Progress Report: Battlestar Galactica: Razor

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials I view them.

---

While I have been enjoying Battlestar Galactica, I found that the third season was a bit uneven when all was done and said. This tempered my enthusiasm for the fourth season, but I was still looking forward to watching it. Interestingly enough, between the third and fourth seasons, a made-for-TV movie, Battlestar Galactica: Razor, was aired. After watching it, I have to level some of the same criticisms I had towards the third season at Razor.

Razor, rather than really being a stand-alone feature, is more of a super-extended episode. A super-extended flashback episode that centers on two timelines; first as the command of the Battlestar Pegasus is transferred to Lee "Apollo" Adama (Jamie Bamber) and secondly back during the first Cylon onslaught where the Battlestar Pegasus escapes under the command of Admiral Helena Cain (Michelle Forbes). These two stories are linked together by Captain Kendra Shaw (Stephanie Jacobson), who served as Cain's assistant and is called upon by Apollo to serve as his executive officer.

The greatest strength of Razor also ends up being the effort's weakness as well. Kendra Shaw actually has a lot of the makings of an interesting character and actually works in tying the two different time periods together. However, due to the requirements of getting all the other major characters involved, Razor frequently fails to center the story on her, resulting in the whole affair lacking focus. And, if the whole affair is supposed to be a stand-alone affair, it would've benefited the story to spend less time with the other BSG characters, many of whom contribute very little to Razor but eat up screen time anymore. On the other hand, if this were supposed to be more of a super-sized BSG episode, Razor is highly inconsequential, being an episode that's all backstory that, with the exception of one tiny revelation at the end, actually adds nothing to the mythos of BSG nor really develops any characters, including Admiral Cain, who is sort of a second highlight in this film--but we either needed more or less of her, because what we see in Razor is rather unsatisfying and, well, cliché.

Razor is shot much like other BSG episodes, although it does have some rather cheesy impressionistic moments. One thing that probably will get a lot of pleasant reactions from long-time BSG fans is the presence of the old-school Cylon centurions and raiders (done up a little via CGI). The regular BSG cast performs expectedly well. Jacobson is all right as Kendra Shaw, neither exceptional nor underperforming. Forbes pulls off the hard-nosed angry Admiral well, but I think she played the character a little too single-dimensionally, which resulted in some of her more vulnerable scenes being stiff. The CGI was at times a little obvious, but befits the production values of a TV feature.

Overall, I think that Razor reflects some of the lesser traits of the third season of BSG. One of its problems in telling backstory is that it really doesn't push the existing characters at all and there really aren't any meaningful revelations for any of them, nor revelations that will really push them forward and that's a problem we saw in most of the flashback episodes in the third season. The other big problem is that Razor really couldn't decide on whether this was going to really be a stand-alone sort of event or just another episode and that lack of decisiveness really reflected in the story, which introduces a potentially interesting character, but never fully commits to her and consequently doesn't live up to its storytelling potential. In the end, that means I have to say that Razor is not notably better than some of the other less significant episodes of the third season. This isn't to say that it's awful as it is still as watchable as any episode of this series, but it is rather unimpressive, especially in how it squanders its potential to tell a much greater story in its time frame. 6/10.

Links:

• Available at Amazon (Blu Ray) / (DVD) and iTunes

Inbox: 내 생애 마지막 스캔들

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

---

Before she tragically ended her own life at the beginning of a wave of high-profile suicides, Choi Jinshil earned an immense amount of critical acclaim for her performance as an ajumma with a second chance at love in the drama Last Scandal. Having heard nothing but good things about this drama, I forwarded it along to my mother and sister to feed their appetite for Korean dramas. They watched it ahead of several other dramas I had previously sent them and were quick to rave about how it might be the best romantic drama I have sent them.

Eventually, the DVD set has made its way back into my own hands, as it seems my mother believes it parallels my own story having an actor for a younger brother. I'm not certain how much I believe that without watching the drama, but I suppose the plethora of critical and popular acclaim suggests that I should give this one a shot. At the very least, it might prove to be good continued research for a spec pilot I'm writing.

The set comes in a cardboard gatefold multi-DVD holder in a cardboard slipcase. The MBC America US version is region 1 and NTSC and the box design is pleasant, but nothing special.

