Progress Report: 개와 늑대의 시간

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Time Between Dog and Wolf is the first Korean crime thriller drama that I've seen from beginning to end and while it doesn't avoid many standard conventions of the form and makes some rather contrived, drama and character shattering story turns along the way, I was still modestly entertained overall as the show did do a good job of keeping up the suspense. It does show that Korea does have the capacity to put together a relatively exciting crime thriller for television, so I'm in no way chased away from exploring the Korean takes on the genre further.

"Time Between Dog and Wolf" in the film is a painting, but points bluntly at one of the themes of the series where the lines blur between good and evil. How so? Well, our protagonist, Soohyun (Lee Junki) grows up in Thailand and loses his parents to a major crime syndicate that's populated with a number of ethnic Koreans. Adopted by his father's friend and ex-partner, Mr. Kang (Lee Kiyoung), he grows up and joins the NIS, Korea's intelligence agency with his adoptive slacker brother, Kang Mingki (Jung Kyungho). Meanwhile, he meets his childhood friend, Ari (Nam Sangmi), the estranged daughter of Mao Liwart (Choi Jaesung), who was the man responsible for killing Soohyun's mother before his very eyes, although no one knows the full extent of the web of relationships. Anyway, once in the NIS, Soohyun becomes faced with the dilemma of personal vengeance at cost to his job and his relationships, furthered as he is given the option of becoming a deep cover operative in Mao's gang. And then the show really gets crazy.

The two things that this show does very well are pacing and creating suspense. There are few episodes that go by without creating a lot of suspenseful cliffhangers and the show is paced very well, leaving little frustrations about the forward movement of the story. Things are constantly changing and shifting. The setup of the story is also quite interesting, creating a great web of relationships where no one knows everything and few characters are purely benevolent or malevolent. However, the story falters a bit, especially with creating contrived situations or having some characters make illogical decisions in order to develop a suspenseful situation and there is one horribly cliche plot device used halfway through the series that seriously hampers character development for our protagonist and annihilates meaningful choices made by him. That plot device is so enormous that it pretty much steals the story and drives it until the end and, in terms of meaningful storytelling, not in a good way, which is why it ended up being my biggest complaint with the story.

The direction is pretty snappy and while it does still rely on some cliches common to what seems like most Korean dramas (like k-pop driven flashback music montages), it doesn't drag and keeps the frame visually interesting, even if never really aimed for subtlety. The production team is pretty good overall, although I feel like the constantly changing hair on Lee was a bit distracting and not nearly as cool as it was aimed to be. Also the hair and wardrobe departments were not subtle at all, bluntly dressing and grooming characters to be "vengeful", "angry", "sweet", etc. Finally, the acting in the series was a but uneven with Nam providing the most consistent performance. The two male leads, however, varied between decent to hamming it up and nearly devouring the scenery. Lee Junki's overwrought expressions in particular had me bursting out laughing in inappropriate situations. I'm really glad I was watching this alone. As for the score and soundtrack, I think it was rather standard fare. Nothing egregious and it seemed appropriate within the culturally accepted boundaries.

The collision of a good setup with the gigantic plot cliche and contrived situations caused the series to lack impact with me. However, I think the whole experience was kept afloat thanks to its pacing and suspense. While I wasn't strongly impressed with much else in the series and I was disappointed by the story decisions made by the writer(s), I still think it made for modest entertainment and would say that it's not a bad way to pass the time. But there are likely better thrillers out there, too. 6/10.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website
• More Reviews: Dramabeans
• Available at Amazon and YesAsia

Inbox: The Rookie

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

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I originally signed up for Disney Movie Rewards to get coupons on new Blu Ray releases of Disney films, many of which, when combined with release week prices, let to some fantastic deals on Disney films. However, one of the unexpected side benefits from signing up was that on the one year anniversary of signing up, they offered me a free Blu Ray movie, giving me the option to choose between Chicken Little, Eight Below and The Rookie. I just had to pay the nominal shipping and handling cost of $1.99 USD. Although I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about my options, I decided to go with the baseball film since it did slightly better in reviews than Eight Below and Chicken Little was too critically panned to risk. Directed by John Lee Hancock, who would later go on to direct another sports film, The Blind Side, I actually found The Rookie a little surprising in its pacing and story composition, although I eventually found it to be a bit overlong and not compelling.

The film is a biopic, based on the real life tale of Jim Morris (Dennis Quaid), one of the oldest rookies to step onto a major league field and follows Morris as a baseball obsessed child with an inattentive father into his adulthood as a baseball burnout-turned-high school baseball coach. He promises his team one day that if they should win district championship, that he would try out for professional baseball and he makes good on this promise, despite the uncertainty it creates for his family situation.

