A harried Korean executive finds common ground with a trio of men from an Amazonian indigenous community while training them to win a medal in an international archery competition in Kim Chang-ju’s genial comedy, Amazon Bullseye (아마존 활명수, Amazon Hwalmyeongsu). Though mostly avoiding the obvious pitfalls of its subject matter and taking extreme care to be respectful to the indigenous people of the Amazon, it has to be said that the film otherwise has some rather outdated humour. Nevertheless, it does have some secondary points to make about exploitative businesses practices in Korea and abroad along with the destruction of natural world that goes hand in hand with capitalist expansion.
Jin-bong (Ryu Seung-ryong) once won a gold medal for archery, but is now a middle-aged office worker whose career is on the skids. After chewing him out for failing to make any significant deals, his boss, Park (Jeon Seok-ho), has a new proposition for him. He wants Jin-bong to go to the Amazonian nation of Boledor and close a deal to allow them to open a gold mine or else face compulsory redundancy. He’s supposed to do this by coaching their national archery team to win a medal in the upcoming championships. Unfortunately, the helicopter he’s travelling on is struck by lightning and he’s marooned in the jungle only to be rescued by an indigenous community who then conclude he’s an emissary from the Boledor authorities and has come to destroy the village in which case he must die.
But Jin-bong finds unexpected connection with Walbu (J.B. Oliveira) who is also a father of three children and is later welcomed after saving his daughter from a wolf attack. As the young men communicate with the animal and try to convince it to return to the forest, it becomes obvious that they have a respect for the land that an urban man like Jin-bong does not. Unbeknownst to him, they have already refused permission to open the goldmine and are fiercely opposed to any encroachment on their land or traditional way of life. After seeing just how bad the national team is, Jin-bong has the idea of asking the men from the indigenous community to compete instead but is only able to persuade them by convincing the president to legally sign the land over so it can’t ever be redeveloped and they’ll never be moved on.
Of course, that wasn’t quite what his boss had in mind so even though Jin-bong is protective of the Tagauri, it’s clear his company always meant to exploit them and doesn’t care about the environment or the preservation of traditional culture. Jin-bong too is oppressed by this system and only participates in the first place because he fears losing his job not least because it’s so unlikely he’d be able to find another at his age. Jin-bong has three children and a feisty wife (Yeom Hye-ran ) who complains that she’s already had to sell some of their possessions because they can’t afford all the bills on their poky flat. He may then envy the apparent simplicity of life in the forest. On returning home the three men remark on how silly everyone is in Korea suffering all month long for something called “money” they use to buy tasteless “dead meat” rather than going into the forest and getting some like a normal person. But they also point out that they aren’t really all that different seeing as people still love their children and fathers work hard to support and protect them.
Nevertheless, there are perhaps a few too many jokes about Jin-bong’s “scary” nagging wife and his position as a henpecked husband. It may also go too far in exploring cultural difference as the trio is arrested for doing things like carrying their bows and arrows around and using them to shoot fish in the river that runs through the middle of Seoul. They also start a campfire in Jin-bong’s apartment to make a traditional smoked chicken dish and are confused by Jin-bong’s reaction to this well-meaning attempt to share their culture with him. While they’re in Korea, they start to become a little more Korean with chieftain’s son Eba (Luan Brum) even developing an appreciation for super spicy kimchi. But they also observe the high rise buildings and constant construction as echoes of the fate that may soon befall the village if the Bolderan government and Jin-bong’s company get their way. Through their sporting pursuit, the men discover a way to take back control, tell the world about the Tagauri, and mobilise public opinion against the faceless corporation to ensure that they can protect their land and way of life from the ravages of chaebol culture.
Trailer (Korean subtitles only)
The real and the unreal. In the era of fake news, it’s become ever harder to draw a clear line between the two but when you live online, the borders are even more permeable. Twelve years after the wartime comedy Welcome to Dongmakgol, director Park Kwang-hyun finally makes a return to the director’s chair with an action packed cyberpunk thriller which joins the ranks of recent Korean films bemoaning the country’s hardwired tendency to social inequality where the rich and powerful are free to run roughshod over the merely ordinary. Fabricated City (조작된 도시, Jojakdwen Doshi) refers to more than just the literally manufactured online world, but to the social reality in which unseen forces govern and define the lives of others, operating in secret behind a government backed curtain.
Corruption has become a major theme in Korean cinema. Perhaps understandably given current events, but you’ll have to look hard to find anyone occupying a high level corporate, political, or judicial position who can be counted worthy of public trust in any Korean film from the democratic era. Cho Ui-seok’s Master (마스터) goes further than most in building its case higher and harder as its sleazy, heartless, conman of an antagonist casts himself onto the world stage as some kind of international megastar promising riches to the poor all the while planning to deprive them of what little they have. The forces which oppose him, cerebral cops from the financial fraud devision, may be committed to exposing his criminality but they aren’t above playing his game to do it.
Windows on Worlds 