Recenzii filme...

The Man From Nowhere

South Korea may just be the most exciting place on the planet these days when it comes to stylish and violent thrillers filled with action, melodrama, and Asian people. By the time most of them hit our shores there’s a fairly good idea as to their quality and what can be expected, but once in a rare while a movie arrives that’s a complete unknown. Seems only fitting that it happened most recently with a new film called The Man From Nowhere. It’s The Professional meets Taken, and yes, it’s almost as awesome as that mash-up makes it sound.

Tae-sik Cha (Bin Won) leads a simple and quiet life as a pawn shop broker, and while he tries to keep everyone around him at a distance the persistence of one young girl eventually wears him down and he welcomes her into his life. Begrudgingly. So-mi (Sae-ron Kim) lives with a drug addled mother who alternates between verbally abusing and ignoring her daughter completely, so instead of suffering in silence So-mi visits Tae-sik daily and an odd but effective friendship develops between the two. A past act of greed on behalf of So-mi’s mother leads some gangsters to come calling, and they take the woman and child before foolishly confronting the pawnbroker too. If only they knew about his dark and violent past that left him very well-trained in the fine art of combat and pain infliction. If only they knew how goddamn good he was with a knife…

The story doesn’t hold any big surprises, but the sheer force of the characters and action drives it forward with style. Tae-sik’s first bits of action occur off-screen, and much like the bad guys and cops looking for him we’re simply shown the aftermath and told what he did. It builds the character’s persona so that when we finally see him act we’re ready to be impressed. And we’re not disappointed.

Won scraps hand to hand with several baddies and while he’s no Donnie Yen he proves quite capable. He was last seen on these shores as the mentally slow young man arrested for murder in Bong Joon-ho’s Mother, and his role here couldn’t be any more different. It’s even further from the roles he’s best known for that usually found him a happy and pleasant young man. He embraces his inner badness with a kinetic verve and has a bright future playing ass kickers who rarely smile. And while Kim doesn’t get to fight she is an incredibly solid and emotional little actress.

Tae-sik is brutal, fast, and determined, and once the chain of events set him in motion he becomes a whirling dervish of flesh-cutting fury. I probably used that term incorrectly there, but so be it. The final string of fights in the film include a knife fight that makes the one in Michael Jackson’s Beat It video look like child’s play. It should go down as one of the best on film thanks to some incredible choreography, copious amount of blood, and sheer brutality.

This being a Korean film it does run a little too long and could easily lose about twenty minutes or so of fat. And part of that fat is a handful of overly melodramatic scenes milked for audience tears . But it’s hard to stay angry with director Jeong-beom Lee because he delivers so well in just about every other way.

This is a sweet ass flick, and even with a couple minor (and typically Korean) issues it succeeds thanks to two strong lead performances, some truly impressive and crowd-pleasing scenes, and a finale that features the best cinematic knife fight to hit screens in years. Lee has made a beautiful genre flick that keeps the necessary and familiar elements but ramps up the style and utter coolness to eleven. Or to열한 (yeolhan) for you native speakers.

____________________________________________Rob Hunter________

71 Into the Fire

Hollywood doesn’t seem all that interested in the Korean War, at least not to the same degree that they show towards WWII and Vietnam. Sure there were several films made back in the 50s and 60s, but since then there’s been MASH and… After MASH? South Korean cinema, on the contrary, is still exploring the subject in film on a regular basis. Their increased interest is understandable especially as they still sit on the brink of war with their northern neighbors. Tae Guk Gi and Welcome To Dongmakgol were both big budget hits in recent years, even if they approach the subject in wildly different ways, and now one more brilliant looking film can be added to the constantly growing list.

71 Into the Fire is based on the true story of 71 teenage students forced by fate to join the fray with little notice. They took up arms and stood guard over a middle school which sat on a strategic point of interest for both sides. Hundreds of elite North Korean soldiers advanced, and the students managed to hold them at bay for eleven hours. May not seem like a long time to someone sitting comfortably in from to their computer, but it was a lifetime for these teens and just long enough to allow time for South Korean reinforcements to arrive.