The big problem with The Rookie has to do with the story being told, because it doesn't really seem to have a focus. While it is based on the real life of Morris, the dramatic tension that it builds is fairly slight, with the pressure against his pursuit of a professional baseball career being slight and temporary. The other problem has to do with structuring. We spend a lot of time with young Jim as well as hearing a legend about miracles happening regarding a historic baseball field in the town where Morris comes to live, but while the conflict between Jim and his disapproving father play in the background a little, the resolution to their relationship seems incidental and doesn't really paint the kind of message that I think it's trying to (the resultant message being: you have to succeed spectacularly to earn your parents' love). Finally, it just takes a long time to get through this film, particularly with all the build up at the top of the film with young Jim and it really isn't dramatically compelling enough to make it interesting for its whole runtime.

In terms of style, director John Lee Hancock, keeps everything simple and direct and he does manage to draw sympathetic performances. However, there is a strange element of "cleanness" to the film that makes it just a touch unnatural seeming, but perhaps that's just the Disney touch. The actors all do a solid job with what they're given, but I felt like the characters were kind of flat to begin with, so there is a dramatic limit to what the actors could achieve. It's a good looking film, but as I said, there's something unsettling about how clean everything looks.

In the end, I think The Rookie doesn't quite hit the peaks that a good underdog sports story is capable of telling, due to a protracted and sedate story. Not to say that it's a film without interest, as Jim Morris' story about how he ended up debuting in Major League Baseball as an older player is naturally something of interest, but the story as it was crafted and executed leaves a bit wanting. 6/10.

Links:

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

Progress Report: 개와 늑대의 시간, Episode 16

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Note: As this is a television serial, this article includes spoilers for the series pertaining to the episodes discussed.

The final episode kind of wraps everything up in the story, but when all was said and done, I didn't feel that the story ever really recovered from the mid-series and I found the resolution to the film a touch over-dramatic, silly, contrived, and strangely inconclusive. But, I suppose with a series with this many loose ends involved, perhaps it would be difficult to tie them all up in sixteen episodes.

Being hyperdramatic is what I came to expect while watching this series, especially thanks to the hammy acting and unnecessarily forced plot twists, and for a Korean drama, Time Between Dog and Wolf never really exceeded the norm, so I can give it a pass for this, although it did run into silly territory, like the final battle between Soohyun and Mao almost senselessly recalling Enter the Dragon, of all films, although I understand the attempt at symbolism with the mirrors, I was hard to believe that they really belonged where they were set up.

As far as the ending goes, everything you'd expect from a Korean drama's finale is present, including a time jump, complete with a double fake-out and a somewhat ambiguous ending. However, the events leading up to the ending seemed forced, like Giraffe's reappearance at the end and especially his bizarre request to Soohyun/Kay to go away as well as the actions during the final confrontation where I feel Soohyun goes out of character for both himself and Kay in order to force the melodramatic ending. Also, the final revelation just seemed to come out of nowhere and consequently felt cheap and also not convincing enough for Mao to pause, making it seem out of character for him too.

Finally, the lack of story closure spins out in many directions. First of all, the main love triangle isn't really satisfactorily closed. Conflict doesn't ever get resolved, but it just seems to fizzle and vanish upon Soohyun's returned memories. Likewise, the issue of orphaning and becoming the man he hated doesn't really get meaningful thematic closure, because in part the theme was forced (and, really, the whole Mao/Soohyun/Ari relationship was contrived from the start). Roadrunner's story never really fully resolves with Soohyun either. And then there's the larger "lost fathers" issue that never really gets addressed, especially for Soohyun. Even the smaller subissue of Kay's relationship with Ahwa and Mao's second wife, doesn't really get closed up and the Moon/Bae alliance seems like a side-note plot contrivance.

Which is to say, the ending isn't particularly convincing and doesn't really wrap anything up in terms of larger themes and issues, but seems to have hurriedly tried to close up the main story. Still, even if I wasn't particularly impressed by the story-writing in the series (or the hamtastic acting), I still found the series not quite as frustrating as I would have expected with my issues with it. I think part of that had to do with the fast moving pacing of the story once it got going. That, and while some story elements were ridiculous, there was enough suspense as I was at times uncertain how the story would play out at the precise points and even though the ending was predictable, how it arrived there wasn't exactly predictable (although the result was a little contrived). So, I didn't really have serious disdain for this one, but the leaps it took in its story was too much for me to be enthusiastic about it.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Seen: 퀵

Seen examines the shows that I see.

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Quick is built on the same premise as Speed. The execution resembles a latter day, smaller scale Michael Bay film with a heavy dash of goofy, done in such a way it reminds me of a Chinese comedy. I went into this film without any considerable expectation, but left the theater feeling unsatisfied, both because of some major story logic issues near the beginning of the film that extends into the rest of the film, the unnecessary complexity of the identity and reasons for the bomber doing what he is doing, and a lack of winning characterization and development.

In the film, a biker gang member turned courier, Han Gisoo (Lee Minki) ends up delivering a bomb and then he gets called to deliver his ex-girlfriend, Choonshim (Kang Yewon), now a pop idol, to her next performance, when they discover that his helmet, now strapped to her head contains a bomb that will blow up if the two of them don't deliver bombs as demanded by the bomber. Now Gisoo and Choonshim have to finish his courier job while evading the police and keep themselves from getting blown up while they do this.

