Director / Writer : Jang Jun-Hwan
Cast : Shin Ha-Kyun, Paek Yun-Sik, Hwang Jeong-Min, Lee Jae-Young, Lee Joo-Hyun

Synopsis
Byung-Gu explains to his girlfriend Sooni that aliens live on planet earth and are responsible for all the problems on the planet. Byung concludes that the wealthy and successful businessman Kang Man-Shik is a top alien and so he and Sooni kidnap the man in the hope that he will allow them to speak to the Alien Prince of Andromeda. When Man-Shik responds with confusion at his being kidnapped and doesn’t tell them what they want to hear, Byung-Gu is already prepared. To save the planet he will torture the truth out of the man…

Review
by Martin Cleary

For some reason I thought that Save The Green Planet was a ‘crazy’ comedy. The film’s colourful posters and adverts all depict Shin Ha-Kyun smiling like a moron. Even looking at the dvd case I was still expecting something possibly Stephen Chow-like. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Green Planet is partly a comedy – and yes, it has some brilliantly funny scenes – but it’s also quite nasty. Think Reservoir Dogs meets Men In Black and that’s still only part-way to describing this amazing film from South Korea.

We know from the outset of STGP that Kang Man-Shik isn’t a very nice character. He’s a wealthy businessman who refuses to pay the driver the whole cost of the trip home, and he’s very drunk and leery. Then, Byung-Gu and his girlfriend Sooni turn up wearing ridiculous costumes and accuse him of being an alien from the planet Andromeda. We’re fairly convinced that Byung-Gu’s got a screw loose. The rich man seems to be an arse, not an alien. After a struggle, Byung-Gu and Sooni kidnap the man. All three of them arrive back at Byung-Gu’s house, where they strip Man-Shik down to his sparkly red boxer-shorts and shave his head (so he can’t call his alien friends for help through his hair). From here STGP slows down just for a
second, long enough for us to wonder just what the hell is going on here. To reveal anything that happens next would be unfair as the narrative spins of into all sorts of bizarre and brilliant angles. To call this off-beat is an understatement. What follows is part cop movie, part romance, part science fiction, part – well it’s hard to think of a film genre that isn’t in some way injected into the mix. There’s even a short martial arts fight scene! How the hell the director has managed to shoe-horn all of these elements in is beyond me. (A quick warning to anyone squeemish: one of the most surprising elements of the film is the violence – this film does get fairly nasty just when you’re not expecting it.)

As surprising as the film is, what is the biggest surprise is how well it all actually works together. You’re never quite sure who the victim is in the film, and there’s a strange attraction to all of the main characters. There’s no real un-likeable characters here, you like them all – which is unusual considering several of them perform some horrible torture and violence.I certainly wasn’t expecting it, but I was completely blown away by Save The Green Planet. The fact that this is a film from a first-time director is gob-smacking. With the majority of films you get to a point where you know roughly what will happen heading towards the end – I didn’t when I was watching this film. The film’s cast can not be praised highly enough – especially the two central performances from Shin Ha-Kyun and Paek Yun-Sik. Ha-Kyun takes that stupid grin from the film’s poster and turn’s it into a character of its own. In an amazing performance he manages to mix violence and anger with a genuine warmth and sympathy. The fact that Yun-Sik manages to match Ha-Kyun’s powerhouse performance is a sign of just how good this film is. As the tortured businessman he manages to convince that he is a complete and rounded character – yes he’s a bastard, but his sheer ‘hard-headedness’ is impressive. Also, worth a mention is Hwang Jeong-Min as the simple girlfriend Sooni. It’s a role which is tiny in size but she manages to make a large impact. Have I gushed on about this enough? I could keep going on about the cinematography, script and soundtrack all day – but I won’t.

I loved Save The Green Planet, it’s one of the most surprising films I’ve ever seen and although it won’t be to everyone’s taste (if you can’t stand violence then steer clear) it’s worth a look from anyone who likes something a bit different. If you do see it, you’ll never hear the song ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ in the same way again. See it!

Rating
Plot : 5/5
Acting : 4/5
Entertainment : 5/5
Overall : 5/5

Notable Scenes
- Byung-Gu’s costume
- The opening theme tune
- The martial arts fight
- The anal probe (?!)
- The rest of the film!

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Save The Green Planet
 

Director : Wook-Suk Kang
Cast : Kyung-gu Sol, Sung-jae Lee, Shin-il Kang, Jeong-hak Kim and Yong-gu Do.

Synopsis
Ruthless cop Chul-Joong and a merciless killer in a raincoat run into each other in a small alleyway and form a fatal bond. A free-for-all fight occurs by coincidence on a rainy street. A week later, the dead bodies of an old couple are discovered…

Review
by Edward Tang

I beg of everyone today, do not compare your film to another on the DVD cover because you won’t get my business. It’s a shame that films given this added touch like this can’t sell themselves enough to generate good buzz for just being a good f*ckin’ movie by itself. This film on the other hand didn’t need anything like “The Korean Dirty Harry” because Public Enemy is a great film without any doubt. Sure, it follows the same type of role that Dirty Harry made famous (The renegade cop not following the rules bit that has been done so many times it really sucks) but thankfully this film has enough going for it to make you forget all about that tacked on marketing shit. I enjoyed myself during this film, especially for the performance from Kyung-gu Sol whom plays the role better than most of have tried the same crappy path. This film also has a nice standard, instead of relying on a SURPRISE killer at the end, we are given him in the beginning and guess what? They still get the job done at the end of the day. Sure the plot has been beat to death, but thankfully there is enough black humor and other shit to make this film worth watching again.

(Tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar) Cheol-jung is a RUTHLESS homicide detective, one who doesn’t give a shit about the rules. He has money problems, he’s getting investigated by the Internal Affairs and he doesn’t mind punching a few gangsters to get some information. One night on lookout, he needs to crap, so like a man he shits on the street. He bumps into a hooded man, who he confronts and eventually they throw down in a fight, leaving Cheol-jung sliced. This man is named Kyuhwan, he’s a rich asshole who had just finished killing his parents just before knocking into the shitting police officer. Evidence piles up, and Cheol-jung suspects that Kyuhwan is behind the entire thing. We know he is, as does Cheol-jung, but he can’t prove shit. Eventually the dozens of confrontations with Kyuhwan gets him demoted down to a crappy traffic officer. Hell even the cocky Kyuhwan gets into the shit and kills some guy who poured milk all over him. Does this matter to a RENEGADE? No. Cheol-jung finds the missing piece to the puzzle, a fingernail that was knocked off of Kyuhwan’s finger that made it’s way into his mother’s throat. Of course, Cheol-jung goes back into the detective business and puts that bastard behind bars! 100+100+15….215 years!

It was truly hard for me to stop watching this flick because I really got into it and that surprised me. The fact that surprised me was that it truly didn’t break any ground in the genre, maybe in a few comedy notes mixed in with graphic stabbing scenes but nothing more than that. I never got bored during this film and even though I knew the probable outcome, I still was hooked into this guy and waiting for the conclusion which ended the right way. The conflicting natures in this film is two people who are assholes in general, one being a little more harsh than the other. The question of ethics and police procedure breaks into the mind of the average police officer but not to him. That was basically the cliche factor of this film, the stale nature of the plot that wasn’t improved in this film at all. The movement of this film relied on the constant jabs and humorous notes from most of the cast, which worked on all accounts. From fart gags to the classic “putting your hand in shit”, this film is all over the place. Then we get a married couple stabbed to death in the most heinous way possible (Take into account that the stabber stabbed his parents).

Hell, there were even some kickass fight scenes in this film. Well, maybe not KICKASS but still fun. Cheol-jung just needed to get a few things off of his chest, and he goes and takes control of what looks like a robbery. He takes these assholes out and makes them clean up the mess they made, that’s justice. This is the type of ending I like in a film by the way. Cheol-jung doesn’t arrest him or shoot him dead, he kicks the shit out of this guy, pours flour on the guy (This is the “mark” he left on his victims), lights a cigarette and takes a seat on his lifeless form. It’s hard not to like the character in general, he knows his shit and doesn’t fuck around. But as we fall again, the character doesn’t really fall into the classic Clint Eastwood variation but more of a loser-type who still can kick ass and crap on sidewalks.

The direction is sharp, can you go ask just anyone to make a serial killer movie where the serial killer is revealed in the first scene, and make it good? Doubtful. His style and pace is excellent, shifting easily from an intense thriller back to a slapstick comedy. I’ve heard how people found this style quick and crappy, I liked it and it was a nice change to laugh during a serial killer flick. Wook-Suk Kang directed the sequel and the 2003 flick Silmido and so far what I’ve seen, I’ve liked. The one thing that really pissed me off was the generic music score in this film that almost sounded like another version of what is now known as the “Pulp Fiction theme.” Yeah and the hooded aspect of the killer was really cheesy in my opinion. Hmm, you’re wearing a raincoat during the day? That’s pretty interesting and I guess the slipping in shit really didn’t improve my already ruptured stomach from a night at the Bacon Barn. Was that montage where Cheol-jung was chasing down the killer down a bunch of places really necessary? Pretty funny though.

Cheol-jung is played masterfully by Kyung-gu Sol, and does the genre boys proud with his offbeat portrayal of the anti-hero cop. His part is basically the best of the film, he’s probably the funniest and captures the screen with his presence. His performance is basically all over the place like this film, at one point he’s calling everyone an idiot, but on the next he’s screaming into a telephone on how murder is wrong in a very serious way. His character abuses his job as other follow and try to understand his bizarre methods. Hell even the Internal Affairs guys who think this guy is a crook are laughing at his ways. To battle our anti-hero, we are given a character who is very much not the psychotic killer we have all been given to know. Sung-jae Lee plays the mostly calm killer who has a point to his killing although only a psycho who constantly craps himself and talks to frogs can see why this was justified. His manner is calm and collective to the point where he becomes cocky in his kills to taunt Cheol-jung into going berserk. The rest of the cast was pretty generic, I liked the police captain who was slapping everyone, pretty damn funny.

Basically this film was fun. I couldn’t find really anything that annoyed me in this film, sure we’ve seen the story before but the added flare to this was makes it a shining example when the Dirty Harry factor can be done correct and not be pissing away the same thing. I’d also suggest the sequel to anybody who likes this one, as it carries the same attitude with a political presence in mind as well. That’s about it, just see the flick and watch a good film in motion.

Rating
Plot : 3/5
Acting : 4/5
Entertainment : 5/5
Overall : 4/5

Notable Scenes
- The fight between Cheol-jung and Kyuhwan during the final scenes.

Buy this movie at  YesAsia – Public Enemy

Director : Byeong-ki Ahn
Cast : Ji-won Ha, Yu-mi Kim, Woo-jae Choi, Ji-yeon Choi and Seo-woo Eun.