Links:

• Series website
• Watch for free at Crunchyroll and Drama Fever
• Available at Amazon and YesAsia

Progress Report: Battlestar Galactica, Season 3, Episodes 18-20

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials I view them.

---

I feel that Battlestar Galactica works best on a macro-level, when it's dealing with larger issues that are analogous to the ones that we face on a macro-level. The individual character stories in Season 3 always felt a little uninspired ("Hero", "Unfinished Business", "A Day in the Life"), except where a character is represented as working against, with or influencing a larger issue ("The Woman King", "Dirty Hands"). So I was pleased to see that in the last three episodes of the season, Battlestar Galactica zoomed back out and focused on some of the larger stories at hand.

Looking at the show on a larger scale, I think the sci-fi/fantasy mythos of the show is (and please hear me out, BSG fanatics) less interesting than when the show alludes to greater issues surrounding human civilization. Which is why I found some of the political and philosophical issues on New Caprica interesting at the beginning of the season and, I was surprised to find that I actually really enjoyed the whole trail of Gaius Baltar actually very interesting insofar as how it draws up tensions in the socio-systemic world of BSG. I also like the tension between the Cylons and the humans and how it reflects both our humanity and inhumanity and how various characters fall along different lines of the overall idealist/pragmatist spectrum and how it creates conflict.

Now, again, BSG is not a subtle series, it really likes to lay on the themes and the allusions thick so that only the most dense will miss it, but I still really appreciate that it chooses to explore larger philosophical issues, like Lee "Apollo" Adama has to face in the final three episodes, because he is an idealist and a straight arrow. I like how the show teases apart the difference between what is right and what we collectively choose, right or wrong. With all this wonderful thematic play, the whole Cylon/Human conflict and the search for earth seems less interesting in itself, although the Cylon-as-human issue is still interesting intrinsically because of the way it tells the story about how we treat those we perceive as different.

I'd say that the third season of Battlestar Galactica had a share of highs and lows--highs when the show is focusing on what it does best--painting a picture of our own world through its story of humans in flight and pointing out the nuances of morality. It seems to be a little bit weaker when it becomes so focused on its characters, who appear to be built upon archetypes and as we look closer at the characters directly, that seems evident--but when the show examines the characters in a particular context, it comes across stronger. I am hoping that the fourth season really capitalizes on the show's strengths. But, next is the made-for-TV movie, Razor.

Inbox: Kim Dong Won Collection

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

---

Back in college, I actually was taking the path of a documentary filmmaker for a while and after I graduated college, was searching out documentary films. One day, Harvard was presenting a Korean documentary called Repatriation, which, after watching, it quickly rose to become one of my favorite documentaries of all time. In the documentary, we also get to see some of the filmmaker and his troubles in making his films due to their often politically volatile subject matter.

As documentaries in Korea are rarely huge feature affairs, I was sort of afraid that I would never get an opportunity to have Repatriation in my collection and to share it with others, but I read on Seen in Jeonju earlier this year that director Kim Dongwon is actually getting a box set of his documentaries released and looked forward to an opportunity to pick up the set before, like many Korean films, it goes out of print. During my recent trip to Korea, I did just that. I look forward to seeing Repatriation again as well as exploring the many other short subject documentaries explored by this filmmaker and will report as I watch them.

As far as the set goes, it contains four discs, each with a number of short documentaries (although Repatriation gets it's own disc, being a full length feature) all housed within a larger cardboard case and contains a nice booklet in both Korean and English. The discs are not region locked and are in NTSC format. The documentaries are arranged in chronological order (except for Repatriation). I like the relative completeness of the set and the availability of English all over the set, which is very useful for overseas cinephiles. 8/10.

Disc List:

• Disc 1:
• 야고보의 오월 (James' May)
• 상계동올림빅 (Sang-kye-dong Olympics)
• 벼랑에 선 도시빈민 (Standing on the Edge of Death)
• 하느님 보시니 참 좋았다 (God Saw That It Was Good)
• 미디어 숲 소의 사람들 (People In the Forest of Media)
• 행당동 사람들 (Haengdang-dong People)
• Disc 2:
• 하나가 되는 것은 더욱 커지는 일이다 (We'll Be One)
• 명성, 그 6 일의 기록 (The 6 Days Struggle at the Myong Dong Cathedral)
• 또 하나의 세상: 행당동 사람들 2 (Another World We Are Making)
• Disc 3:
• 한 사람 (One Man)
• 철권가족 (Tekken Family)
• 종로, 겨울 (Jongno, Winter)
• 끝나지 않은 전쟁 (63 Years On)
• Disc 4:
  • 송환 (Repatriation)

Links:

• Available at YesAsia

Progress Report: Battlestar Galactica, Season 3, Episodes 13-17

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials I view them.