All right, the mechanism that binds Gisoo and Choonshim together is terribly contrived. Initially designed for just Gisoo to put on the helmet, it doesn't make sense that he would be forced to wear a watch that couldn't go more than 10 meters from it. Also, the whole masterminded plot then actually depends on Choonshim and Gisoo being together towards the end, which should have been unpredictable and then how the bad guy is tied into everyone also just comes across as unnecessary and contrived. Also, the characters are pretty stagnant and while Choonshim isn't one dimensional, she's either written or performed to be far too obnoxious, to the point that I stopped caring whether or not she reconciled with Gisoo and avoided getting her head blown up. Finally, the entire plot around why the bomber is doing what he is doing and who the bomber is gets mined just a little for comedy, it's neither funny nor interesting enough to justify it and all that time spent with the cops trying to figure it out seems like dead time. Finally, the humor in the script is very hit and miss and typically broad, which is why it draws comparisons to Bay.

Of course, the other big comparison to Bay is the ridiculous amount of explosions and crashing and havoc that is wreaked over the course of the film, especially early on and it comes across quite cartoonish. The stylistic exaggeration for the sake of comedy, I get, like the matrix-like shot at the end, but the overdoing it with the explosion upon explosion, just seems like pryo-porn to me, but it's also not played as cool. And the goofy tone of the film also rubbed me the wrong way, since I felt that it really sapped the tension from a lot of the scenes and, especially when combined with the big story logic problems. However, I did appreciate the large amount of practical stunts that were used in the film, no matter how crazy and contrived that they might have been as it at least helped sell the physical entertainment factor in the film. The acting was exaggerated and goofy in a way that both resembled broader Korean comedies as well as some Chinese and Hong Kong comedies, which I still haven't really developed a taste for.

In the end, the mess of a story, which had logic problems and is needlessly complicated all without enough justification, combined with its goofy exaggerated broad comedy didn't work for me. I wasn't sold on the humor and the suspense in the action was cut into by that same goofy tone. While there were some pretty fun stunts to see, the end result was about as compelling as your average blockbuster filled with explosions, stunts, things happened without meaningful reason and cheap broad humor. Which, I suppose can work for any people who just want to turn off their brains and watch a lot of flash and bang, but for anyone who'd like even a small modicum of substance to their entertainment would do best to pass on this. 5/10.

Links:

• Feature website
• Additional Reviews: City on Fire, Hanguk Yeonghwa, Modern Korean Cinema
• Available at YesAsia

Progress Report: 개와 늑대의 시간, Episodes 13-15

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Note: As this is a television serial, this article includes spoilers for the series pertaining to the episodes discussed.

All right, we're moving along to the finale here. And, honestly, I'm a little disappointed by how episode thirteen and the following episodes played out, because Time Between Dog and Wolf decided to take an easy road out and also has some logic issues. The easy road that I'm talking about is the survival of Jiwoo's adopted father, after taking a couple bullets. I think it would have been more interesting to watch Soohyun deal with the greater guilt of having essentially done to his beloved Jiwoo what her father did to him and went down that difficult path, but, no, he lives and although I wouldn't say all is forgiven, it seems to be mostly so.

I do like that Soohyun, even with his memories back, retains elements of Kay, but I don't think the detail plays enough to matter. I also liked that it seemed like Soohyun was going to go rogue on the NIS, like Buffy with the Watchers Council in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, but that never really came to fruition either. I also don't like how easily his memory returning got spilled to Jiwoo. I would have really liked it if she pieced it together from less obvious clues. Again, the whole amnesia thing wasn't dramatically compelling and I'm not a fan of where it took the series and I'm also not a fan of how quickly that storyline concluded and we pretty much return to what it was like before it happened.

And then there's the end of episode fourteen and fifteen, both of which end with teasing gunshots that probably aren't going to end the way that they visually imply. And I find that a bit too cheap and manipulative. Episode fifteen in particular has a few story logic issues surrounding the big drug deal in the end. The first of which is that there's all this hubbub about the NIS not being able to get access to the party--but everybody and their mothers seems to be able to just wander around other parts of the building, including the hotheaded Bae, who comes back to "redeem" Roadrunner by killing him and then gets his just desserts himself by Minggi. As for Mao and Soohyun and Jiwoo, it's kind of hard to really care about what Soohyun's up to regarding Mao anymore thanks to amnesia and a loss of real stakes since we haven't see much to convince us that there is a real conflict between his love for Jiwoo and his desire for vengeance--but there's also a lack of self-awareness that he really is following in Mao's footsteps and maybe that's supposed to happen later, but, I guess I'm just losing investment in these characters as the series seems to just be following course and skipped over the most interesting conflicts about being a mole.

But, with just one episode left to go, I do plan on finishing it. I'm hoping that the final episode takes some interesting turns.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox:Replay: 風の谷のナウシカ

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Replay revisits what I've previously seen.