But enough talk. Check out this beautifully bombastic trailer now.

____________________________________________Rob Hunter_________

Mother

Living in the US it’s easy to forget how many fantastic film directors there are currently living and working elsewhere in the world. Their movies rarely reach our theaters, so when they do it’s imperative (a moral imperative dammit!) that we support them… it’s win/win as we get to see and enjoy great film-making, and the distributors get to see there’s an audience for movies that require reading comprehension. South Korea has had a fairly consistent output over recent years thanks in no small part to a handful of directors (like Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, and Kim Ji-woon) who’ve yet to release a film that’s anything less than stellar. And yes, I’m having to pretend that I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK was directed by Smithee Alan-ho…

A mother (Kim Hye-ja) watches as her adult son waves at her from across the street. She’s focused on him instead of her task at hand, cutting dry herb stalks with a large knife, and when he gets grazed by a passing car she rushes out with such concern that she never even registers she’s just sliced her finger with the blade. That singular devotion becomes her driving force when Do-joon (Won Bin) gets accused of murdering a teenage girl on his way home from a bar one night.  He’s arrested on circumstantial evidence and judged guilty by the court of public opinion, but his mother refuses to believe their version of events. She sets out on her own to find the truth and prove her son’s innocence by any means necessary, and she soon discovers a trail of deception and sexual deviance that runs through the darkest corners of town.

What’s the mother of a lovable goofball son to do?

Bong Joon-ho returns to familiar thematic territory with Mother as he revisits the dark mystery, police ineptitude, and secret lives he explored in his second movie, Memories of Murder. This film takes a different path though as instead of focusing on the violent and confused efforts of law enforcement we watch as a small but devoted older woman takes matters into her own hands. She’s almost as fearless as the police as she digs her nose into the small-town gossip surrounding the victim, confronts young thugs, and walks willingly into the den of a possible killer. But her actions aren’t based strictly on a need for justice or a sense of right and wrong… they’re powered by a combination of limitless love and secret guilt.

There’s a mystery at the heart of Mother, more than one actually, but the element that will hold your attention through to the end is more than just suspense. It’s the character. The heart and soul ofMother can be found in its lead actress, Kim Hye-ja. Known in Korea for playing matronly roles, albeit more traditional ones, Kim tears into her character with a terrific blend of concern, determination, and intensity. The tone of her voice and the look in her eyes tell us so much more than dialogue alone could ever convey.

The fact that our protagonist is a woman, an elderly one at that, changes the entire dynamic of what otherwise could have easily become a more traditional and standard revenge mystery. A more masculine hero would have beat his way through town in an attempt to discover the truth and clear his child’s name, but Do-joon’s mother doesn’t have that option. Instead she’s forced to improvise with wit, forced sympathy, and sheer will power. The viewer’s allegiance aligns with her so a suspect in her eyes is one in ours as well, and Bong uses that to his advantage as he sends the woman (and his viewers) on a journey filled will false leads, doubt, and danger.

We first meet her standing in a field moments before she suddenly begins to sway and dance to music only she can hear. It immediately sets a tone of uncertainty that will weave its way throughout the movie, but it’s one familiar to fans of Bong’s work and to Korean cinema in general. That tone, and the opening scene in particular, may be off-putting or confusing to Western audiences at first. But the cloud should last only long enough to ease our way into a world that seems foreign but soon reveals itself to be about familiar emotions and concerns. The film’s ending carries on a bit longer than some folks may find necessary, but it’s a fitting denouement to an unexpected and harrowing journey.

Mother is a dark, twisted, and surprisingly humorous look at familial devotion under extreme conditions. It’s also one more excellent film from a director that has yet to make anything less. Bong Joon-ho masterfully combines a beautiful visual style and the ugliness found within humanity to create something exhilarating and sorrowful. His camera peers into dimly lit windows just as easily as it does into the human soul, and he manages to make the mundane just as beautiful as the extraordinary.

___________________________________________Rob Hunter_____________