Synopsis
Soon after Ji-won gets a new cell phone, her friend’s young daughter, Yeong-ju, puts it to her ear and immediately begins screaming in terror. When other strange things start happening in connection with the phone, Ji-Won does some investigating and discovers that of the people before her who had the same number, almost all of them died suddenly under unusual circumstances. As Yeong-ju’s behavior becomes increasingly alarming, Ji-won digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the number’s first owner, a high school girl named Jin-hie.

Review
by Edward Tang

For the last year or so, I’ve seen about 15 movies that center around the telephone. The telephone is a device that can be used for many purposes, like getting pizza or calling a 35 year old woman and enjoying yourself in more ways than one. But these small ideas couldn’t fit with the writers of the world, so the phone became a demonic device which signaled your death with an eerie phone call.

Ringu was this film and it remains one of the most popular (if not THE) Japanese horror films ever to grace the silver screen. But with success comes loads of irritating and mostly depressing films that just try to mooch off the success of Ringu! So I guess you could consider Phone to be a mooched idea, which it obviously is but this time they just don’t give a shit if you know. Hell, they titled the film PHONE, how more generic could you be? “Well since we are just basically taking the Ringu concept which is based upon a demonic killer who calls you, why not just call it Phone?” The film itself succeeds in taking this well known formula and relaying it into a few different ideas that by God, actually work! YES! The story and characters, while basically a carbon copy, hit all the right notes! Phone remains as another genre film but it captures your interest which little can admit towards.

I’ll be the first to admit that I liked Phone even though at first glance you could tell it was a copy. The story plays out like this: PEOPLE GET CALLS AND DIE, GIRL GETS CALL AND NIECE GOES WEIRD, WE LEARN ABOUT GIRL WHO WAS KILLED AND IS REAPING HER REVENGE THROUGH THE PHONE AND TWIST OCCURS THAT IS JUST WHAT WE DIDN’T EXPECT. Hopefully I didn’t just ruin the movie for you, but if I did there’s always a chance you can skim through LoveAsianFilm and read my 50 or so reviews for 90 minutes (That stuff is gold!) But anyways, the film relies on the thought process because the story really does take you in. There is a curiosity on the true events which gets the audience hyped up for the fun filled conclusion. I think that the film falls into the director’s hands who carefully weaves a story together that is on the same level of Ringu but has more of an emotional side that then falls into a violent Jerry Springer episode (Basically people die in a love triangle and there’s no white trash..sorry if I got your hopes up). The story is choppy and sometimes it cuts too quickly into the past which might make you scratch your head, but the effect is better than if there was some lousy old guy doing voice over or a bunch of people expressing the scenes in the dialog.

The director uses a bunch of cliches when we think about horror films, a bunch of quick shots towards scary little girls and the all time favorite, weird imagery. I got irritated with them after a while but then they just stopped. It seemed that the asshole just decided that half way into the film that he’d just stop the weird shots and just focus on the storied aspects. The horror crap in the beginning was just plain hokey but when we got into WHY this ghost was doing her deeds, it got very interesting. The story unfolded and gave you a little tidbit after tidbit which worked in the sense that it would change your views into who the characters were and if you agreed with their processes. I thought that the final moments of the film (about the last 20 minutes or so) were the best and made the film better from all of the random crap that happened in the beginning. For if you haven’t read my reviews (GOLD), you know that I hate horror films and their aspects, so the crap in the beginning just pissed me off more than anything.

There are of course bad moments in the film, which include that it just doesn’t break any new ground. This can be said for the action genre as well as the horror. Both of these genres have their top films, their bad films and those that aren’t bad but ultimately unforgettable. So my question to you all out there, if you had to choose the GREAT film over the good film that copies it, which would you choose? That’s what puts Phone into the ground, people will refer to it as a Ringu-copy and it will be thrown down the crapper. Other things like the typical horror gimmicks and some of the dreaded overacting applies to this category as well. Hell even the ringing phone got on my fucking nerves at the end. The ending of the film was kind of cliche with a “EVERYTHING IS NOW HOW IT SHOULD BE AND I SHALL GET RID OF THAT EVIL PHONE”, which to me basically says that “Well, we couldn’t end the movie any other way, why not just end it on a high note? Anybody got some pot?”

The final thing I’ll mention is the acting which is decent for a film like this. I thought that the performances were good in the fact that they were acting in a HORROR film. They could read their lines and do it without smiling, “Oh, I’m sorry I botched the line, it just doesn’t sound how people really talk. But what do I know? I’m just a person!” Everyone was good especially that little girl who made some extreme mean faces at the screen with mean eyes and such. I really didn’t need an added dimension when the girl is going through her “psycho spell”, she falls into having a sexual desire for her father. Yeah, this is a seven year old girl we are referring to. Let’s hold that thought in for a little bit…..that’s fucking nasty. Back on topic! Along with the average performances was the typically corny musical score that kind of seemed like one you’d hear in a badly done action film.

Well, along the lines of being an obvious ripoff of Ringu, it works in all the ways it should: giving the audience a few scary moments and a good story that keeps your interest peaked. I myself won’t be returning for a second look but what I saw was an example of how to do ripoff a film, but to do it with a smile on your face.

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting : 3/5
Entertainment : 3/5
Overall : 3/5

Notable Scenes
- Discovering the truth behind the whole shabangabang.

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Phone

Director : Jae-yeon Yun
Cast : Ji-hyo Song, Han-byeol Park, An Jo, Ji-Yeon Park and Su-a Hong

Synopsis
A staircase leading to the dormitory of a remote boarding school usually has 28 stairs, but every so often there appears to be 29. When someone steps on the mysterious extra stair, the horror begins.