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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the first original animated feature by now acclaimed writer-director Hayao Miyazaki and remains an important film both because it is seen as the birthplace of the famed Studio Ghibli, but it also remains a vastly moving and epic story, containing many of the themes and ideas that would continue to be explored by Miyazaki combined with gorgeous animation and artwork that is still outstanding and relevant today.

The story, set in an unnamed post-apocalyptic future of humanity, finds the earth ravaged and the remaining humans surviving as a Sea of Decay, which is a forest populated by insects that is toxic to mammals slowly spreading and destroying the remaining civilizations. The Valley of the Wind, which is protected from the Sea of Decay by its inward wind and an healthy forest, is disturbed when a Tolmekian warship crashes nearby, leaving no survivors but one giant pulsating mystery as cargo, which is one of the God Warriors, bio-machines that were used in the great wars that annihilated much of humanity and led to the Sea of Decay. This draws the rest of the warlike Tolmekians to arrive, leading to the annexation of the Valley of the Wind. Meanwhile, our titular heroine, Nausicaä (Shimamato Sumi) strives to work against the building of the God Warrior and find some kind of peaceful resolution to living with both her counterpart countries and the Sea of Decay.

I'm not going to lie, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is fairly heavy handed in its message of living with the environment instead of subduing it and very clearly sits on the idealistic edge of the sliding scale of idealism and cynicism. Nausicaä herself is a messianic figure in the story, preaching and largely practicing harmonious love for all living things, resulting in a fantastic ability to tame animals and gain the empathy of the insects that have destroyed much of human civilization. However, I like how even the most villainous of villains aren't complete monsters, but just well-intentioned extremists, which adds a little moral complexity to the picture and film moves well from gripping conflict to gripping conflict.

In terms of art, Nausicaä boasts the gorgeous Anglophilic style that Miyazaki is fond of, but does a fantastic job of creating a believable world complete with cultures and artifacts and creatures. It's immensely creative, beautiful and haunting and its designs would go on to flavor many of the more epic films from Studio Ghibli. The Japanese language audio track is clean, crisp and clear and although it's limited to the stereo mix that Nausicaä was originally mixed in, it sounded just fine to me, although the epic scope of the film did leave me wishing that the film was made in the age of surround sound. The voice actors do stay within the conventions of acting for anime, but I found their portrayals to be believable. The score, by Joe Hisaishi is memorable, enthralling, and imaginative. Hisaishi would go on to write many of Studio Ghibli's scores and his work never seems to fail to tremendously impress me. A gorgeous score to go with gorgeous artwork.

Nausicaä isn't exactly a subtle work of storytelling, however, I think that in its enthusiasm and willingness to portray its world's problems with a complex brush, it's still rather winning. Combine that epic story with stunning artwork, design and animation and a gifted score and Nausicaä clearly signaled the advent of a new creative force in animation, and yes, cinema history. 9/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: Far East Films
• Available at Amazon (Blu Ray) / (DVD)

Progress Report: 개와 늑대의 시간, Episodes 10-12

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Note: As this is a television serial, this article includes spoilers for the series pertaining to the episodes discussed.

Although this show is mostly predictable, there is a moment in the twelfth episode where I wasn't sure which road the series would take and while I won't say that the series has necessarily gained my respect, it hasn't get reached a level of frustrating either, although the acting does stumble into shades of overdoing it several times by the two male leads. As the story goes, Soohyun-now-Kay is captured by the NIS following the murder of his adopted father by the hotheaded Bae, who is obviously an internal villain among the many villains in this story. Then he gets free because the NIS has no proof that Kay killed Mr. Kang, but boy is Minggi pissed. So pissed in fact that he goes rogue (and doesn't shave much and wears a lot more black and starts going nuts with the overacting) and sets up a group of rogue agents to take down the Chung gang with our Thai restaurant owner/information broker Road Runner assisting. Of course, the NIS director knows about this via Road Runner and Road Runner himself is forced to see his own involvement in the mess back when he was a bad boy in Thailand. While the NIS suffers a setback in playing their hand too early, Minggi gets Jiwoo and her father involved in taking down the gang after Jiwoo discovers that she was actually used to smuggle drugs. And that means that President Seo is going to die. Kay, destabilized in his identity due to everybody seeing the semblance between his and Soohyun, combined with some mysterious messages left by the NIS director, decides that he's going to prove he is Kay by offing Jiwoo's father and then we have a much too familiar moment where Jiwoo gets in the way and he remembers his own mother's death and that's it for this trio of episodes.

Okay, so the part that I wasn't sure about was this very last bit in episode twelve, where Kay-turning-Soohyun assassinates Jiwoo's father. I wasn't sure if the show would actually let him do it, because once he does, he commits the same crime that was done to him to someone he loves and is now irrevocably doomed to an unhappy ending or at least a bittersweet one. I didn't know if the show was going to go there, but there it is. Koreans and their love of tragedy and tears.

