Inbox: La Belle et la Bête

New movies for me

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The one previous time I tried to watch Jean Cocteau's rendition of Beauty and the Beast, I had failed to complete it because I had mistakenly switched the soundtrack to Philip Glass' opera, instead of the original dialog and soundtrack, and the person who I was watching it with got horribly distracted in the process. However, I admit that I was still quite mesmerized myself with the visuals, at insomuch as I'd seen, so given an opportunity to revisit this film on Blu Ray, from Criterion, I had to watch it. However, despite the lofty status this film has with cinephiles, I found it just a touch lacking in the story department, even as the visuals were captivating.

The story is one that should be somewhat familiar to many: Belle's father (Marcel André) gets caught by the Beast (Jean Marais) when he plucks a rose from the Beast's garden while on his way home from losing his fortune. He is given a reprieve from death to see if a daughter of his would take his place and Belle (Josette Day), the faithful daughter takes his place. The Beast fancies her and awkwardly courts her and Belle deepens in her feelings for the Beast, but his devotion to her sick father draws her away. Amidst this, her scoundrel brother, Ludovic (Michel Auclair), wicked sisters, Félicie (Mila Parély) and Adélaïde (Nane Germon) and scoundrel suitor, Avenant (also Jean Marais) develop some jealousy and hatch a plan to make the Beast's riches theirs.

It's a simple story, but I feel like it reserves too much for surprise, like the Beast's origins and his intentions, which both come about as a bit of a surprise and don't add anything positive at the point where they are revealed. Furthermore, the way it's revealed creates a feasible alternate interpretation of the story where Avenant was right and the Beast is actually a beguiling, deceptive and manipulative schemer that's looking for a naive sucker like Beauty to free himself of his curse. Finally, I largely don't buy Belle and the Beast's romance--her affection doesn't seem earned, leading me towards my alternate interpretation of the story, especially considering how much beautiful treasure is lavished upon the title characters and how it contradicts with the theoretical message of looking beyond the surface (and I even question if that message is really in this film) of the story.

On the other hand, the visuals remain just as exquisite as I remember them. Some of this opulent visual exploration is admittedly at the cost of story pacing and the film does lag here and there, especially at the top of the film, before the film picks up its plot. However, the images are enthralling enough that I can look past that, like the use of disembodied hands, floating candelabras, reverse photography, double exposure and more to create a fantastic and magical atmosphere. And the acting isn't that bad either, especially considering that the actors were often working without lines, but through action and expression and while that might plod the pacing a little, Marais really delivers a lot through the Beast's eyes and almost makes the story believable.

But I don't know if The Beauty and the Beast really succeeds enough for me. And maybe my standards for story are a touch high, but the pacing of the film also lags quite a bit. There is a very enchanting element to the film, in its visuals and even its acting, so in that sense there is some masterful direction going on. And the images in the film certainly are iconic. But I was demonstrably bored during parts of the film when I wasn't enchanted. And the paper thin story doesn't help, especially when it creates internal contradictions and fails to build enough of an emotional foundation that a sinister alternative interpretation could be reasonable assumed from watching. For that, I can't heartily recommend this film, but it is still a fascinating watch for those who love fantasy fairy tales and fans of visual cinema. 7/10.

Links:

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

Progress Report: 커피프린스 1호점, Episodes 7-9

Reporting on series as I watch them

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This post may contain spoilers

This set of episodes shows a great amount of progress in terms of story, plot and character development, with major revelations about Hangyul's history coming to light and his grandmother's cancer starts impacting the storyline. The romance storyline between the now confused Hangyul and Eunchan, whose feelings for her boss/friend is deepening.

However, Hangyul is losing his mind over liking Eunchan because he believes her to be a man and that raises a problem with the story. There's no reason anymore for Eunchan at this point to fear telling Hangyul of her identity as a woman, since she's already gone and confessed her feelings for him, and been fired/quit. Even though she's hired again, I just can't see a reason why she doesn't end their respective torments by revealing herself.

I also like that the side stories around the supporting cast develop as well, with most of them getting a little development and we get to see the repercussions of Hansung's own relationship with Eunchan on his relationship with Yoojoo. However, the series' problems with direction remain and there are plenty of awkward and slowly paced fades or scenes that don't really end so much as fade away. The faster moving story does make up for that somewhat, but it still feels like there's a bit of fat on the series and makes some parts boring. On the other side of the production, the music to the series remains awesome.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox:Replay: Remember the Titans

Revisiting a past film I've recently acquired

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While I don't think Remember the Titans fully escapes the pitfalls of sports films and race films, having a tendency to follow formula on the former and to oversimplify the latter, I still somehow find it one of the more enjoyable films of the genre, perhaps because the film manages to build a story of overcoming differences into the film well and despite its simplicity, still manages to blend its race narrative well with its football story.

Based on a true story, Remember the Titans centers in on the football team of the racially integrating T.C. Williams High School. Tensions are high as coach Herman Boone (Denxel Washington) joins the team, supplanting the popular and successful coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton). Through a tough training camp regine, the team manages to come together, but as they return to the real world, they find the divisions between their real world racial counterparts interfering with both their own unity and their performance on the field.