Review
by Edward Tang

This is the second Korean horror flick I’ve seen in a row (Acacia was the first) and I must say that they should concentrate on something else. This film is supposedly the third in a trilogy of “Ghost films”, after seeing this it seems that I probably won’t be visiting the other two films.

You’d basically have “Wishing Stairs”, a film that struggles to make it out of the pack as something original and interesting. It’s got every typical cliche: weird people who go insane for no reason, moments that jump out and are suppose to make you jump as well (unsuccessful), and of course a plot that could have been written by a twelve year old who just happened to realize that “Hey, my parents do hate me.” I can’t see how anybody would enjoy this film because it doesn’t do anything that warrants half an emotion. THROUGHOUT this entire film, I was waiting for something to happen, just something that would at least keep my interest, sadly it never came and was probably getting high at the mini-mall over on Reseda. 

The story is like any horror story, it finds a happy situation and puts a twist on it as to effect the main characters and people around them. The location is an all girl’s school (I didn’t see any dudes, so I’ll assume this). Then we are introduced to the wishing stairs, which are simply stairs you climb and you wish for something when you reach the top. I should have noticed the crappy plot, but I didn’t and got sucked another made-for-money flicks that have nothing true to offer. Anyways, the story continues where this girl wants to become a champion ballet dancer, so she goes up the stairs and wishes for this. Obviously there has to be a horror element, so what happens is that her friend gets hurt, so she takes the reigns and becomes the champion or whatever. Her friend dies in some way, and this triggers another psycho chick who has been abusing the stairs for her own use (losing weight and whatever) and has some crush on the dead girl. So we go into typical mode, people go crazy and we have a bunch of overacting and crying until we reach the end, and everybody stands up and prays to God that the crap has been flushed. 

Okay, now the story might sound okay but the way it was shot made it seem long and uneventful. This one aspect hurts me the most, waiting for something to happen. This is the point of a horror film! MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN, but when they tried to attempt this simple task, it was basically something that has been overused or just plain annoying. But then again, this film really didn’t seem like a horror film because two-thirds of the film didn’t focus on this, only until we get to the final few minutes is this film did we see a concoctions of crazy images and a little bit of gore. It wasn’t a horror film, it was kind of a side story on how high school sucks and it takes a toll on the human spirit to not be able to fit in. But that aspect was not looked upon, rather they tried to scare the audience with worthless tactics and most of all scenes that look like they were directly stolen from other films. Anybody who has seen a good amount of horror flicks ever see when water turns into blood? Yeah you have and if you’ve been picking up Tartan’s fall release, you’ve seen enough of it. 

From the story we got into the neighborhood of typical crap. Typical Crap has a population of morons, from obsessive people who can’t fit into society toward people who are just scary to be scary. These characters aren’t anything special, they sit there and react to surroundings, we don’t care about them or they can’t warrant us to even care if they get stabbed to death or whatever. There’s an outcast girl, you know she is going to cause trouble, she’s a fat chick who gets picked on and so forth. You’ll see it coming that she’s going to stab the bully and see her smile and spout stupid phrases that only fictional crazy people would have the balls to say. If you can’t see what I’m saying, it’s simple: These characters aren’t unique or special, they are just a bunch of typical cliches who are just made to move the crappy plot along. And what’s with this image focus on these Korean horror flicks? I saw Acacia (crap) the other day and the focus was on a tree, this time it’s stairs. Literally, I think writers just look out their windows and proclaim, “I’ll write a half-assed screenplay about that!” 

The acting isn’t actually half bad. There were some good performances for the most part, everyone except the fat chick who just hammed (and ate the ham) it up for the screen. But aside from her shittiness, the cast acted well. Maybe that’s not saying much for a horror film but I don’t know what else to say. There are some good moments between the main characters that showcase some talent in the fact that they can read their lines and be convincing at the same time. But this film is the last one that this type of acting should be tried with because you could basically speak with no tongue and fit into the typical mold of the horror character: ATTRACTIVE WOMAN WHO RUNS AWAY WHEN THINGS GET SCARY!. Alas, I think that someone should get all of these filmmakers together and just watch some of the good ol’ classics and just blatantly steal from them. Why not? I’d prefer a copy of another film to one that tries to be itself while in the process of taking from other films. At least the former is honest about the theft of the obvious situations and bloody showers. 

So what in store for Asian horror? Is the fad done? There have been too many horror films that are just typical of the genre that are obviously rented for the fact that people want entertainment but this gets thrown to the ground because nobody has stepped up to pull out a good horror film. South Korea is probably the place to go for the kickass cinema these days but they still can’t improve on where the horror film is going, right down the f*cking drain. I respect Tartan Videos, because they’ve been releasing great copies of Korean flicks for the past few years added with some great special features, but why should they continue to pick up these waste of time films? If you chose money, you can sit back down because that’s the only positive of I could see out of this. The horror films still remain to be typical and worthless but we will continue to shell out the dollars to see them.

Well when it comes down to it, Wishing Stairs is just another film that should not have been made because it has nothing to offer to the movie fan. It’s a ripoff and just never gets anywhere special that could prove it to be unique in it’s respective genre. Okay, basically I’d avoid it unless you can’t live without crappy horror films that just continue to spew the same worthless images and bad overacting until the viewer is just annoyed in the process. Hopefully one day, someone will realize that these films suck and will make something that can cure my hatred for this genre. Until that happens, avoid this and check something else out that can at least give you a good time.