On the other hand, I still don't like the whole amnesia angle. Sorry. It's cheap dramatics and takes away the meaningful choices of our protagonist and it also hurts believability because we have a Clark Kent/Superman situation. Now I imagine we're going to get into the stupid fallout of stupid plot device which will go for the rest of the episodes. Ultimately, the biggest reason I don't like this amnesia bit is because it really has nothing to do with the loss of memory, but is a convenient and sensational plot twist to get a character to act out of character and make regrettable choices. It's like watching our protagonist get his body hijacked for a few episodes--he's not the same character and so the decisions Kay makes affect Soohyun, but we lose any character development (the tiny bit there was for him) and basically throw him a giant inescapable, but temporary Idiot Ball.

Strangely enough tho, because the show still plays out reasonably aside from this gigantic silly plot device, I don't hate it as much as the contrivances of other dramas and it helps that the show keeps moving forward. Still, the show is full of non-developing characters and characters that don't seem to really have a point, so it's admittedly hard to love. It still has four episodes to redeem itself, so I'm hoping it seizes that opportunity.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox: 네 멋대로 해라

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

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While shopping for yet another Korean drama for my mother and sister, I stumbled across Ruler of Your Own World (aka As You Wish) initially via the forums of Koreanfilm.org a while back. Further research showed that Ruler had strong critical support and a rather devoted following despite unimpressive overall ratings. Despite that the leads were not high profile, I decided to take the following and critical acclaim as a sign of a good show and purchased this one to send to my mother and sister. It went over well with them and found its way back into my hands as these dramas often do.

While the critical support does soften my skepticism, it's no secret that terminal illness plays a part in this drama and it's a terrible cliche in Korean dramas, so I still have some reservations about it. Nonetheless, as a writer, I am eager to see what a screenplay award winning Korean drama is like and hope that the terminal illness angle is not played for cheap dramatics.

Disc List:

• Disc 1: Episodes 1-3
• Disc 2: Episodes 4-6
• Disc 3: Episodes 7-9
• Disc 4: Episodes 10-12
• Disc 5: Episodes 13-15
• Disc 6: Episodes 16-18
• Disc 7: Episodes 19-20

Links:

• Series review
• Series website
• Watch for free at DramaFever
• Available at Amazon and YesAsia

Progress Report: 개와 늑대의 시간, Episodes 7-9

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Note: As this is a television serial, this article includes spoilers for the series pertaining to the episodes discussed.

All right, this is the point where Time Before Dog and Wolf both relieves some of my fears and then sets off other Korean drama cliche alarm bells at the same time. In particular, in episode seven, we quickly reach the "present" of the drama and get back to the mysterious car chase that we see at the beginning of the series, but now with the full context in mind. And, fortunately, it doesn't turn out to be some contrived tragic ending. Everything in the plot up to the point is developed for that moment to be of great dramatic impact, especially considering that just the previous episode, Jiwoo/Ari hand finally started trying to move beyond her grief and we finally had forward movement for the repeated romance beats.

However, just moments after we see Soohyun shot and driving into the pier, we find that he washes up alive (I have no idea how because of the length he was underwater and unconscious pretty much precludes drowning) and rescued by some ajummas. This itself might have been fine as a rather cheating way of getting around the apparent death, but the series then piles on top a heck of a cheap dramatic twist: Soohyun, the deep cover agent, now has amnesia. Oh yes, he'll obviously adopt the identity that he was faking as his real identity since he knows no better and this will obviously throw him in conflict with both the NIS who believes him dead as well as drudging up painful memories of the Soohyun that Jiwoo/Ari and Minggi believes was dead. I do get that the series has kind of been developed to hit that point, but I think the usage of Laser Guided Amnesia is too cheap of a twist (and a bit unbelievable) and that more interesting tension and dynamics could have resulted from Soohyun having to maintain his cover at the cost of the world moving on without him.

And you know, the world does move on without him, until he starts popping up everywhere, disturbing Jiwoo. Still, although it might have partially driven some of his behavioral antics until now, I genuinely think that the amnesia hasn't been critical to any of the events that unfolded since. Oh yeah, there's also a very obviously foreshadowing silent door-closing on Mr. Kang that anyone who's watched any considerable amount of TV or film will read as that the man's going to die. And he does. And, predictably, Soohyun-now-Kay gets blamed for it. And, predictably, the hot-headed gangster recruit, Bae, is responsible for the killing.

And, predictably, at some point, Kay is going to get his memories of Soohyun back and is going to be horrified about what he's been doing. Oh, and Lee Junki will totally ham it up, just as he was doing at the early part of his amnesia when he was captured by the rival gang (leading to the obvious setup of having the indebted Mao come to rescue him and lead to a counter rescue). Okay, so this series is likely going to be kind of predictable at this point, but still manages to keep enough dramatic tension up that I don't feel like quitting on it yet. Still, my hopes for it are notably diminished.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox: 신입사원

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

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I purchased Super Rookie for my sister and mother because of the combination of a good price, positive word of mouth and that I'd previously seen star and former boy band performer Eric Moon in Que Sera Sera and was pretty pleased with his performance.

