The greatest things ever, part I: Korean movies

I took a class in Korean film in college, which turned out of be life changing for personal reasons too weird, complicated, and embarrassing to get into here. More interestingly, it changed things forever because I got some of my favorite (and one of my most hated) movies ever out of it, and gave me one of the best untranslatable vocab words ever: han. My understanding of the word han is that it something like suffering and resentment, tied up with identity, inescapable. If freedom is the American motto/identity, han is the Korean identity. So it seems that the concept of han is essential to really understanding Korean movies. That’s a really glib crash course-y way of explaining it, but I’m not a Phd in film or anthropology, OK? To describe it in an even more shallow way: Korean movies are usually sad as hell, even the “funny” ones. Now, some of the Best (and one of the Worst) Things Ever: A quick list and summary of my favorite Korean movies (and one I hate).

Nowhere to Hide

I just love this so much. It’s a pretty basic detective story, but it’s very stylized, alternately seriously and cartoonishly violent, hilarious and sad. It's a thing unto itself. Detectives Kim and Woo (aka Detective $100 Haircut and Detective Ugly) search for a murderer over the course of several months. The film is long, and some scenes seem a little tedious, purposefully, as the director was trying to capture the true nature of police investigations. The American cut is shorter and more fun, maybe, but the original cut is better in terms of artistic vision.



Sopyonje
The surprise hit phenomenon that helped to revive the lost art form of pansori by legendary director Im Kwon-taek. The success of the film also helped to usher in the “Korean New Wave” cinema, and was one of the most successful Korean films of all time until it was surpassed by Shiri, down in Honorable Mention below. The movie is about as artsy as they come, slow, about a family of pansori singers wandering the Korean countryside. It includes a truly pathetic and shocking act of cruelty. Really hard to find.



Peppermint Candy Begins with a man’s suicide and flows backwards-thorough time through his corruption to his innocent, hopeful beginnings.

Christmas In August

A sweet, sad little love story about death. A relationship begins, but never really has a chance to take off.

A Tale Of Two Sisters

If you haven’t been totally burned out or turned off Asian horror by the awful American remakes and ripoffs, this is a lovely, creepy horror film. "Fear your family."

Attack The Gas Station!

A group of delinquents take a gas station hostage after the owner doesn't have any money to give them in a robbery because they already robbed it! The bit with the music producer showing up out of nowhere and the final showdown with the delivery boys are worth the price of admission, but the whole thing is pretty funny.

Why Has the Bhodi-Dharma Left for The East?

Fuck this fucking movie. Yes, yes, I am an unsophisticated savage incapable of appreciate the delicate Buddhist beauty of this film. This kind of nonsense gives a noble religion a bad, pretentious name. This might be the most boring movie I have ever seen. Here’s what I remember:

Old Buddhist guy knocks out little Buddhist kids’ loose tooth with a rock or something
Little Buddhist kid hurts a bird, feels bad about it, tries to save it, it dies anyway
Little Buddhist kid almost gets drowned by a bunch of jerk kids while swimming
Young Buddhist guy who is kind of an ass goes back to his family

I really really tried, but I kept falling asleep through the rest. Watch it if you want to pretend to be fancy, I guess. But you won't fool me.

Honorable Mention

Shiri

Good old Shiri. One of biggest Korean movies of all time. It's kind of ludicrous sometimes (I need me some head-explodey pills!) but it's a great action movie that still manages to be genuinely sad.



Vengeance Trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, (Sympathy for) Lady Vengeance
I haven't seen Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance yet, but Oldboy and Lady Vengeance are excellent. I'm saving them for my revenge movie post, though.

Movies I want to see:

Barking Dogs Never Bite

Memories of Murder

Pulgasari

This one is directed by Shin Sang-ok, the same guy who directed and produced some of the 3 Ninjas series under the name Simon Sheen. He was kidnapped by that good old rat bastard Kim Jong-il for North Korea and forced to make Communist propaganda films. His movies were supposed to somehow magically project a fearsome image while simultaneously improving the Western view of North. Then he escaped! Here's the story. Pulgasari is a supposed to be a weird Godzilla-type movie featuring a lot of random folk dancing. Does it not sound awesome? It’s the only one of the North Korean movies to get a Western release, and then it was billed as “Banned in America!” and so forth, although the ban had nothing to do whatsoever with content.