Remember the Titans is interesting as it's not exactly an underdog story. The challenge for the team comes from the racial barriers both within the team and within the town that which really ties well the threads of the story together, effectively making the only integrated football team in the league, despite their coaches long winning history, an underdog. This is further developed by focusing on the stories of both coaches as well as a number of players, although the white players, especially Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst) generally get more dynamic characters as they are focused upon as having to accept their black teammates. There is a touch of tokenism going on, with the black-friendly "white-trash" Loiue Lastik (Ethan Suplee and the sexually ambiguous "hippie" Sunshine (Kip Pardue), but with so many characters, it does get difficult to give each their due, resulting in mostly static characters. But this is compensated by the overarching character development of the team, which comes together and deals with its conflicts and makes a couple tough decisions, with players and coaches facing their hangups and learning from each other. So even if the final result seems too clean and too easy around the race conflict, its still interesting to watch on its more simplified level.

This is all aided by good direction from Boaz Yakin, who draws from the sports film playbook, but does his best to keep the focus on the characters that make up the team. This in turns highlights some solid acting, from the leads and most of the characters, the supporting parts keeping their simple characters interesting. The production manages to both evoke the era well, but also somehow makes the whole thing less palpably distant, aided by some classic music of the era.

All this keeps Remember the Titans surprising me at how enjoyable it is, both as a sports film, but one that actually takes a look at the long history of divisions based on race (and a couple other token factors). While it certainly doesn't try to paint a complex picture, I think it makes the surface conflict issues easily understandable and uses them to drive the conflict in the story until the very end, an interesting story trick. And this comes from a guy who doesn't usually like sports films. 8/10.

Links:

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

Seen: 북촌방향

Reporting on movies that I watch

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At this point, I've just become used to the work of director Hong Sangsoo. Instead of being tired, his films are now familiar and even if she doesn't tread significantly new ground, there's always something to notice in the ground that he is treading. The Day He Arrives is one of those comfortable films. Like his past two films, The Day He Arrives takes on the standard themes and character archetypes of Hong's films and puts a couple interesting tweaks to explore, which aren't quite formalistic, but do represent new experimental choices in narrative storytelling.

The protagonist is yet another person in the film world, an ex-filmmaker now film professor outside of Seoul, Sungjoon (Yoo Joonsang), who is in Seoul for a couple days and hangs out so he can meet the only friend he cares about in Seoul, film critic Youngho (Kim Sangjoong). However, this is a Hong Sangsoo film, she he's inevitably drawn into a some strange encounters as well as drawn to a bar owner that resembles his ex, Yejin (Kim Bokyung). Meanwhile, the mild-mannered Youngho's friend, a college film professor, Boram (Song Sunmi) developed a little crush on Sungjoon, creating a nice little Hongian quartet as Sungjoon negotiates his short time in Seoul.

There's a lot of neat little tricks with this narrative as each "day" in Seoul seems to be a repeat of itself, sometimes including the same introductions between characters and even from the monologue of Youngho, maybe making an observation of the blurring of memory or how we create similar patterns for ourselves. Likewise, the repeating motif occurs with Yejin, who is portrayed by the same actress as Kyungjin, his ex. I don't know if it all comes well enough together to easily derive a point from the repetitions that occur in the film, some of which result in questioning the continuity of reality onscreen, but Hong's eye is still perfectly keep on ironically comedic details, especially in his pathetic characters that keeps the observation comedy rolling and the mood lighter and more engaging than the repetition in his classic Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors.

And formalistically, The Day He Arrives shares similarities with Virgin Stripped Bare by also being a black and white film that deals with repetitions, although TDHA is done within the narrative, rather than a full repeat and I think the result is much more accessible thanks to a more natural formal approach. As usual, Hong draws some pretty strong performances from his actors, with Yoo really capturing his character's pathetic lack of awareness well, common to Hong's protagonists. Hong continues with his fixed camera, pan and zoom trademark with this film as well as his quirky use of music (although nothing to the level of Oki's Movie).

Watching with an audience really helped emphasize just how funny The Day He Arrives is, with the audience breaking out into laughter, helping reinforce that it's okay to laugh at those awkward moments. And The Day He Arrived delivered plenty of laughs while still managing to add some interesting food for thought via the repetition built into the story, even if it's still a rather quick and light film. Hong Sangsoo is on a roll these days and I'm glad that he's as prolific as he is. 8/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: eastern Kicks, Koreanfilm.org, Modern Korean Cinema
• Available at YesAsia

Inbox: 시라노; 연애조작단

New movies for me

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I had a good enough time watching Cyrano Agency, despite watching it solo in a Korean theater packed with couples that I wanted to pick up a copy of it while it was available. Because someday I might be able to right my wrong and watch the film with an actual date.

Links:

• Available at YesAsia

Progress Report: 커피프린스 1호점, Episodes 4-6

Reporting on series as I watch them

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This post may contain spoilers.

Coffee Prince is an unusual series because it both moves quickly, but at times, it also feels like it's meandering a lot as well. The easygoing almost natural nature of the series does make it very easy to watch and low on the urgency to see the next episode, meaning less stress. At the same time, I get a little bored when the series takes asides to follow mundane things like how to make coffee, unattached to any character, making it seem rather irrelevant and making the sixty minute episodes seem longer.