The setup doesn't seem particularly high concept, with a less-achieving young man getting hired for a prestigious job on the account of a computer error. I'm assuming hijinks ensue. However, after my sister and mother had seen it, they gave it a favorable review and passed back to me to watch. I'm hoping that they are right about it.

Disc List:

• Disc 1: Episodes 1-3
• Disc 2: Episodes 4-6
• Disc 3: Episodes 7-9
• Disc 4: Episodes 10-12
• Disc 5: Episodes 13-15
• Disc 6: Episodes 16-18
• Disc 7: Episodes 19-20

Links:

• Series review
• Series website
• Watch for free at Crunchyroll and DramaFever
• Available at Amazon and YesAsia

Progress Report: 개와 늑대의 시간, Episodes 4-6

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Note: As this is a television serial, this article includes spoilers for the series pertaining to the episodes discussed.

The plot chugs along and takes a big turn in these episodes. However, part of that turn results in continued repeated romance beats between Minggi and Jiwoo and they deal with attraction and grief. That part is a little tedious and was repeated a bit in the first three episodes as well, so I'm hoping that with the events of episode six, that this story point will finally move on. The secondary plot with Minggi as part of the new NIS overseas team is interesting and shows honest-to-goodness character development, which is nice (and all the more frustrating that in the many year leap--we haven't seen any development on the romance front with either Minggi or Jiwoo).

Still, I am impressed at how well the series balances out the spy/crime elements with the romance angle (even if the romance bits are all repeated in this batch of episodes). Granted, sometimes this all feels a bit slow paced, especially in Episode Five where very little forward action happens with the characters. Still, a lot of ground was covered in the six episodes I've seen and two characters even get some development and some minor characters in the NIS even get a few little moments that makes their world feel more alive. The series finally gets an edge in the sixth episode where Soohyun's decision to go undercover is going to collide with the life he had to leave behind to do so as the gang returns to Seoul and he might have to see his love interest and family again.

I'm hoping that the romance story does actually move forward, as hinted by the events in episode six as well as seeing greater suspense and thrills as the crime/spy story deepens. I just wonder at the "things to come" flash at the top of the series where we see Soohyun shot and in the water and hope that it's a red herring, rather than the happens at the end of the series, since Lee Junki is now wearing the same hair as he was in that scene.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox: 러브토크

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

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Having been impressed by writer-director Lee Yoonki's This Charming Girl and Ad Lib Night and charmed by his My Dear Enemy, delivering such interesting character studies wrapped in wandering experiential and loosely organized stories. So, I was happy to find a copy of his sophomore film, Love Talk. Set in Los Angeles where I live, I found a lot familiar about the locales of the film, but perhaps my familiarity with the region, and more so, my native English language understanding really undercut the film. However, I feel like with his focus divided against so many protagonists, I also feel that even were the English language acting believable, that Lee's highly observational storytelling would still suffer from being spread too thin.

The film revolves around three interrelated people: There's Jisuk (Park Heesoon), a South Korean man who recently immigrates to the US in search of someone, and he comes to become roommates with Sunny (Bae Chongok), who works at a "massage" parlor. Sunny is a regular listener of a radio show, from where this film gets its title and hosting that show is the third protagonist, Youngshin (Park Jinhee), who has a past with Jisuk. We watch as the three interact with each other and with others in their lives and how their decisions and their respective almost depressed states affect their lives in Los Angeles.

Again, with so many characters split its observational focus between, there really isn't enough story to build them all up within the film's two hour runtime. We never really get into what drives these characters and consequently it's difficult to understand or sympathize with them as they struggle with aspects of their respective lives. Furthermore, a lot of teased plot threads are left dangling, like Jisuk's reason for coming to the US, and other plot elements just pop up unexpectedly and change the course of the plot without being properly grounded, which drives Sunny's story. The result is rather unsatisfying, unlike Lee's other films, as we never come to know the characters well enough to believe in their emotional journeys.

The other challenge for this film is the English language acting. In Korean, it seems fine, but the use of the English language here is very unnatural, not just in its delivery from the Koreans, but also in its written dialog, especially as it pertains to when English is used and mixed together with Korean. As a native English speaker and also one who is quite familiar with Korean American communities (being a Korean American myself), this is highly distracting. Furthermore, most of the English language performances from the American cast weren't particularly impressive either, although some of that had to do with the setups or perhaps having to work with a Korean actor who was having difficulty acting in English. Finally, the production quality is noticeably indie, resembling more the grittiness of Ad-Lib Night than the typical shine of Korean productions, which does give the film that kind of local indie film charm, but at times it did feel like the direction also suffered as a result, with rather simple setups overall and the expressiveness of the overall direction feels a touch stunted, distancing the viewer again from the emotional connection with the characters onscreen.