Rating
Plot : 2/5
Acting : 2/5
Entertainment : 1/5
Overall : 2/5

Notable Scenes
- Nothing that you can’t see in any other generic horror film

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Wishing Stairs

Director : Baek Woon-Hak
Cast : Seok-hun Kim, Sang-min Park, Du-na Bae and Oh-jung Kwon

Synopsis
When a former undercover agent takes a crowded subway hostage, one detective must risk it all by facing the terrorist in a deadly showdown.

Review
by Edward Tang

When you see a film that is compared to others in this fashion “In the same game as Speed and Under Siege, comes this rip roaring action packed film straight for South Korea!”, just avoid it like the f*ckin’ plague. They tried to hard with that line, but I’m still a sap, and knowing that Korea has produced some good action films (Namely Shiri), this one was a no-brainer considering the low price tag. Through the notion that some films can be crap but still be “entertaining” can be used in many categories, I”m afraid “Tube” falls a little bit short. I don’t know what this film tried to accomplish, because it wasn’t a fast-paced film. There were many parts that were trying to build this dramatic side to the characters, which just didn’t do anything for the time at hand. Sure it’s like Speed and Under Siege, it successfully takes their plot and characters and makes them even worse! Alas, the action sequences weren’t that good at all, there were two in general that involved big bitch machine guns and thousands of slugs being sprayed all over the place, but they looked sloppy and belong in the “visited territory” box.

The story is basically a cliche if I have ever seen one. Renegade Cop Jay is basically your typical hero. This time, they included two of the cliched aspects into his character: one being the fact that he doesn’t follow rules, the other is that his wife was killed by the main bad dude. So basically we enter the film and are given a pretty good gun battle, with the terrorist T and his cronies. After this, we learn that Jay and T are bitter enemies, both hate each other and so on. So Jay meets Kay (a girl) and they somewhat form a relationship. See here’s the part where I lost interest, they form some sort of relationship that doesn’t go anywhere, since Jay still has a hard erection for his dead wife. Pointless and pathetic, but whatever. So T takes over a train, Jay of course gets on this train, and shit happens. Basically we find the conclusion sitting on our shoulders, of Jay having to kill himself to save a bunch of worthless people.

There is a side plot that involves one of the train workers and his girlfriend, which never amounts to anything other than a tearful hug at the end. There’s something that is used during the story of a microchip that has a bunch of evidence on it that can put away some guy for life. The story is pretty typical but some of the paths they cross just don’t add up to anything. There’s a decent fight scene with T and Jay, which ends with T almost falling out of the train with Jay holding on. T lets go of Jay’s shirt and falls under the train, but we never see a body. I’m sure he died, but the way they shot it gave me the feeling that he survived. Whatever the case may be, I didn’t really like how they did that particular scene. They also abused the voice over, with that attractive bitch Kay and how she rambles on about nothing. I think somewhere down the road voice-over should be banned, because when done wrong, it really sucks. Guess what? It sucks in this!

Ah the one salvation in this film could be the action sequences, but once again they are a bunch of cliched sequences that showcases nothing new. The main characters never miss or are never hit, maybe in the arm but never deadly. T and Jay fighting was nothing to look forward to, they throw each other around and do a bunch of emotional “YOU KILLED MY WIFE” crap and just nothing special. The beginning gun fight in particular reminded me of the 1995 film entitled Heat (Starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino) although the one in Heat was better. But alas, the scenes just couldn’t do anything to make themselves unique. There was a familiar bike chase, a familiar stunt jumping off the bike and onto the train, which just goes to show that those things have been done too often. Just to mention this, the musical score seemed so typical to something you’d find in an overdone action film that’s 100 million dollar budget doesn’t save it from being a horribly directed and written film.

As for the cast, nobody stood out. The group of hostages on the train seemed to be piled on from different films as well, giving some of them a little bit of a backstory and a little more importance than they should deserve. I have a question for all of you out there, would you even think about trying to wrestle a terrorist to the floor in a life or death situation? Yeah I figured as such, nobody would waste their time, and yet once again, there are still stupid people who try to accomplish such goals. Jay, Kay and T are the three main characters, all of whom don’t do anything to establish themselves as hated or loved. T played the typical bad guy, not speaking that much but still can handle one hell of a machine gun. Kay looked good but she was annoying, especially her rambling over the VO. Then we get to Jay, a guy who lost his wife and now wants T dead, what shall he do? Like I said, we have the typical cast, all right up to the guy who doesn’t believe in the plan that will sacrifice the people on the train to save others.

Basically you have a crappy film that if you can’t find anything else, it makes for a solid night of average entertaining if intoxicated. If you aren’t, I suggest straying away and going toward the films that it stole from, or hell why not just rewatch Shiri? Find something better to do with your time rather than take this bad boy on, because it just isn’t anything special.

Rating
Plot : 1/5
Acting : 2/5
Entertainment : 2/5
Overall : 2/5

Notable Scenes
- The lousy shootout in the beginning

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Tube

Director : Bong Joon-ho
Cast : Song Kang-Ho, Byun Hee-Bong, Bae Doo-Na, Park Hae-Il, Go Ah-Sung, Lee Jae-Eung, Kim Roi-Ha, Park No-Shik, Yoon Je-Moon, Im Pil-Sung

Synopsis
As it has done for ages, the Han River continues to pierce the very center of the capital city Seoul. But one day in the year 2000….Through an unfortunate incident, a creature of an obscure nature is conceived in the waters of the river. As the creature slowly starts to grow in the depths of the river, people fail to sense signs of an impending disaster, devoting themselves to the Korea-Japan World Cup soccer finals, the President elections and to their individual lives. Then one day in 2005, in front of countless citizens taking a stroll and enjoying the weekend on the banks of the Han River, the creature reveals itself in a shocking display of horror.

