comes to stand in for a world ruled by power and money.

Young-gyu (Im Chang-jung) used to be an organ trafficker, but gave up that side of his business when his best friend was killed by a victim who woke up unexpectedly and tried to escape. Since then, he’s smuggled moderately less inhuman things and has developed a crush on a young woman who works on the ticket counter at the port. Yu-ri (Jo Yoon-hee) has a sick father who needs a transplant, but the one was lined up for is cancelled at the last minute apparently because she neglected to inform them of an issue which gave them an excuse to pull out in what seems to be a suggestion that the list is being manipulated. Fearing her only option is the black market, Yu-ri is in desperate need of money and turn to one of Young-gyu’s acquaintances, the leader of a Chinese gang. To get her the money Young-gyu decides to pull one last job, but soon finds himself in over his head as his new target turns out to have a connection to his past.

The film never really goes into Yu-ri’s decision get her father a black market transplant but rather focuses on her desperation as someone who has been frozen out of the legitimate system which itself already prioritises those with means to fight for better or more efficient treatment. It’s not clear if she is aware that the organ may come from someone who has been killed deliberately for that purpose, or if she knew but decided her father’s life was more important than theirs. Nor is it clear if she’s thought through the repercussions of indebting herself to gangsters for some of whom organ harvesting is just another means of debt collection. In any case, all she really cares about is saving her father and it seems she is willing to do whatever that takes. 

To that extent, what they prey on is desperation. The gangsters don’t expect their victims to ask too many questions, because this is all illegal anyway and they’re already at their last resort to save a loved one’s life. That said, it seems strange that they would choose Chae-hee (Jung Ji-yoon), a young woman who uses a wheelchair and thinks she’s just going to China on holiday, who is travelling with her husband, to be their next victim given that there is obviously someone who is going to be looking for her. They generally assume most of their other victims won’t be missed and write them off as those of little consequence swallowed by a dog-eat-dog world. It seems that part of the gangster’s motivation is that they don’t want to become victims themselves so have chosen the path of violence and inhumanity. 

But despite his occupation, Young-gyu is conflicted about the bloodiness of his work and on realising that he has a connection to Chae-hee begins to want to save her while equally wanting to save Yu-ri and her father. The traffickers have, however, sold them all false promise in that it’s mainly the people who were trying to buy transplants that end up becoming victims and it’s not actually clear who is getting any of these organs until a final suggestion that they’re actually going to rich people in Korea who wanted to jump the transplant queue, meaning people like Yu-ri and and her father lose out twice over. Organ trafficking works hand in hand with life insurance scams looking to make money off human misery while rich elderly men buy the blood and organs of young ones in a kind of human sacrifice they think will return their youth and and vitality in an one the nose metaphor for how the older generation oppresses the young. In this bleak and nihilistic world, the film suggests that its villain was right. The ones with money and power win, while those without are quite literally consumed and exploited by a corrupt and inhuman system. 

Trailer (English subtitles

Invisible 2: Chasing The Ghost Sound (귀신소리 찾기, Yoo Jun-suk, 2011)

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After hearing ghostly voices in her guest house, a middle-aged woman calls in a famous paranormal investigator but is put out when he arrives with a film crew in tow in Yoo Jun-suk’s eerie fake documentary footage horror movie, Invisible 2: Chasing The Ghost Sound (귀신소리 찾기, Gwisin Soli Chajgi). As might be assumed, nothing is quite as it seems, but as the relations between Geum-ja (Jeong Eui-soon), ghost hunter Pil-woo, and the few crew begin to  decline, the ghost may be the least of their worries.

Geum-ja’s guest house is a traditional-style villa out in the country and at this time of year all but cut off by snow which is why it proves so hard for the team to reach. However, if the place is haunted, it’s by someone much more recently deceased than the Joseon-era past. Geum-ja suspects it may be her late sister and that she may have a message for her. That’s apparently why she contacted Pil-woo, hoping he would be able to record the ghostly voices and tell her what they say. 

Pil-woo, however, is suspicious of Geum-ja and suspects she may have been somehow involved with her sister’s death. Unable to find any sings of the paranormal activity, he thinks the ghost is probably a manifestation of Geum-ja’s guilt. He’s not particularly bothered about the potential crime, but is quite irritated that she’s wasted his time. She had indeed been reluctant to key him in on the facts of the case and may also have misled him. It seems Geum-ja’s sister Geum-seon may have been having an affair with Geum-ja’s husband, who has apparently not returned to haunt Geum-ja, or at least not in this form. 

But just as the crew are leaving, Geum-ja begins screaming and claims she can hear a voice that no one else can. Pil-woo too picks up five fragments of a ghostly voice from around the villa but struggles to assemble them into a coherent whole. This sudden reversal, however, only raises suspicion with the director of the TV crew who find Pil-woo’s discovery a little too convenient. He suggests that Pil-woo and Geum-ja may be in it together to cook up a ghost show. Pil-woo sees himself a genuine investigator and seems unhappy about working with the TV crew in the first place. He thinks of them as charlatans who regularly stage paranormal investigations to make the show entertaining. 