We see serious movement on the relationship fronts as both Hangyul and Hansuk develop an affection for Go Eunchan, the former believing him to be a boy, much to his frustration. The latter gives her a pretty-girl makeover that happens a lot in these dramas and while the former becomes pretty aware of his attraction to who he believes to be a boy, the latter seems oblivious. Likewise, both Hangyul and Eunchan see their crushes fading. Meanwhile the Coffee Prince shop suffers some lows and reaches some success and we see a little development in the side stories of the supporting characters.

I continue to be impressed by Yoon Eunhye's strong characterization of Go Eunchan, who is so strongly defined that I frequently forget this is the same actress that played a princess in Palace. I love how naturally she played rough and tumble with the guys, how she plays her voice in a naturally lower register and how she captures Eunchan's loose body movement. It's an impressive transformation. Likewise, I like the slow transformation of Hangyul from easygoing playboy to starting to care about both his business and the people that work for it.

There's a big change for Hangyul at the end of the sixth episode leaving it as a bit of a cliffhanger. Overall, I think the direction and unnecessary fluff is taking away from the series a little. On the plus side, I love the music and I even love how bits of Tearliner are incorporated into Hansuk and Yoojoo's story as Hansuk is a music producer. I'm hoping for tighter storytelling and greater relevance in the coming drama storm.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox: 이끼

New movies for me

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Director Kang Woosuk has a long filmography and is well known for helming the Public Enemy and Two Cops series of films. Having a number of decent thrillers under his belt, I think he was a natural choice for the adaptation of Moss, which was original a digital comic. However, for a mystery-thriller, I think that the film shows too many cards too soon and runs too long, spending a lot of time on details that no longer matter and not enough on the details that do. Still, the film is rather captivating for the first hour or so, before everything becomes too obvious.

The film actually begins set in the past, where the spiritual man, Ryu Mokhyung (Heo Joonho) gains a mass following, gets imprisoned and tortured by crooked cop, Chun Yongduk (Jung Jaeyoung) and then ends up making converts of Chun and a few ex-cons, who decide to start a community for those ex-cons. Now in the present, Ryu dies, resulting in his only surviving relative, his son, Ryu Haegook (Park Haeil), visiting the village to pay his respects. But immediately upon arrival, the locals are hostile to his presence and it becomes clear that something's not right with the picture, so he stays to investigate. This does not sit well with the Chun and his cronies.

In terms of story, the film really fails to retain mystery and suspense by selling out the mystery too early. It's too obvious from the very start that Chun and company are villains and so the many flashback and present-day revelations lack any impact. The mystery of who Ryu Mokhyung was gets explored too late (and shows up all of a sudden) to matter and the film fails to properly spoon-feed just enough information throughout the course of the film, rather giving up everything early on. This also results in the latter half of the movie's revelations really not being anything new, causing there to be a whole lot of narrative dead space. The final twist adds little and is poorly drawn into the story, seemingly tacked on. Now, I don't know how much of this is to blame on the original comic's writer, but even so, the adaptation doesn't really rebuild the comic into a strong film narrative. At least the background story about Chun, Ryu and his cronies is pretty interesting and could have made an interesting story in itself.

If the film lacks in the story department (critical for a thriller), it is still strongly and often smartly directed. Even without the threat of death, Kang makes many of Ryu Haeil's early snooping around quite tense and draws out some intimidating performances from his villainous cast, with Jung at a surprisingly potent degree of menace, but most of the supporting characters do well. I felt Park to be a little weaker than the rest of the cast in comparison, although his terror face is pretty entertaining. The production, art, costume, and sound design teams work well, too, giving the little town quite a tense air.

It's just unfortunate that the film gets weighed down in a lot of needless details and gives away the essence of the mystery too soon, rather than build it towards the climax, relying on present-moment suspense instead, which gets stretched too thin under the bulk of exposition in its second half. Moss is a film with overall good direction, performances and general moviemaking that suffers from a poorly organized thriller script that fails to retain suspense in the script and make the mystery matter. That makes the final film a bit like looking at a by-the-numbers painting that failed to cover up the actual numbers. A little stale overall, but it manages some decent moments and great atmosphere. 6/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: Hanguk Yeonghwa, Hangul Celluloid, Seen in Jeonju
• Available at YesAsia (Blu Ray) / (DVD)

Seen: 평범한 날들

Reporting on the movies I watch

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Ordinary Days is a Korean independent film that recently got a free screening at the CGV Los Angeles via the Korean Cultural Center sponsored Spotlight on Contemporary Korean Cinema. The film, a triptych composed of three very slightly connected shorts in decreasing length all feature troubled characters that eventually are drawn into an act of violence. Or so says the description on the cover. I found the film to recall an extended student film with its limited narratives and focus on capturing character perspective.

The first segment, "Between" follows an insurance salesman (Song Saebyuk) who suffers from what seems like depression and whose only joy comes from connecting with his young daughter. The second, "Among" revolves around a needlepoint artist (Han Yeri) who gets dumped by her boyfriend and then has another surprising moment. The final, and shortest, part, "Distance" examines a barista (Lee Jooseung) whose only remaining relative, his grandfather, passes away due to some job related condition, leaving him a coffeeshop and a small amount of money, which he wants to travel with.