There are some interesting moments in the film, but I think that's largely overshadowed by the meandering ambiguity and possible pointlessness of it all. Without being able to emotionally connect with the characters due to both an unfocused and detail-lacking story (and storytelling) and some belief shattering elements, particularly around the English language acting and some of the setups, Love Talk seems to fall short of its potential as an indie drama. Which is especially disappointing since Lee Yoonki has otherwise shown to be good at intimate emotional drawing of characters. As such, I cannot recommend Love Talk, because even if I weren't comparing it to Lee's other films, it would still be difficult for me to say that there is anything compelling about it. Like its characters with Los Angeles, it merely drifts in and out of the viewer's consciousness without imparting much of anything. 5/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: Koreanfilm.org, VCinema
• Available at MrKwang and YesAsia

Progress Report: 개와 늑대의 시간, Episodes 1-3

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Note: As this is a television serial, this article includes spoilers for the series pertaining to the episodes discussed.

I think I often forget how Korean dramas often just take their time in winding up to the main plot. And, knowing that there will be a ramp up towards the main story, in a grab for attention, Time Between Dog and Wolf, explodes out of the gates with a chaotic car chase which ends in the apparent death of our hero. This unfortunately reminds me of the somewhat disappointing Damo and I wonder if the show has already laid out too much, but I've decided to stick with it anyway.

The first episode, after laying out what will happen in at some dramatic point in the show (which I'm hoping is not the finale), goes way back to the past, establishing our main leads as young children in Thailand and capturing a lot of the more scenic parts of Bangkok (I think?). It sets up a lot of relationships and I think does a good job of setting up the emotional background of the characters, even though we hardly get to see our leads as they are in "the present" of the story. Still, the child actors fare pretty well, so it's not bad.

The hard turn at the end of the episode is pretty predictable, but despite that, I think it's handled fairly well. The second episode continues with the past, looking at how Soohyung adapts to life in Korea as the adopted son of his mother's husband's former NIS partner (NIS is a Korean intelligence agency) and see his relationship develop with his foster brother, Minggi. Eventually we follow the kids as they grow up and follow in their respective fathers' footsteps and join the intelligence service.

Meanwhile, Ari, Soohyung's childhood firend, now called Jiwoo after escaping from her father's life of crime with her mother and her adoptive step-father runs into Minggi and then later Soohyung and rekindle the lost friendship and romance stuff clearly blooms in addition to a love triangle. All that is upset when Ari's father (also the killer of Soohyung's mother) shows up in Korea and just as Soohyun's career seems to be taking off, his sudden need for revenge throws a wrench in it all.

The series is starting out a bit on the slow side and, even into its fourth hour, seems to be taking its time to set everything up. I do wonder how the series will balance the romance elements with the crime thriller elements, since it's almost coming across as a bright love triangle thanks to the goofy character of Minggi and part of the triangle and coincidental encounter feels a bit forced. Still, I think the series has so far done of decent job of moving the story forward and keeping things interesting enough, so I've no qualms with moving on.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox:Replay: 無間道

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Replay revisits what I've previously seen.

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Infernal Affairs contains not just one of the most suspenseful scenes in a crime thriller I've ever seen, but numerous scenes that I would say are some of the most suspenseful scenes I've ever seen in a crime thriller. The film accomplishes all this on the back of one very high concept conceit, executed masterfully and helped by strong performances and capable direction. Infernal Affairs was the movie that would be remade as The Departed, to Oscar winning fanfare. And Infernal Affairs, even after all this time never sits under the shadow of its American twin, being a slick and carefully orchestrated film that, once it gets rolling, grips with an iron claw and doesn't let go until its conclusion.

The conceit of the film is this: Yan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) is a long-term undercover cop who has been under deep cover with the Triads for quite some time. Tensions run high as a Triad mole rising in the ranks in the Police Department, Lau (Andy Lau)'s information results in revealing the existence of both moles to the police and the gang. Now both moles are tasked with discovering the mole in their own departments, while trying to preserve themselves by discovering the other as they each grapple with the effects of living for a decade pretending to be someone else.

And it's these moments where the tension peaks, multiple times through the film. The fact that as one mole pursues the identity of the other, he risks exposing his own results scenes that are highly tense throughout the film. This is where Infernal Affairs really succeeds. In between, we look a little bit at these men's personal lives as their time spent pretending to be these people affects them and their relationships with who they work with and the women in their lives. Unfortunately, this part is a little underdeveloped, even as the theme of identity drives the character motivations forward, which results the personal stories feeling a little thin, especially as it relates to how these two men relate to the female characters, who don't actually serve a particularly meaningful purpose with Sammi Cheng's Mary being a very heavy-handed voice for one of the film's themes.