---

A decent batch of episodes here, with either a lot of arc narrative momentum or some character development. But, again, I wasn't feeling the flashback development of "A Day in the Life", which also doesn't really seem to have any meaningful character development either and feels like filler more than anything else. Similarly, but not entirely, "Maelstrom", which focuses on Starbuck, isn't super convincing and although it contains a major story event and portent, and I liked some of the not-quite-flashback character development here, because it feeds into the larger picture of Starbuck in the overall story, I still felt like it was lackluster at times and the "big moment" of the episode really didn't rattle me at all.

What I did like was the Helo story in "The Woman King", which certainly lacks more than a little nuance, but still explores Helo in an interesting way and I like how Baltar is explored throughout this part of the arc narrative as well, although I do take some issues with how the fleet's perceptions of him so quickly change--it doesn't seem that plausible, considering what happened at the beginning of the season. And the second Tyrol-focused episode "Dirty Hands", even though it doesn't play a big part in the overall story, still actually tells an interesting story about Tyrol and the leadership of the fleet, while putting in a message about social structures.

Not exactly stellar, but more good than bad. Part of this final conflict for the season feels a bit manufactured, which is why I can't buy it wholly, but it's enough to keep me going for now.

Inbox: 박쥐

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

---

Thirst shows a recovery by director Park Chanwook from his poorly received I'm a Cyborg, but That's Okay, which had some interesting moments, but still overall suffered from storytelling issues. While Thirst is more coherent a film, it still suffers from having too many threads its tries to follow and abandons several of them in the process of the film. Fortunately, the overall film still carries a story from front to end and Park's strong direction keeps the film interesting.

Thrist deals with Catholic priest Sanghyun (Song Kangho), who volunteers to test an experimental vaccine at a clinic abroad. He dies and then somehow resurrects, returning to resume his duties as a priest, but is plagued by heightened sensitivity, and slowly, an aversion to sunlight and a thirst for blood. When called to pray for an old and immature childhood friend Kangwoo (Shin Kagyoon), he is reintroduced to that friend's almost sister, whom he married. The temperamental housewife Taejoo (Kim Okbin) and Sanghyun see something in each other and begin an affair, which quickly travels down a very dark path.

The underlying story is all well entrenched in the standards of vampire protagonist fiction, with Sanghyun become as reluctant a vampire as he can be, although clearly coming to accept his damned state. It's still interesting to watch his fall into the beast he's becoming as well as the much quicker descent of Taejoo as she finds a wild release in Sanghyun. Likewise, the film makes an interesting parallel to the other human beings in their lives, contrasting the intrinsic corruption of Sangyun, with the more willing corruption of Taejoo and even the less bloody corruption of others. And while the film does explore themes of morality very well, it's also highly unfocused, especially in the second and third act. One glaring bit involves Kangwoo, whose story never fully resolves and we're left wondering what happened to him. There's also some serious pacing issues, where we find an actual climax to the storyline and you think it's going to wrap up shortly thereafter(and could very well do so), but then the film just keeps going on for another 20-30 minutes adding precious little to the overall picture except for another vampire story that's at least as old as Anne Rice's novels.

One thing that director Park managed to bring to this film which helped it greatly was a touch of visual-aural restraint, where his previous two feature films were at times full of sensory overload. That restraint works well with the dark and quiet tone of this film, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have his virtuoso moments, especially as the film moves along. Park's trademark black humor also returns and like his past films, the different genre elements manage to blend together seamlessly. The almost omnipresent Kang draws a dramatic weight that strongly contrasts to the usually somewhat silly character he normally plays. Younger actor Kim does a surprisingly good job herself, capturing the crazy in Taejoo well. Other actors all seem to do a fine job with their roles as well, including the foreign actors. Sound design is also very good, with a very audible blood-slurping that is part enthralling and part disgusting.