The three tales are very loosely connected by an object or person that appears in all three parts as well as the general theme of troubled or frustrated characters. The first, the longest of the three, is kind of painfully long. We spend a lot of time with the main character doing mundane things as well as deepening in his depression as he visits doctors, prostitutes and contemplates suicide in the process or trying to find an escape from his condition. There is a bit of a twist or reveal at the end which helps see the segment in a different light, but after spending so much time with this guy, it doesn't seem to make up for the fact that his ordinary days aren't quite that interesting or compelling. But again, the reveal does help with that. The second segment has a random twist thrown in the center of it that doesn't really add to the story and while the ending again provides a reveal, I think that it's poorly woven into the character's story (pun intended). The final part is mercifully short, although much more violent than the others and reveals the least about the character or what's going on with him. To some extent, there is a subtheme of escape for all three stories, but none of it really adds up to much and the end result feels like a weak cousin Hong Sangsoo's The Day a Pig Fell into the Well, except nowhere near as coherent or pointed. Were the reveals not added to the end of each segment, you could almost argue this as some kind of existentialist examination of the tediousness of life, which in itself might be tedious, but even with the reveals, I found the film to be rather tedious.

In terms of direction, the film definitely has the feel of a student film with lots of lingering shots and hand held work with deliberately cut away mis-en-scene and off screen action. On the plus side, it's never really confusing as to what's going on, only why we're seeing it. The first segment and even the second feel fairly long too and while there is some merit in exploring these (well, at least the first) characters' pain in the "ordinary day" setting, in the end, I felt both a little bored and frustrated by the lack of anything really happening on screen. At least the acting in the first segment is pretty decent with Song's pathos and straight faced humor making his character interesting. The latter two characters seem almost like cyphers so it's hard to really appreciate the acting. Finally, the whole project's production feels like an indie or student film, with lower grade film stock and a look that's on par with the aforementioned Hong film.

While watching the film almost a fifth of the audience that came in left at some point before the ending credits rolled, such was the tedium that the film induced. Now, I think the concept is interesting, but the approach itself doesn't seem well thought out and the means of conveyance not particularly suited to the medium. Of the three parts, the first was the most watchable, thanks to a decent performance and a modestly poignant set of reveals, but it was still too costly to get there. The other two parts, I felt, added little to the greater theme and exploration. In the end, I was left a bit frustrated, bored to the point of shifting in my seat regularly, and wondering what the point was in observing all that tedium. This might be interesting for those that really have a strong appreciation for student and/or experimental film (more the former) and perhaps the writer and/or director will be able to produce more interesting movies in the future, but I'd say most audiences, including art-house film goers would probably do well to pass on this one. It's probably only for the most dedicated Korean indie cinema supporters. 4/10.

Links:

• Available at YesAsia

Progress Report: 커피프린스 1호점, Episodes 1-3

Reporting on series as I watch them

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This post may contain spoilers.

The very first thing I noticed about this series when watching is the Melody performing the opening credits. This series, like many Korean series takes a little time to wind up. We are introduced to Go Eunchan, a 24 year old tomboy who works several odd jobs (food delivery, Taekwondo instructor, sewing eyes onto dolls) to keep her family afloat as her mother keeps spending or losing money. In the very first scene, Go Eunchan delivers food to a women's bathhouse and is chased out by the women who believe her to be a boy. Shortly thereafter she delivers food to Choi Hangyul, the main male lead, who answers the door in a towel and casually sits about as Eunchan stares at his half-naked body before fleeing, assuming her to be a boy. I'm not sure if I actually buy Yoon Eunhye passing for a boy, but she does really make for a believable tomboy at least this early on, so I give the actress credit for really capturing a character.

Hangyul himself seems to have a long unrequited crush on Han Yoojoo, the artist ex-girlfriend of his older cousin, Choi Hansung, who apparently left Hansung for another man and career in New York, before returning to Korea recently. Hangyul himself is a unemployed playboy from a wealthy family and this doesn't sit well with his mother or grandmother. So they plot to get him married away and to acquiesce to their demands, he goes on a series of painful matchmaking dates, each of whom all have serious flaws. After a couple run-ins with the cash strapped Eunchan, he gets an idea and hires Eunchan to pretend to be his gay lover to expedite the end to his blind dates. Eunchan accepts and the two develop a kind of friendship from their collaboration.

Meanwhile Yoojoo and Hansung have a tense couple episodes before reconciling, much to the disappointment of Hangyul. Of course, Hansung and Eunchan also develop a friendship as she delivers milk to his home and plays with his dog. And then Hangyul's grandmother threatens to take everything away from him unless he either gets married or takes over a coffeeshop and returns three times the profit on it. After some waffling, he gets convinced by Eunchan to do it and hires her as his first "prince", hiring a few others in the process. The third episode ends as Eunchan in her obsessive pride tasks her younger sister's much less savvy tagalong with ordering coffee and costing the shop thousands of dollars in over-ordered coffee. This causes Hangyul to go into anger overdrive and yell at Eunchan and we're left with that emotional point. But previews for future episodes show Eunchan working at the shop, so I don't think there's too much to worry about.