Review
by Jin Hien Lau

Infusing the high concept entertainment values of Jaws or Snakes On A Plane with Oscar worthy portrayal of humanity’s struggle for survival with a pinch of tongue in cheek anti-bureaucracy subtext. That’s the best I can describe Bong Joon Ho’s “The Host” (Goemul) .

Let me make it clear now and proclaim this to be the best movie of 2006. (well, the best amongst what I’ve seen) . For those of you too lazy to read the synopsis and wondering what movie deserves such praise, you might want to brace yourself for a bit of an anticlimax when I tell you it’s essentially a Kaiju movie. This movie might very well be renamed “Monster by the River” by its inevitable International distributors and we internet elitists cant really even complain. But taking risk with such a campy concept and making it a full blown drama is testament to Director Bong Joon Ho’s talents.

Gang Du (Song Kang Ho) is the apparently slow son of a riverside snack stall owner Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong). Looked down by his amateur competitive archer sister Nam-joo (Bae Doona) and unemployed college graduate brother Nam-il (Park Hae-Il). The only source of his devotion and motivation in life comes from his motherless school age daughter Hyun-seo (Ko Ah-sung). Hyun-seo is somewhat of a beacon of hope that binds the slightly unsatisfied family together. Her character is vital to the whole family and mostly Gang Du, and sets the whole narrative in motion when the monster decides to come out of its hiding one day and snatch her away. (and chewing and mauling down on quite a few others on the way).

Director Bong Joon Ho did the unconventional within the Monster film genre here in that he focuses the story on the family in this somewhat ridiculous situation. Instead of the pack of military experts escorting a worm collecting scientific genius that is the norm in monster movies. And frankly, it’s so refreshing you would wonder why no one did it before. Since it generates so much more sympathy for the protagonists. (yeah, who really cared for any of the humans in all those old Godzilla movies, we just wanted to see more destruction )

Family is perhaps the main theme of the film as for the bulk of the film we relate to these characters as they go thru anything ad everything including making severe mis-steps trying to reunite with Hyun-Seo and survive as a family again. It is all handled in a very believable and humane way and is not sugar coated at all. If anything, they even suffered severely for their mistake which makes it all the more engaging for the audience to sympathise with them, warts and all.

Also, making the narrative believable and refreshing is how the monster has been treated. It is in the end essentially just a force of natural disaster instead of an antagonist with premeditated evil intent. Simply put, it is just a beast out to make a habitat for itself and survive.

If there is an antagonist in this film it will have to be the bureaucrats, the authorities that only creates obstacles for the family on their journey. It is perhaps a watermark of Bong to criticise the incompetence of those in charge in his films as evident from his last film “Memories of a Murder”. But never once was it handled in an accusing or heavy handed way. In fact, it is handled in a way that is tongue in cheek and almost playful way that never undermines its more important subtext.

The whole bureaucratic subtext is influenced by such events as the real life incidents of US military officials ordering the disposal of chemical products into the Han river and political media manipulation that is more than a subtle hint of the Iraq War. Again, all of these only adds to the coherence and engagement of the narrative. Never once was it forceful or distractive.

To sum it up, this is great cinema that balances all the genre and themes that it juggled with and creates a thoroughly refreshing and engaging experience. It is nothing like you’ve ever seen before but everything you would have expected to see in the disaster film that just “gets it right”. Its culinary counterpart could quite possibly be the crazy sounding Mexican chili chicken chocolate mole. It might sound weird with chicken chili and chocolate together, but boy does it taste RIGHT given the touch of a master chef. Bong Joon Ho is precisely that, a master of his craft who has perhaps become my favourite Korean film maker.

Rating
Plot : 4/5
Acting : 4/5
Entertainment : 4/5
Overall : 4/5

Notable Scenes
I feel it is almost irrespective of me to list out specific scenes of this movie as I encourage all to enjoy it as a wholesome experience instead of chunks of little bitie ones.

Buy this movie at YesAsia – The Host

Director : Park Chanwook
Cast : Kang-ho Song, Ha-kyun Shin, Du-na Bae, Ji-Eun Lim, Bo-bae Han and Se-dong Kim

Synopsis
This is the story of Ryu, a deaf man, and his sister, who requires a kidney transplant. Ryu’s boss, Park, has just laid him off, and in order to afford the transplant, Ryu and his girlfriend develop a plan to kidnap Park’s daughter. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.

Review
by Edward Tang

Park Chanwook is awesome. Not only did he produce the ever popular Oldboy (Excellent movie) but he also put his name on JSA: Joint Security Area, a masterpiece in it’s own right. His third film in the Vengeance Saga (Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) picked up the best picture award at the Korean Blue Dragon Awards. Basically, the guy knows how to direct movies that deserve attention and are well worth the price of admission. The same can be said for his first Vengeance-fueled romp in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Okay, so it doesn’t have the BIG surprise at the end or power that Oldboy dishes out but who cares? Sympathy has mucho going for it, including great direction, storytelling and some great performances. I’ve seen three out of the four and I’m currently creaming my pants in anticipation for the third because a guy like this doesn’t come around often when he can make three involving films that basically punch you in the head. And don’t think that you won’t ask for another smack in the face, because this kind of pain is awesome.