Thirst isn't exactly a return to form, but Park does manage to pull together a decent story and present it like only he can. The narrative messiness does sap some of the air out of the film and distract from the issues presented and I wish a stronger scripting or editing discipline could have been employed to cut out many of the seemingly unnecessary moments of the film and dial away from the long coda at the film's end. Still, Park's directorial restraint really helps make Thirst easier to get into as he turns on the juice so slowly that you slowly become blown away by the imagery you end up seeing and hearing. It's a decent film, just a bit muddled in the middle and with an overlong end. But vampire and genre-film lovers might certainly find it worth a bite. 7/10.

Links:

• Feature website
• Feature Facebook
• Additional Reviews: eastern Kicks, Far East Films, Hangul Celluloid, Koreanfilm.org, New Korean Cinema, Seen in Jeonju, VCinema
• Available at Amazon (DVD) / (Instant), iTunes, and YesAsia (Blu Ray)

Progress Report: Battlestar Galactica, Season 3, Episodes 9-12

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials I view them.

---

All right, I didn't like it when they did it the last round of episodes ("Hero"--by the way, they get a crack pilot back and then they send him off Galactica? Please!), so the flashback revelations in "Unfinished Business" just aren't working for me. I like that they are exploring the tension between Apollo and Starbuck, but the mechanism by which they explore it seems cheap and I'm overall unimpressed by how this "makes things more complex". The following trio of episodes gets back into the season arc (or series arc) of finding Earth, but the preceding episode, "The Passage", which focuses on the supporting character Kat, doesn't impress as it barely brushes the depth of her character.

The pair "The Eye of Jupiter" and "Rapture" do finally become interesting in terms of the overall scope of the series and the developments that happen on a larger level, so these two episodes redeem this block and I especially like how the episodes deal with the interpersonal tension naturally through the stories as well as finally bringing the Hera conflict to a surprisingly simple end. So that redeems this batch of episodes, but I'm still no longer excited about this show and hoping that the overarching story, as well as the individual stories become stronger.

Inbox: 의형제

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

---

Secret Reunion is an interesting beast because it combines the buddy-crime film with a spy thriller and somehow makes it all work out. The film is highly commercially oriented and suffers a little from being both too easy in story and also from being a bit rambling overall (the tendency to run long is certainly a shortcoming in Korean film on a whole). Still, while Secret Reunion might never hit the same kind of highs that other deeper genre films might be able to elicit, it's still decent entertainment.

Secret Reunion has a great premise: six years after a botched assassination attempt leads to a blood bath and the disgrace of both the lead South Korean national security operative Lee Hankyu (Song Kangho) and a North Korean spy Song Jiwon (Kang Dongwon), they run into each other again, both under the belief that the other one doesn't know who he is and furthermore, both not realizing that they are no longer with their previous organizations. Lee, now in the business of tracking down runaway mail-order brides (and their peddlers), offers to hire to Song and the two start to work together. Of course, Lee wants to capture the assassin of six years ago, Shadow (Jeon Gookhwan) and Song wants to get back into the good graces of North Korea so that he can return home to his wife and child. The two begin to bond as they start to work together, but of course, since they're working against each other, problems soon arise with the return of Shadow.

I really like the setup and even the budding friendship between the two characters, who are supposed to be acting in opposition to each other. The execution feels pretty natural, although the film is a touch slow at times (especially in the middle). The big issue that I have with the story is that I find that characterization too neat, especially of Song, who is just too compassionate and, for a trained and supposedly zealous spy/assassin, never kills anyone and yet seems perfectly fine assisting Shadow kill more than a dozen people. Consequently, the ending also just ties up far too nicely and happily and sort of leaves the overall film feeling a little weightless. Which is fine for popcorn entertainment, which this film falls into, but I also feel like there was a great opportunity for a deeper exploration of themes and more complex characters that was avoided to improve commercial approval.

Director Jang Hoon comes to his second feature and brings the competent hand that he showed in his film first. The look is modern, clean and the temperament of the picture really fits it well, never delving too heavily into gritty nor staying bright and friendly. Lead thesps do a fine job, with Song performing with his typical comical tics and Kang being appropriately withdrawn. I was actually surprised at how believable the South/Southeast Asian actors were as well as usually non-Korean actors in Korean films usually drop heavily in credibility (although I can't say whether or not the Vietnamese spoken in the film was believable or not). The one part of the film that made me groan was the "becoming friends" music montage in the middle of the film. I feel like these kind of montages are a bit cheap and made even cheaper when you use a mediocre pop song to try to get the emotional story across.