There are some points, especially in the first two episodes where the show gets a little whimsical and, therefore, a little too silly to enjoy and it's montages like the clothes shopping for (boy) Eunchan or the coffee making montage that really slow down the episodes. However, the music, which I'm already acquainted with, is still quite excellent and with Hansung being a music producer, we get a lot of lovely music. So far, there's enough fun in the setup to keep watching and just enough character development to not have me too worried yet. I hope the show continues to move forward at this pace while ridding itself of the fluffy montages.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox: 해결사

New movies for me

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I didn't have many expectations for Troubleshooter when I first had seen it arriving at Los Angeles' CGV Cinemas and so I missed it, but I later learned that Ryu Seungwan had a hand in producing it, so I thought it'd be worth picking up and checking out, ordering the DVD. The action-crime-thriller turns out to be a pretty slick and entertaining piece, marrying bits of noir and chase films into a complex, but not contrived, plot that keeps the viewer mostly guessing and is packed with several strong action sequences.

In Troubleshooter, ex-cop Kang Taeshik (Sol Kyunggu) makes a living as a private investigator to support his precocious daughter. One day, on a seemingly routine trip to gather evidence of marital infidelity, Kang instead finds the dying body of a woman in the hotel and a videotape showing a dangerous mental patient (Lee Younghoon) killing her. He gets a call from a mysterious man (Lee Jungjin) who seems to know a lot about him, basically informing Kang that he's been framed and that, if he can do the man's bidding, the man will provide him evidence that will clear his name. What follows is Kang becoming a wanted man, evading the police squad led by Choi Sanghcul (Oh Dalsoo) and doing what he can to comply with his antagonist's demands while trying to uncover just what's going on.

What I like about Troubleshooter is that it manages to have a complex plot where everything makes sense with every revelation and the revelations keep coming over the course of the watch, so there's no inconceivable twist to digest. This keeps the audience involved and just enough in the dark that each following twist is enough fun. I do wonder how Kang is as much of a badass as he is, single-handedly taking out large groups of police officers, but the Rule of Cool allowed me to look past that. Despite the complex plot, which works especially well with what we learn of Kang's own backstory, the character motivations remain rather straightforward, which keeps the film from becoming convoluted and while this results in a simple film, it's an effectively entertaining and engaging one that doesn't reach to be anything more than that.

Writer-director Kwon Hyukjae keeps things stylistically simple and has a good command of action, never over-cutting the sequences so the flow of action is clear. There's a small line of comedy embedded into the film mainly around the antics of the police, which remains wonderfully understated and dry, acting as a brief release from the intensity of the thrills. Sol works well in his role, capturing Kang's frustration, bewilderment and moments of natural cool and Lee Jungjin is perfectly smug as his antithesis, although with so flat a character, there are obviously limits. Likewise, many of the supporting characters get a little bit of time to shine, but as there isn't much to most of these characters, there's only so much you can expect. The film itself is photographed as well as you'd expect of a modern Korean film, capturing the streets of Seoul in its dirty urban glory.

Troubleshooter is an entertaining film thanks to its moments of explosive and impossibly cool action, its regular feeding of twist after twist in a complex but classic crime story of getting framed, and its engaging performances and direction. I wouldn't say that Troubleshooter breaks any new ground or stands with the best of thrillers, but in terms of entertainment value, the film delivers, making it an excellent evening at the movies for those looking for a fun ride. 8/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: Far East Films, Modern Korean Cinema
• Available at YesAsia

Seen: The Language Archive, November 3, 2011 at East West Players, Los Angeles

Reporting on the shows I watch

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Julia Cho's The Language Archive explores themes of love through the interesting paradox of how language exists for the sake of communication, but even in our immense knowledge of and use of language, we can often fail to communicate at all. Although the direction needed a little more development at the preview that I attended, I think the overall vision for the play came across and, aided by modest to strong performances, gorgeous set design and some smart production choices, I found the play to be quite interesting, even if the ending, like the characters in the play, suffered a little from saying too much while revealing little.

The play revolves a little around George (Ryun Yu), a linguist who's made it his mission to capture evidence of every language in existence before they vanish from living existence. However, his lack of expressiveness alienates his constantly tearing wife, Mary (Kimiko Gelman) who's been leaving him cryptic literary notes and eventually leaves him. Into this sudden life crisis comes an opportunity for George and his assistant, Emma (Jennifer Chang), who harbors a longstanding unspoken crush on her boss, to capture recordings of Elloway, a language whose last remaining speakers, married couple Resten (Nelson Mashita) and Alta (Jeanne Sakata), arrive, having agreed to record their language for The Language Archive. However, those two last speakers get in a tempestuous argument and refuse to speak to each other except in English ("the language of anger") compounding George's problems.