Sympathy’s story seems a little toned down from what Oldboy dishes out. This time around we got a young green haired deaf-dumb kid named Ryu who has a dying sister. Like any good brother he wants his sister to live, so he tries everything in his power to make sure that she does. He decides to let them cut out his kidney and give it to her: only problem is that it doesn’t much the blood type. So what does our friend Ryu think next? He goes to some rama-shama (loser) doctor in the middle of nowhere to let them cut out his kidney. Well if you didn’t see this coming, I feel sorry for you: they steal his kidney and leave him to rot. Things are starting to look up later when the doctor tells Ryu that a kidney is ready for his sister if he can put up the 10 million for it. Oh, but poor Ryu had to pay 10 million for the kidney he was going to receive from the Rama-sham assholes but we know where that went. So since he’s now down 10 million and needs some quick cash for the surgery he decides to steal the daughter of his boss. Chances are if you’ve seen a Park Chanwook movie, you might know what happens next. If not, people die and vengeance is sought after! HOY HOY.

To put a spin on things, Ryu’s sister finds out about the whole little thing and kills herself. Then one after one people start to die until we reach the end where it seems that everyone who is everyone died in this movie. Vengeance is a proper word to describe the second half of this movie because that’s when our two main characters seek it. The first half of the film seems to be a little more somber yet likable. Why? Because it seems that the kidnapping of the girl was the only way out for Ryu and his problems. We can agree on everything up until this point. But things get fucked up when his sister finds out that he stole the girl and it hits you like a bag of bricks when Ryu finds her dead in a bathtub. Park Chanwook does this effectively and the tide of the movie shifts as both characters (Park goes after his kidnapped daughter’s captors and Ryu goes after those who stole his kidney) try to take back what was taken from them. We go into hyperactive kill mode now, both characters really don’t give a shit now, as they try to kill everyone who has wronged them.

I’ll try not to spoil the other moments if possible but it’s hard not to because that’s the best part of Park Chanwook’s movies: to understand and think about the stories and if you agree with their motives for death and destruction. But obviously not any director could handle the artwork of this film, from awesome camera shots to brutal violent scenes, you can’t have it any other way if you want to enjoy his films. Yes as mentioned there are a few violent scenes in this film, including somebody getting stabbed in the neck with a knife and slicing the ankles of one of the characters in a harsh way. But as the character is dragged through the river, the blood that pours out of his ankles makes almost an artistic image in the water. I really don’t think this film is entertaining because it really has no feel good emotion whatsoever, you feel sorry for Ryu and Park because both men go through loads of shit and death which seems to follow both of them as they go through this film. It’s some depressing shit, because the “good intentions” get thrown into the well and we end up with loads of dead bodies. Not good in this instance, sad more than anything.

I think that the acting was very much up to snuff as well in this film because everyone that had something prominent to do hit the ball out of the park. Kang-ho Song is a great actor all around, and if you’ve seen some of his acting performances (JSA, Memoirs of Murder) you know what I’m talking about. He plays a lost father who feels lost after his daughter goes missing and his character ultimately feels horrible for his actions but becomes a monster and also becomes a fan of torture. The green haired douche was played by Ha-kyun Shin and he did a good job. I thought the character was dopey but he pulled it off and when he sprouts the tears in the scene where he finds his sister dead, it’s believable. The girlfriend and the sister were played well and you could get with the characters and feel a little bit of their pain. Typical cops and shit aren’t anything to get excited about either but there were a few cool supporting stars. I found those organ bandits a little odd but funny in some weird aspect and that retarded guy seemed to just come out of nowhere and have a spastic attack for no apparent reason.

There were some dull moments in Sympathy for sure but they were mostly made up of the beginning scenes which took a while to get going. I think that the film also had some editing problems because it should have focused more time on Ryu’s sister’s suicide and it seemed to just jet by it. There were more scenes in the movie that felt this way as well. Maybe I wasn’t paying that close attention but how Park found out where Ryu lived and everything seemed to get lost in the swing of things. I think that with Oldboy they got much better with the editing thing because I knew more than I wanted to with that story. The only other thing I can complain about was the ending, whether it was suppose to be clever or whatever, I found it to be stupid. Granted, these points were too small to be noticed but I felt it to be very successful at evoking some damn emotional scenes that just make you “That sucks.”

Hopefully people who see this movie haven’t seen Oldboy first because I’m sure that with a view of that, they’ll have high expectations and throw this one in the water because they were expecting some over the top flick that has the same style. It’s a depressing flick that doesn’t really have any feel good moments, but who cares? It’s a well made flick and has a truly engrossing story….if you haven’t seen it yet, go see it. Pretty basic huh? I’m not doing pony tricks, go see the movie.

Rating
Plot : 4/5
Acting : 4/5
Entertainment : 3/5
Overall : 4/5

Notable Scenes
- The scene which Ryu finds out about his sister’s death
- the nasty death of those bastard organ bandits
- Park’s violent tortures and eventual violent death

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Director : Park Chanwook
Cast :  Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-heong Kang, Dae-han Ji, Dal-su Oh, Byeong-ok Kim and Seung-Shin Lee.

Synopsis
Oh Dae-su is an ordinary Seoul businessman with a wife and little daughter. After a drunken night on the town, he is abducted and locked up in a strange, private “prison.” No one will tell him why he’s there and who his jailer is and his fury builds to single-minded focus of revenge. 15 years later, he is unexpectedly freed, given a new suit, a cell phone and 5 days to unravel the mystery and discover the identity of the enemy who had him imprisoned.