Overall, Secret Reunion is decent entertainment, but, unlike Jang's previous film, Rough Cut, it doesn't really possess any serious degree of complexity and feels lacking due to the promise of the film's premise. Still, for what it is, Secret Reunion does adequately and can be decent fun. 7/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: eastern Kicks, Hanguk Yeonghwa, KoreanCinema.org, Koreanfilm.org, VCinema
• Available at MrKwang and YesAsia (Blu Ray) / (DVD)

Progress Report: Battlestar Galactica, Season 3, Episodes 6-8

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials I view them.

---

Again, during this batch of episodes, we spend a little more time with the Cylons, but strangely enough, it's becoming a little less interesting. I feel like since the first real Cylon episode back in season 2, all that development was kind of stepped away from. What's interesting is that the series willingly tackles some big issues from "Torn" to "A Measure of Salvation" about genocide and direction. I still don't know if I find the Gaius/Cylon encounters all that believable, but I'm willing to go with it for now.

The one-shot episode that shows up at the end, "Hero", I found to be rather obnoxious on a larger character development level because it seemingly comes out of the blue to "dirty up" Adama--who, by the way, is plenty complicated as it is and I find that this wrinkle to this character feels artificial and even unnecessary because it doesn't add much to Adama's character. And while it does work as a means of moving along Colonel Tigh, I don't feel like it really develops his character very much either.

A passable batch, I guess. I hope the next batch takes the show to another level.

Inbox: M

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

---

Just like with his 1999 hit Nowhere to Hide, I ended up with some really mixed feelings about M, a kind of mystery-drama, from writer-director Lee Myungse. Lee again puts visuals before narrative in his film, which admittedly does work a lot of the time, but I feel that the film suffers, perhaps even more than Nowhere to Hide, from becoming overly bloated, both in running time and the almost relentless visual/aural assault. Still, somehow after I finally got into the third act, I started to find the whole affair interesting and then when the credits rolled, I did end up continuing to think about it, so it has something going for it.

As not to spoil the nature of the film (and because the narrative is very thin), I'll keep the description simple. The protagonist, Minwoo (Kang Dongwon) is a writer, suffering from missing memories and strange dreams. There's also a woman, Mimi (Lee Yeonhee) who has a stalker-level crush on our main man. Minwoo is engaged or newly married to Eunhye (an unusually demure Gong Hyojin), who worries about his condition as he continues to work on a novel that he can't seem to get out. And then he encounters Mimi and there are suggestions that he actually knows her--but how?

Look, I get what Lee is trying to do here using the story as a means of delivering his visuals. At one point, he tells his editors that he's going to be "less poetic, more specific" and fills a page with it. Then he deletes it. The story is actually very simple and is the stuff of short films--it just happens to be dragged out to two hours. There are some tonal issues with the script--with the slapstick moments and romantic comedy moments really rubbing poorly against the otherwise mystery-drama-almost horror atmosphere. It's also nowhere near mysterious if you're paying attention and I knew what was going on right away and I mean from the first moments of the film--and had to wait for almost 70 minutes before the movie caught up, which was kind of frustrating. I also found that the films hyper-idealistic nature didn't match too well with its overall mood and ultimately found the characters difficult to believe.

What is both a strength and weakness of the film is the visuals. Lee is very much a visual (and audio) front and center director and he really goes all out here with every visual cinematic trick in the book, creating a heavily surreal atmosphere: the kind that would make Lynch or Buñuel blush. Some of what he pulls of visually leads to very arresting images and this is especially great when it supports the emotion and story. However, I often felt like he was just doing it to do it and creating unnecessary scenes so that he could add more visuals. And, what's more, it's relentless. There is no moment in the film where he draws back and presents contrasting imagery from his effects laden music-video visuals, which becomes just overwhelming and there are definitely some points where the film would've done well to present the contrast, like in many scenes with Eunhye and Minwoo. The lack of restraint and subtlety often makes M seem like a college student film, and I don't mean that in a good way.