Geum-ja didn’t want to be on TV, either, though perhaps as Pil-woo suspects that she doesn’t really want to draw attention to herself or risk other things she might not want exposed coming to light. Pil-woo had suggested it was all a manifestation of her guilt, but never stopped to consider that both things could be true. Geum-ja and Geum-seon were twins, which means she is essentially haunted and confronting herself as expressed through the lengthy mirror shot in which Geum-ja converses with Geum-seon though her own reflection. Geum-seon plays a kind of game with her as if they were children, turning the sounds into a puzzle that must be solved in order to unlock the truth of her message. 

Yoo finally returns to make ionic usage of the eerie shot through a glass coffee table that opened the film as the malevolent presence eventually makes itself known.The villa becomes a more literal kind of haunted space, but as Pil-woo discovers its melancholy secret may be of a more ordinary kind, Geum-ja seeks a kind of reverse retribution, comforting the ghost of her sister but also asking for an apology as if she had the upper hand in this situation while wandering around in the team’s “stupid helmet” trying to root Geum-seon out. The dread only deepens as she comes closer to solving the puzzle and receiving its chilling message. Then again, perhaps the message is that Geum-ja should have just ignored the nagging voices in her head rather than chasing after ghostly echoes or seeking absolution from spirits rather than reckon with a painful reality. Though Geum-ja may see herself as the victim, so too may Geum-seon as the pair chase each other through the eerie space of the darkened villa with seemingly no escape for either.

The Distributors (유포자들, Hong Seok-ku, 2022)

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When Yu-bin (Park Sung-hoon) finds himself being blackmailed after being drugged in a club and videoed by an attractive young woman, he can’t help but feel hard done by. A teacher who once aspired to making films, he’s on the verge of marrying his fiancée Sun-ae (Kim So-eun) who is from an incredibly wealthy and very conservative pro-Japanese family, but if any of this gets out he can kiss his comfortable life goodbye. His focus is not, however, on how he shouldn’t have gone to his friend’s night club after promising Sun-ae he wouldn’t, but how he can cover all this up so she doesn’t find out he took two girls back to their flat when she was away on a business trip.

Hong Seok-ku’s The Distributors (유포자들, Yoopojadeul) never quite keys in to the fact that its hero’s a bit of a slimeball who nevertheless thinks he’s a good guy, and more often than not falls into his hard done by mindset. This might, however, echo the perspective of the average man in a society in which illicit photography has become a hot-button issue. As the film opens, Yu-bin is inflicting corporal punishment on two boys who’ve been caught taking inappropriate videos of women, which is perhaps not the best way to deal with this issue. Though he emphasises that they’ve done wrong, he’s also sort of on their side in that he agrees not to take this any further in case it damages their futures. Ji-ho, in particular, is on track to get into Seoul University and Yu-bin can’t really work out why he might have done something like this. The other boy Seong-min, happens to be his fiancée’s younger brother and predictably blames everything on Ji-ho.

It is then quite ironic that Yu-bin finds himself a victim of a video taken without his consent that shows him in a compromising position. Seven years earlier, he’d been accused of posting revenge porn after a former girlfriend broke up with him and had to pay her legal compensation. He claims that he didn’t intentionally leak it, but that his friend Sang-beom (Song Jin-woo) found it on his computer and uploaded it to the internet to make money on amateur porn sites. But again, his focus is more on how to make this go away rather than the harm he may have caused to Ga-young. She tells him that her life’s been ruined and that it’s pure hell to feel as if everyone’s looking at you wondering if they’ve seen the video. He, however, offers her money and suggests they settle this “like civilised people”, which is in itself not so different from blackmail while suggesting that she’s being unreasonable in not letting the matter drop.

Meanwhile, what Yu-bin might actually be worried about is that he’s made a tape of him and Sun-ae that she may not even know about or have consented to. In any case, his carelessness has meant that this video too might end up online ruining her life in the same way as Ga-young’s while the consequences for him are only mild humiliation and the breaking of his engagement. It’s not exactly clear how he and Sun-ae ended up meeting, but there’s a mild implication that he’s only really with her for the luxury lifestyle she provides while her father, who objects to the marriage because Yu-bin is not of their social class, also offers him career advancement in sponsoring a film department at the school. 

The blackmailer, Yu-bin, and his friend Sang-beom all make ironic references to this being like a Hitchcock movie, though Yu-bin is not really a “wrong man” so much as one running away from his own cowardice and imperfections. In his film class, he shows the children Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid, which is certainly an ironic choice given that it ends with a direct message warning men of the dangers of adultery and to always remember their duties to their family as husbands and fathers. Even Yu-bin’s sadly looking out through a rainy window echoes Kim’s cinematography, though Yu-bin is still in the mindset of feeling sorry for himself rather than coming to the realisation that even if it’s not Ga-young who is punishing him, he has never really faced his role in what happened to her or accepted responsibility for his failure to safeguard her privacy. Only now, when it’s him, does he begin to understand not only that he’s been selfish but that he’s failed in his role as a teacher by not figuring out what was going on with the boys and the videos while focussing on protecting their futures rather than those of the young women around them who deserve safety and respect but are provided little of either by a male-dominated society.

Trailer (English subtitles)