Review
by Edward Tang

Basically seeing this film for the first time is probably one of the better experiences you can have watching cinema. I didn’t think that film could live up to expectations. Frankly, I was surprised that this film was over two years old when I first saw it because it felt so very new to me when I was given the opportunity to view probably one of the true masterpieces of modern cinema. The film has basically everything going for it, whether it’s a complete story that moves you along and never stops until the credits role, or the fact that the actors truly capture their roles, or just because you can still have fun with this film. “Old Boy” is the second Vengeance film in the Park Chanwook trilogy, the first being Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and the final being Sympathy for Lady Vengeance which was just released this year. Old Boy fits into that classic middle chapter that might just make it the most disturbing of all films. During this film we are given some horrific details on why this all went about, which still has me thinking up these entire theories on how Dae-su will live with himself. The only part that makes me scratch my head is the final scenes, a little bit stupid for my taste, but it doesn’t take away from the movie.

Dae-su is a businessman, who gets drunk one night and gets arrested. When he gets out of the police station, he calls his daughter and says hello. His friend grabs the phone and talks for a few seconds. When he turns around, Dae-su is gone. He wakes up later in a “prison” of sorts, not one that you would imagine. The prison looks like an apartment, where he does get a meal everyday and is able to watch TV. “The TV is both a clock and a calendar. It’s your school, your home, your church, your friend…” He also learns that his “friend” also is his worst enemy, as the TV tells him of his wife’s death, and how he is the one who is suspected. For his prison time he begins to “fight”, he even gives himself a tattoo for every year he was imprisoned. After he spends 15 years in the prison, he awakes on the outside, and finds himself in a new suit. He talks to a man and tells him his story, and gets himself use to back to the environment of the world. Going into a restaurant, he wants to eat something alive (I’ll explain later) and meets Mi-do. In this time, his cell phone rings and he is met with a voice, this voice tells him that he is the one who put him in the prison, and that he has to discover why he was in prison. After this, Dae-su passes out and later finds himself in Mi-do’s house. His goal becomes complete, to find out why he was imprisoned and who did it, so he can exact his revenge.

Saying much more would probably give away some of the storied aspect that I would want the person who hasn’t seen this film to find out by themselves. Park Chanwook masterfully crafts this story into one that keeps us on the edge of our seats until we find out the conclusion. Who really is taking vengeance in this film? Sure, Dae-su is the one who lost 15 years of his life, but his prisoner has a secret of his own. His style and pace seems alot more harsh than Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, where you might recall a scene that is one of those that won’t leave you for quite some time. He bites the head off a live octopus, if you were just wondering. I think Park Chanwook’s style makes this film even better, and people out there will probably miss it when the 2006 American version makes its appearance. The people in Oldboy aren’t good people, their actions aren’t forgivable and the only option is the “far-fetched” yet equally important conclusion that Dae-su makes.

For some reason, I found an odd humor out of this film. Especially in the beginning when Dae-su is f*ckin’ around with the police department, it got me to like his character. But equally impressive was how 15 years in prison truly changed him into the monster that he refers to himself as. He even explains this as such in his effective ramblings that is one of the only times that voice-over isn’t abused to the point of pure annoyance. The fight scenes in this film are awesome, from a 5 minute duel through a hallway that shows Chanwook can do some right in the kickass way. This fight showed the transition of what Dae-su had become, and how his goal in life was simple. Maybe the interesting part of this film is that we know of these extreme tortures that the characters are put through, yet we never see them in action. There is teeth pulling and the removal of a tongue via a pair of scissors but we don’t need to see it, the notion of such is bad enough.

What is equally impressive is the fact that we consider in the beginning that Dae-su is truly the hero. Yet even his goal seems to be converged in the fact that somebody is pissed off at him for doing something. When we find out what exactly happened, Dae-su’s ignorance eventually became his failure. This might be a ploy in a way that when you say something, make sure it doesn’t have any negative effects. We are given the finale, a truly emotion ride that is fueled by one man’s hate for the other. The end results are equally as shocking as they are disgusting. The plan had backfolded on Dae-su, for what he learns changes the entire mind frame of what he initially perceived. Fueled by rage before, he is now only controlled by confusion and regret. His prisoner’s plan was truly devious yet vastly resourceful (maybe a little bit unbelievable) but still does the final moments of the film justice. Now for the ending, I was a little bit disappointed by how Dae-su copes with his new found information. As I think of it now, I really don’t know another way out that doesn’t involve death, so I guess that was the only option.

Min-sik Choi’s performance is one to behold, which I think is an accurate portrayal of what a man who fell into his position would actually do. He is believable and some what sympathetic until his character begins to fall into the category of unforgivable. I don’t really consider him the hero, I consider him to be just as much in line with the actions of Ji-tae Yu’s character. Ji-tae Yu has somewhat of a cockiness to him, because he truly believes in what he is accomplishing. Although he does serve another purpose as well, his character is also there to be able to hate and love at the same time. He did accomplish what he needed too, to give the feeling of what he had been with through his entire life, which didn’t even register in Dae-su’s head at the end. Both characters play off each other well, both being of different personality and of total character.

I didn’t really know how to review this film without giving away the ending. Just like in the days when you couldn’t tell anyone that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, this film relies on this ending to give us the emotional punch in the testicles (or vagina if you prefer). Old Boy is quite possibly the most unique film I’ve seen in a while, and it’s good to see something that isn’t horribly cliched like most vengeance films (“I must avenge my father). I can’t wait for part three.

Rating
Plot : 5/5
Acting : 5/5
Entertainment : 4/5
Overall : 5/5

Notable Scenes
- The fight down the hallway
- the revealed truth behind Dae-su’s imprisonment
- Dae Su’s eating of a live octopus.

Buy this movie at YesAsia – Old Boy