Another thing that the film does well, but also to excess is the sound mix. The film makes great use of surround sound and really kicks the mix into high gear and uses processing and recording techniques to really change up the sound and tie it to the visuals often. However, the sound is often so overwhelming, it almost blunts its own impact. And then there's the acting: it's hyperdramatic much of the time (Lynch again is a good comparison) which does often work with the surreal imagery, but I wish some of the supporting players (especially Eunhye's father) would dial back just a little. Kang and Lee do all right, I suppose, but I feel that Gong's talents were terribly underutilized or perhaps she was miscast.

There is something entrancing about what Lee was doing in M. At times I felt like I was watching an arty animated film, since there was such a strong emphasis on image. But I feel like the film catered so strongly towards imagery that the story that it was built on buckled. I think dialing back or providing a contrast to the hypersurrealism would have actually strongly helped the film, as well as cutting away images that don't actually support the story to keep the film moving along. M is a film of excess built on too simple a skeleton. And there's quite a bit that's enchanting about Lee's visuals and their emotive capacity, but I think better attention to having something more substantive to go with the visuals or at least cutting away from what we're seeing to make sure we're not seeing visuals that have no emotional or narrative point--yes, restraint--would be something Lee would do best to develop. He's a talented director, but more discipline could take his arresting visual-emotive storytelling to the next level. 7/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: Hanguk Yeonghwa, Koreanfilm.org, Rainy Day
• Available at MrKwang and YesAsia

Seen: 아저씨

Seen examines the shows that I see.

---

The Man from Nowhere isn't exactly the most original film ever, especially in its rather simple story, but where it's not necessarily that impressive in its story framework, it is loaded to the gills with great action sequences and enough suspenseful moments to provide a strong enough degree of visceral entertainment to make up for its faults.

The titular man from nowhere is the mysterious Cha Taeshik (Won Bin), a quiet pawnshop owner whose only friend is the kid that lives next door, Somi (Kim Saeron). Somi's mother gets into a bit of trouble with the local gangsters and this gets Somi kidnapped. Of course, when they approach our man from nowhere, they are shocked to find that he's quite deadly. What follows is a roaring rampage of revenge as Cha seeks desperately to rescue Somi, her mother and singlehandedly murder the entire gang that's responsible for her abduction, while evading the police. Lots of fighting and killing ensue.

The story itself mimics a number of other action-oriented pursuit films: the professional killer and little girl setup of Leon (absent the girl for much of the film), the violent revenge action of A Bittersweet Life with less flash and the investigation of The Chaser, but with less bumbling and thrills. Ultimately, I'd say the film captures the melodramatic tone of Leon with a lot of blunt heartstring jerking moments. Although it's quite transparent that the film isn't working too hard to create much in terms of a story, I think that the skeletal story very effectively sets up the motivation for our badass to get into a number of brutal fights and even throws in a couple twists here and there (nothing big, but smart enough that they aren't obvious). It's not so dumb that you need to check your brain at the door, only your black-hearted cynicism for the melodrama.

The Man from Nowhere isn't a lean film--along with the melodrama, there are plenty of exaggerated gangster characters, as would be expected from these kinds of films and the actors certainly ham it up accordingly. The action itself is quite taught, brutal, bloody and tense, being more like the Bourne series in its economy and somehow stays interesting, despite the fact that Cha is pretty much curbstomping anyone he comes across. Won Bin carries himself well, although his character doesn't really require a lot of acting, outside of the physical acting for all the fighting. Kim actually performs admirably for a child actor and certainly won me over as well--very good at pulling off the scamp in her character. The look of the film, like many action movies, goes for the gritty/dark look typical of these films. One particular moment, where Cha escapes through a window happens to have one of the most awesome tracking shot moments I've seen in an action film. Huge props to writer-director Lee Jungbum for putting that one together.

Like I said, this isn't a film that's aiming to excel at all elements of cinematic storytelling, but is very much entrenched within its action thriller genre. Consequently, the story is rather simple and goes for cheaper manipulative emotion, but fortunately, holds together logically and even provides a few twists here and there. As a vehicle for heart-pounding action, however, the Man from Nowhere does well and the film explodes frequently with the tension leading up to these sequences. Which means that we have a lot of simple, but exciting, entertainment here and I think people that like their action thrillers will find plenty to appreciate here. 8/10.