I found the overall irony presented in the play to be quite convincing, especially when we see just how poorly George expresses himself to Mary and the subplot of Resten and Alta to be illuminating. However, for all the lights that go off in the play, it seems as the impact of the events of the play are a touch lost on both George and Emma in particular, who sort of live in a stasis for the play, even despite their limited developments. And this lack of narrative or thematic movement is made clear by the play's end, which goes as far as having the characters recap what's happened since the end of the main story, which is to say: not much. While there is a point made about a paradoxical moment in the play which points back to the central irony in the story, I felt that the stagnancy of the two characters who have the most conflict (George and Emma) to dilute the impact of the play, the result feeling almost as academic as George himself. Furthermore, the point of view of the play shifts between acts from George to Emma and in the second act, tends to float around a little resulting in a little loss in empathy for both characters. On the plus side, the play does blend well its comedy with its drama and it never feels forced.

The overall direction of the play moves it towards the more imaginative interpretation, but I think it benefits the headiness of all the language in it, with the frequent breaking of the fourth wall for an audience address signaled by the actors pulling open an invisible curtain with the first scene seeing Mary's own awareness of George's audience address, I think this willingness to drift from hard reality was a good choice. However, despite its flights of fancy, the direction and performances stay very well grounded on the internal states of the characters, with Yu capturing both the inability of George to empathize and his subsequent melancholy well. Both Mashita and Sakata handle their many characters well, imbuing the play with some fun character moments and Chang captures the awkward shyness of Emma well. I'm not sure if it's a lack of development in the writing, but I did find Gelman's Mary quite difficult to pierce, even in her most vulnerable moment when she's expressing the contradiction of emotion to a stranger at the train station. In terms of production elements, the set was beautiful, capturing the more imaginative interpretation via a wall of drawers and cabinets with almost magical openings, closings and moving of elements unseen. Likewise, the low key score also captures a kind of subtly magical feel and some sound and lighting cues capture that same feel, although the tech wasn't entirely spot on the whole night, it was at least well thought out and designed.

I think that, in the end, The Language Archive was still quite an interesting watch especially for the discourse on communication especially when it comes to communicating love and the impact of a failure to communicate love. The play itself doesn't entirely follow through or stay focused on its promises and so, by the end, it might feel just a little hollow or anti-climactic, but the night was buoyed by generally strong performances, overall sense of direction and strong production design to go with the interesting, even if unfocused, play. Being the first preview performance of its run, some of the efforts on the stage were a little rough and tweaking is inevitable in direction, performance and tech, so I imagine that the official shows will look and sound even better. The Language Archive does have a few flaws that might cool some viewers towards it, but I still find it rather interesting and engaging (at one point, the audience gets to learn and repeat a few phrases in Esperanto), and so it might be worth investigating for those that like the premise. 7/10.

Links:

• Play website

Progress Report: 네 멋대로 해라

Reporting on series as I watch them

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Ruler of Your Own world, glancing at the synopsis, seems to be a Korean drama series riddled with drama cliches, to the point that casual and hardened drama viewers alike might both be warded away by the premise, but those that take the time to watch through the series will see that it takes the time to explore these plot cliches rather than use them as plot twists to pull at the emotions of viewers and characters. And while the series doesn't fully come together at the end, its sensitive story, direction and portrayal manage to grant it more than a few powerful moments and make the twenty episode run worthwhile to most viewers.

It's hard to write a synopsis without giving away the early plot twists, but the story basically follows Ko Boksoo (rapper and actor Yang Donggeun), a pickpocket recently released from prison who goes straight back to his old tricks. He has a bossy, tough cheerleader girlfriend, Mirae (Gong Hyojin). Across from him is Chun Kyung (Lee Nayoung), a indie musician and songwriter whose band is struggling with an ill lead singer and a music reporter, Han (Lee Donggun), courting her. But when the soft-hearted Boksoo steals Kyung's band's money that was going to go to the treatment of Kyung's friend and singer, it results in a chain of events that change Boksoo and Kyung's lives, especially when Boksoo discovers some rather startling news about himself in the process.

The greatest strength of Ruler of Your Own World's story is how thoughtfully it explores the events that occur in the lives of the characters. When the cliche comes in, the story doesn't use it to fuel high drama in an existing situation, but rather opens it up early and sees how it drives change in the characters, whether it's Boksoo's discovery about himself or Kyung's discovery about her family. I also like how the characters in the love triangle avoid their typical roles, with a lower class thief of a male and an upper class girl who accepts being poor for the sake of her art and finally, the rival love interests not being on unfriendly terms, despite their conflicting interests. And I especially love the deep exploration into the two leads' relationships with their parents, which gets as potent as the main love story at times. Unfortunately, the story starts up many many storylines, many of which do not really get any meaningful resolution, with many of the secondary stories around the families dropping out without making a greater impact on the leads. The pacing of the story is also pretty strong: early on, not an episode goes by without at least one captivating moment happening and while this becomes a less frequent in later episodes, there's still a lot of food for thought in this series, especially around how life and death are defined.

