Clever Turtles

My friend once had to chance to ask the great Korean director Park Chan-wook a question when he was promoting "박쥐" ("Thirst") here in Honolulu. "Why," he asked, "aren't there decent Korean science-fiction movies?"

This SF/Fantasy/Action film does not provide a counter-example. I would have to say this movies takes Korean SF to a new low. The plot is absolutely incomprehensible -- the only reason I have the slightest clue what was happening was because of the synopsis printed on the Netflix sleeve. To crib from Statler and Waldorf, it's best point is the relatively short running time of 80 minutes.

I recently discovered that the independent film "후회하지 않아" ("No Regret") was available through a US distributor. It is purportedly the first feature film to be produced in Korea by a gay director, and is one of the few Korean films to focus on queer relationships in Korea. Furthermore, one of the leads is played by the popular actor Kim Nam-gil, albeit under a pseudonym.

I had been trying to track this movie down for years, but it unfortunately passed out of currency within a few years of it's release. Hopefully it will become more available now that director Kim Ji-woon is getting more attention. The only version available through Netflix, and apparently Amazon, is the Chinese dub (what the hell?) and I never ran across it when I was browsing video stores in Korea.

I haven't been keeping up with my 130 Korean movies project, but I have seen some movies over the summer and fall (the last time I posted on it). I will try to make a brief comment on each.

4. "프란다스의 개" ("Barking Dogs Never Bite" or "The Dog of Flanders")

Entertainment blog PopSeoul! published a list of the Top Ten K Movies of All Time (six through ten and five through one). The list is . . . unsurprising. If you're a moderate fan of K culture, you've probably already seen them.

[There are a few I haven't seen yet, but that's just because I'm stubborn.]

I'm really lagging on the 130 K movies/year project, I know. Since I'm going to be studying in Korea during the summer hopefully I'll be able to really pick up the pace.

This weekend I watched the Korean gangster movie "비열한 거리", or "A Dirty Carnival". It is an attempt to make a gangster movie that is less romantic and more sympathetic to the subjects. The story starts out strong, with a protagonist who becomes a gangster due to the necessity of caring for his family but not having the means to get a good job. He is intensely loyal to his friends and underlings, but after he's cheated by his superior he is hard pressed to make ends meet.

Recently the Korea Times (the most popular English-language newspaper in Korea, which is slightly more relevant than the most popular Swahili-language newspaper in Canada) recently printed an article about a guy from Taiwan who, in the course of his study of Korean, watched 130 movies in one year.

Since I have nothing else to do but study Korean and watch movies, I figured I might as well give it a shot. I will try to watch 130 Korean movies within 365 days.

FUCK YEAH!

EDIT: Also, they're apparently planning a US remake of 친절한 금자씨. I'm pretty agnostic regarding remakes, and this film has a lot of angles to explore in different ways. I expect an American remake will avoid the international adoption subplot and play up the prison story aspect, which could be cool.

One of the formative experiences in my dad's life was serving on a submarine when he was a young man. This was indirectly communicated to me as my family has watched pretty much every submarine movie ever made. (My brother once summarized every submarine movie in thirty seconds. It was hilarious, and I hope he writes it down some time.)