Links:

• Feature website
• Feature Facebook
• Additional Reviews: City on Fire, eastern Kicks, Koreanfilm.org, Modern Korean Cinema, New Korean Cinema
• Available at Amazon (Blu Ray) / (DVD) / (Instant) and iTunes

Inbox:Hardware: Pioneer VSX-1120-K

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Hardware covers the technology of watching/listening to moving pictures.

---

I had previously tried to upgrade my home theater receiver but wasn't satisfied with what the receiver I chose could do, so I thought I'd wait it out and keep using my old receiver in the meantime. Even though I eventually did get a second HDMI component, I ended up deciding to make do with my old HTIB receiver for the meantime as it was largely serving my needs and I just didn't feel up to spending money just to upgrade the device, since it was working fine. For a couple more months.

Then the subwoofer output died and I started looking into newer mid-range receivers to take over and serve as the brain for my entertainment center. My criteria was actually fairly simple:

• Must have at least 4 HDMI inputs--this covered the majority of the 2010 units. Harmon Kardon was the only odd-brand out.
• Must have at least 5.1 pre-outs: I have this requirement because I plan on having this receiver for a long time and some day upgrading the speakers to eventually include a pair of nice towers in the left and right front channel, which means that I might want to expand to include more power in the future with a separate amplifier. This cut out most of the sub-$750 MSRP receivers (yikes!) as well as the Denon 2311CI.

This resulted in three receivers being left on my list: the Onkyo TX-NR708, the Pioneer VSX-1120-K and the Marantz SR5005. And when I was ready to shop, the final detail was price and, at the moment, the Pioneer won. It also helped that the Pioneer had a genuinely good response on its own thread at AVSForum in terms of low reports of problems.

Installing it was no more difficult than installing any receiver in my system--it took some time because my set-up is a little complicated. The on-screen display is pretty primitive and takes a bit of time to get working and, for a while, the receiver was finicky about receiving commands from the remote, but that cleared up. The setup process is slowed because of the primitive and slow-moving onscreen display, but it's intuitive enough that I didn't need to spend too much time in the instruction manual.

Like most receivers in this range, the 1120 comes with an automatic calibration system, a proprietary one called Advanced MCACC, which mostly did an adequate job of calibrating levels and distances for my 5.1 speakers. It did strangely set my speakers to Large, which was weird because my speakers don't have much range and it set my sub a touch soft, two things that were easy to fix. This isn't magic and I couldn't done it myself, but it was nice that I didn't have to sit and spend a lot of time listening to various reference media and tweaking the levels.

The remote is small, cramped, poorly labeled and non-intuitive and certainly made me almost want to switch back to the generously sized, even if similarly laid out, Onkyo HTIB remote. However, the remote had learning capacity, which allowed me to program it to control the DVD player and the TV set so I could put those controls away for the long term.

The receiver is equipped with Marvell's QDEO video processing unit to handle upconverting video signals to HDMI and handling a variety of video processing, like noise reduction, deinterlacing and so forth. Overall, I wasn't very impressed with what it did to the signal and definitely preferred letting HDMI signals through untouched. I minimized the touching of the signals for my Wii and DVD player, but it still seems to be impacting the signal as I can see ringing and color compression. However, I'd rather have everything go through the receiver so it's something I can live with.

As for the sound, it appears to be performing as well as my previous receiver. I can't gauge nuance very well because my audio system is limited by my HTIB speakers, which are leagues better than my TV speakers, but still miles behind any middle-tier hi-fi speakers. Consequently, I can only say that it's as good as my speakers will allow.

One thing I didn't expect was how deep the unit is: it just barely fits into my entertainment center. One thing that I did like was that the receiver runs stone cold--my dying Onkyo got quite hot to the touch after running for a while. Lastly, the design is fine--nothing special. I have no idea why there's an input selector knob since it would be easier to just have individual buttons. Might make more sense as a radio tuner. Finally, it has a couple little tricks in networking for internet radio (don't care to set it up) and being able to play digital music files through its USB port (including iPod support). I haven't yet tried out the USB features because I can stream music from my PC through both my XBox360 and PS3, but I imagine that it might be useful for guests that come equipped with iPods to share some music.

Overall, I'm satisfied with this receiver and imagine that, provided that its build quality is as good as it looks and feels, will probably serve my needs until the day that it dies like my old Onkyo. 6/10.

Links:

• Available at Amazon