The film is shot in a pretty slick style, not distractingly stylized like some other HK crime thrillers, except for the occasional flash to white. Director Andrew Lau and writer-director Alan Mak do a great job of keeping the visuals tight and the performances from the leads exactly what they need to be. There is a little hamming in Eric Tsang's Sam, but it's not inappropriate given his large character. Again, the women aren't given much to work with and consequently come across as single dimensional. Another plus with Infernal Affairs is that the music doesn't get awfully silly as it often does in Hong Kong action/crime/thriller films and sound is used overall to good effect to heighten the tension. This movie sounds as sweet as it looks and it looks great, with gritty overall visuals and designs while resisting the temptation go too deep into the cool color temperatures, keeping a bit of needed warmth to the picture.

Infernal Affairs is one of the best crime thrillers I've seen from Hong Kong and certainly one of the most suspenseful crime thriller's I've ever seen, with the kind of smart conceit that can drive a whole movie. It does end up a little flat in terms of character development (I know that Lau develops, but it's not well presented or justified) and the female characters end up seeming like props since they really don't do much, but when you see scenes like the one where Yan stalks after Lau, but should Lau turn around at any point, Yan is also caught, the strength of the suspense and the surprises and twists in the film really keep the whole thing grandly entertaining, story weaknesses aside. This is a film that is accessible, smart, and highly entertaining. Consequently, if you haven't seen it, I suggest you give it a shot. 8/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: eastern Kicks
• Available at Amazon (DVD), iTunes, and YesAsia (Blu Ray)

Seen: 써니

Seen examines the shows that I see.

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Sunny is the most successful Korean film of 2011 and one of the most successful Korean films of all time, but it's not hard to see why it's so popular as it's combination of nostalgia and casting easily draws in a broad audience, catering to the post-386 generation in particular with its characters, but easily touching a great number of viewers who've experienced the turbulent 1980's in Korea, but the high-school setting and fresh cast is probably also a draw for young Koreans as well. Combining a good deal of comedy with the nostalgic search for the past, Sunny probably accomplishes most of what its audience desires, despite that the story and direction isn't always well paced or focused.

The story is divided between the past and the present and focuses on Nami (Yoo Hojung/Shim Eunkyung), who at present is a wife and mother, but while visiting the hospital, runs into Choonhwa (Jin Heekyung/Kang Sora), who was the leader of the clique of high school girls that called themselves Sunny, now wealthy businesswoman. Dying of an unspecified form of cancer (apparently w/o chemotherapy?), she asks Nami to hunt down the other girls so that she can see them one last time and as Nami finds the various women, we also witness the story of young Nami as she falls in with Choonhwa and her crew, their ups and their downs.

As a nostalgia piece, the two-fold story works well as we watch how the Nami of her youth became the Nami of today and see what she lost along the way and what she gains by reconnecting with her past. At times the story loses pacing, including a very long stretch set in the past. It went so long that I began wondering if we were actually going to return to the present. Also, the film does seem to lose track of the impact of Nami's recapturing of her past on her present--which is the most noticeable issue with Sunny: there doesn't appear to be a considerable conflict for Nami (or the other women) to overcome. Consequently, it feels like we just roll along on autopilot with the plot without any overarching issue, although this was possible considering that we don't know why Sunny came apart until the end, but the ending actually saps a bit of the potential for dramatic conflict and development, instead opting for more "good times". In this sense, there's not much that's willful about Sunny and the deus ex machina at the end certainly just feels like pouring syrup in a bowl of sugar. Still, the film trades in broad and recognizable comedy, which does bless the film with a continual dosage of fun throughout the film.

And the film works exceptionally well as a nostalgia piece in terms of its production, with the art and costume departments capturing a rather vivid and stylish rendition of Korea in the 1980's, and takes the time to note small details in the fashion, but also in sound elements like the random national anthem loyalty checks and the soundtrack, which captures a snapshot of Korean pop music of the time, along with the many American pop songs that made their way over. At the same time, the film makes plenty of broad references to the present Korea, dropping girl idol group names as names for the different girl cliques or one scene where Choonhwa suggests future technological developments, much to the awe and amazement of her friends. The film is also buoyed by solid performances from the actors, even as the characters threaten to be a bit archetypal, they are broadened by seeing them in the present and the past and both sets of actors manage to coordinate their performances believably.

As a nostalgia piece, Sunny works well, capturing the more positive memories of the time and presenting it with modern flair, clearly capitalizing on its built in audience. While it's a gregarious story, it doesn't really contain much of a greater story arc and consequently feels a bit flat, especially with its all too easy ending, relying on its nostalgia factor and comedy to keep viewers interested. Fortunately, those two factors are quite strong in the film, even if unsubtle, and its good-natured attitude makes it hard to dislike, leading to an enjoyable and even memorable film that never quite reaches its potential. 7/10.

Links:

• Feature website
• Additional Reviews: eastern Kicks, Hanguk Yeonghwa, Hangul Celluloid, Kimchi Popcorn, Korean Class Massive, Koreanfilm.org, Modern Korean Cinema, Rainy Day, Seen in Jeonju, VCinema
• Available at YesAsia (Blu Ray) / (DVD)