Although the production values of the show aren't quite as high-gloss as top tier shows of the early 2000's, I found them adequate, although the video source and cinematography were in some night and indoor scenes, overly bright and warm. However, one great touch is that the directing actually takes some time to draw characters and sometimes symbolism with its imagery, especially drawing from every day events. Much credit should be given to veteran actors Shin Goo and Yoon Yuhjung for great turns as Boksoo's parents and for Yang Donggeun for really capturing his soft-hearted character. Gong Hyojin is wonderfully both feisty and vulnerable in her Mirae and Lee Nayoung defines Kyung's naive and cute, but determined nature well. I do think that Lee Donggun's Han is written slightly and performed a little too cutely and Kim Myungkook the one actor that consistently performs too over the top. But the rest of the supporting actors add well to the greater tapestry of the series and many create memorable moments in themselves. Finally, the soundtrack, while it does bear a bit of repetitiveness with its dramatic ballads, the series fortunately avoids adding in too many music montage flashback sequences and most of the ballads are pretty tasteful. Even more wonderful is Kyung's band's music which is all drawn from the outstanding Korean indie band, 3rd Line Butterfly, and the music's regular presence adds additional potency to several scenes.

I am a little disappointed that the series wasn't perfectly tight in its storytelling, especially in letting the supporting stories go without fully resolving them with the lead characters or into the main story and wasting a couple moments on side stories that don't add to the greater discourse of the series. However, the heavy character development and deep exploration into the impact of story events on the various characters was pretty impressive, going deep even in its breadth of stories. With mostly solid performances, intentional, but natural direction, and a great 3rd Line Butterfly driven soundtrack, there's a lot to impress with Ruler of Your Own World. It might not have traditionally attractive characters or traditionally high drama plotlines, its ability to take the plot cliches from those kinds of dramas and use them as story elements to develop characters makes Ruler of Your Own World special in its own way. And worth a watch for those interested in carefully drawn and insightful stories. 8/10.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website
• Additional Reviews: Koreanfilm.org
• Watch for free at DramaFever
• Available at Amazon and YesAsia

Inbox: 이층의 악당

New movie for me

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I ended up liking Villain and Widow more than I probably should have, considering that it does suffer from being a bit overlong and having a slightly undercooked story. Part of this might be that the film refuses to fully embrace any given genre and decides to take its premise and run with it, which I always seem to like. The other part might be the situations that the film creates for its characters so well and the slightly off-kilter sense of humor, which doesn't qualify it as a dark comedy, nor an off-beat comedy, but simply a different kind of comedy.

The thriller opens with an in-genre deal going down as two smugglers of Chinese artifacts meet with each other. One is our protagonist, Ghang Changin (Han Sukkyu) to whom Hahm Gisoo (Park Wonsang) is trying to sell a rare artifact (a Blue Dragon teacup) worth approximately two million dollars. However, the deal gets busted up by cops, sending Ghang to prison and Hahm falling to his death in an unfortunate attempt to escape by rooftop. Before the deal got busted, Ghang learned that Hahm stashed the goods in a secret place in his house, so when he gets out, he finds a wealthy businessman buyer and finds that the house has some high tech security as well as Hahm being survived by his wife, Yeonjoo (Kim Hyesoo) and daughter. Not in the bloody business of killing, he sees that the cash strapped widow is renting out the top floor and proceeds to rent it out, posing as a writer and in the process of sneaking about the house to search for the teacup, finds himself increasingly entangled with the women who live downstairs.

The comedic elements of the story almost take on a dark tone, but never get particularly grim as the lengths that Ghang has to go to in order to keep his activities quiet result in him getting frustratingly entangled with the depressed insomniac with a short temper, Yeonjoo. This sets up very amusing point in the film where Ghang ends up trapped in part of the house for over a day and when he's able to extricate himself from the space, he can't still evade the person who owns it and the series of misunderstandings that he's forced to play into continues to be quite funny. However, for all of its clever antics, I think because the film doesn't really choose to be a crime/caper thriller, nor a drama, nor a comedy in particular result in a lack of narrative focus with no strong point to the individual characters' stories. It's almost tragic, but doesn't have enough of a bite for that, resulting in a film that's amusing enough to watch, but not enough to justify its length.

Director Son Jaegon handles the film with a natural approach most of the time, although sometimes the setups result in an almost sitcom-like atmosphere and in the moments when film becomes more thriller like, he's clearly got a command of the genre. The result actually gets all the underlying genres to blend together well in feel and never feel like the audience is being jerked from genre to genre, but he doesn't seem to be able to draw a point out of it either. The leads do quite well, with Han easily capturing the charming rogue with his affable looks and voice and Kim Hyesoo manages to imbue her character with the kind of almost frenzied desperation that makes her character so fascinating to watch in her sudden explosiveness. And, like most Korean films these days, everything looks great (although the region 3 Candle Media DVD shows some poor transfer attributes).

For a film that left me wanting, I still managed to like Villain and Widow, especially for the amusing setups and good performances of the leads. I also really liked how it managed to seamlessly blend genre elements together into a whole. But the story's inability to move deeper into the characters or establish an overall arc result in the whole movie lacking impact. For that I cannot give Villain and Widow a strong recommendation, but I think those that like to see these kind of experiments in genre as well as those that like the premise and want to see a hardened thief get trapped by an oblivious widow, well, here's your movie. 7/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: Koreanfilm.org, Modern Korean Cinema
• Available at YesAsia

Progress Report: 네 멋대로 해라, Episodes 19-20

Reporting on series as I watch them

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This post may contain spoilers.

The final two episodes of Ruler of Your Own World face a little bit of an anti-climax. Most of the side plots are really wrapped up now and episode 19 finishes business with Mirae, Kang, the action school guys and so forth, focusing on the main conflict between Kyung and Boksoo about Boksoo's fear for himself in becoming an invalid as well as becoming a burden to Kyung and Kyung's desire to be beside Boksoo no matter what. And there's a bit of a dramatic build up of all that, but after some conflict and a few twists and a scare, the whole thing resolves fairly naturally, without any dramatic blow-ups. And that's the still interesting thing about this drama; even when it runs into cliche territory, it tends to resolve things more naturally. I do think the show kind of lets the side stories drop off without fully tying down the themes (especially Boksoo's mother), but I suppose it's very possible over spread yourself thin while trying to cover every angle and lose sight of the main story of the love of life in the face of death.

The final episode actually does something that I found almost too cute (not in a good way), having various characters who didn't really interact run into each other and not notice each other, also as a way of seeing where all the side characters are at. It was a bit much once I realized that it was going to cover every supporting character, because the coincidence factor got too much, but since it was the last episode, I let it pass without getting too frustrated. Still, as a denouement, the final episode, wrapped in a series of voice-over dialogues delivered by the main characters, feels a bit empty because of the lack of closure to most of the side stories. And while I think some people might find the ambiguous-seeming ending frustrating, but I liked how it ended because I saw it as an actual conclusion to the story, seeing the road that Kyung and Boksoo have carved for themselves by Kyung's final reaction and knowing that it's the path that they'll travel together.

So, I'm strangely satisfied with this anti-climax, but I do feel a little disappointed that the story didn't come together as tightly or as meaningfully as I was hoping and wasted a bit of time in the last four episodes with side dalliances and a few repeated beats that didn't really contribute anything to the major story. But, in the end, I'm happy to have seen Ruler of Your Own World, thanks to its meaningful look into the cliched tropes that Korean dramas were mocking even in 2002, when this series was airing.

Links:

• Set index
• Series website

Inbox: 눈에는 눈 이에는 이

New movies for me

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Korea has been able to make a few decent caper films and a few decent cop films too, so you'd think that they could make a few decent caper-and-cop films. And perhaps Chungmuro can, but Eye for an Eye is not that film. While there are some pretty slick caper moves and even both cool and fun, hammy moments of acting, the story is really confused as to what it wants to tell and generally, the film is unable to successfully sustain interest and drama. And for all of its slick production values, this caper film appears to have stolen an empty crate.

A complicated story it is not. A quintet of thieves led by Ahn Hyunmin (Cha Seungwon) slickly manage to rob a money delivery truck owned by a Kim Hyuntae (Song Youngchang), a wealthy man with a shady background. Shady enough that police captain Baek Sungchan (Han Sukkyu) has been on his case for a while. While Baek was going to retire, finding that Kim's money has been stolen brings him back on the case to find and catch Ahn, unraveling a master plan among the plots twists and turns.

The first problem is that I don't think the film is really able to decide who the protagonist is and we start with Ahn and he's the most interesting character. Furthermore, Captain Baek is strung along by Ahn for much of the film and really doesn't do anything meaningful for much of the film, except try to catch Ahn in the act and since his own history with Kim isn't played up, it's kind of weird to see the manipulation that supposedly occurs. That twist actually is all for naught as well, which really defuses the plot. There are some cleverly thought out sequences for the caper moments, but unlike Inside Man, these are just small moments in some attempt at a bigger plot and not the focus. Finally, the film is really unable to build either of the characters enough to incite any meaningful sympathy and the result feels so by-the-numbers, the story seems like its on auto-pilot. Not a good thing.

At least the film is slickly produced and shot, although I felt at times it was overly stylistic, with an abuse of handheld camera where unneeded and flashy "piecing together the crime" shots that don't really add much nor entirely make sense. When it comes to acting, I think Cha Seungwon played the cool parts well, but in the end lacked dimension when he needed it, which caused his character in the end to seem flat. On the other hand, Han Sukkyu played all right except for a couple points where he chews the scenery, which is striking, but I feel the mix between hamming it up and playing it more natural makes Baek seem inconsistent and artificial. Kim is drawn as a cartoonish villain, so Song's playing it right, but the character itself is just too ridiculous to believe.

All this results in a film that seems to believe itself to be this cool, stylish cop-and-caper cat and mouse. And it does have cool and stylish down. It just doesn't build enough of a foundation in its characters nor really deciding on who the protagonist is to convince an audience to care about the cop-and-caper bits, resulting in a film that just seems like it's trying too hard. And it shows. Even the title sounds cool, but the story fails to focus on the idea of vengeance, resulting in pretty packaging for what's an empty film. Mechanically, the story adds up, but no more than mechanically and I have to recommend a pass on this one. There are better cop films, better caper films, and better ways to spend 97 minutes. 4/10.

DVD Note: The Sky Entertainment Hong Kong all region DVD transfer suffers from terribly boosted contrast, resulting in exaggerated colors and especially washes the dark scenes in black, rending it almost impossible to see what's going on. This might not apply to the US transfer.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: Far East Films
• Available at Amazon