Cinematic potpourri

This past week has proven to be another productive and rewarding week at the cinemas: we had a couple of films shown commercially in our theaters and a Korean film festival. And it never really came to a point wherein we thought there were so many films, yet there was only so little time. The dedicated and enterprising cineaste will always find a way. 

Let's take a look first at the Korean Film Festival (SM Megamall, Oct. 8-12):

• "All About My Wife" by Min Kyu-dong (2012, 121 mins)

This romantic comedy that is somehow an "anti-rom-com" is over-the-top loony and irrational, something that brings to mind the works of Pedro Almodóvar and John Waters. Yet, in its own charming way, this seeming senselessness works because it just fits into the milieu. There's a certain kind of wicked appeal in how the film lulls us into believing early on how fate and chance must have conspired beautifully for the two strangers to become a loving couple. Yet, just right after that (or just about on the couple's seventh year of marriage - the "seven-year itch", as they say), we see the husband and wife getting on each other's nerves day in and day out, with the former deciding to instigate a divorce by hatching a totally ridiculous plan. A very game and charming performance by all the three main characters - the husband, the wife and the "third wheel" - makes us bear all the bonkers attitude of the film, given an out-of-this-world screenplay and a little too stretched running time. 

• "The King of Pigs" by Yeon Sang-ho (2011, 97 mins)

The only animated feature in the festival is one truly unsettling and horrific piece. We have already seen a number of films about school bullying, like Brian de Palma's "Carrie", Larry Clark's "Bully" and Shin Dong-yeob's "Days of Wrath". But the despair and hopelessness of "The King of Pigs" just crawl on your skin - these will even stay on it for a number of days! The shocking violence notwithstanding, what's totally unsettling in the film is the idea that bullying has such a long-term effect on children that it will continue to scar and cripple them way into adulthood, with their capacity for psychological and emotional enrichment completely stunted. What's more is that once suffered, the bullied children may have no other best recourse to deal with such than by becoming "monsters" themselves just like their tormentors. 

• "Hide and Seek" by Huh Jung (2013, 107 mins) 

This one is an absolute screamfest, eliciting loud cries from the audience in spades. Remarkably, it doesn't rely on a scary monster, a ghostly child or a creepy  lady in white to do so, even if it does have plenty of jump scares. All it just takes is a relatable situation, an effective build-up of suspense and a host of compelling characters (though how we wish that the issue of the father with his brother had a more satisfying closure). We may even say that the suspense in "Hide and Seek" has a sociological slant to it (homelessness and home squatting). It only serves as a welcome bonus if the filmmaker has an eye for vivid production design and carefully-composed shots and angles to further enhance the story, which Huh Jung definitely has. 

• "Man on the Edge" by Jo Jin-gyu (2012, 127 mins) 

This film from the guy who brought us the first and third parts of "My Wife Is A Gangster" is a rollicking ride all throughout, eliciting non-stop laughter with practically each and every scene. Even if the film has obvious references to some staples of American pop culture like the gangster genre and the blockbuster fares "Ghost" and "The Sixth Sense", the outrageousness and absurdity of its humor is distinctly Korean, along the lines of such other Korean comedies like Kim Sang-jin's "Attack the Gas Station", Jang Joon-hwan's "Save the Green Planet!" and Kim Jee-woon's "The Good, the Bad, the Weird". It makes one really scratch one's head to think how on Earth does it happen that from being a feared mobster, the main character of Park Shin-yang would all of a sudden decide to pursue the vocation of being a venerated shaman, not without some hilarious, and at some times violent, results. Though "Man on the Edge" becomes a tad too bathetic in its final minutes (concerning a sub-plot about a doctor and her dying child), the way towards it is for the most part outrightly bonkers, with a violently funny climax putting an icing on the proceedings. 

• "A Company Man" by Lim Sang-yoon (2012, 96 mins) 

Korean revenge thrillers are never tiring to watch. Even if they are running on the same central motif, it still appears that they are being dressed anew each and every time, not to mention the outright bluntness and brutality of the violence and cruelty involved. All the films that comprise Park Chan-wook's "Vengeance" trilogy, Kim Jee-woon's "A Bittersweet Life" and "I Saw the Devil", the above-mentioned "Days of Wrath", just to name a few - all these films are fascinating and even disturbing specimens of this particular action sub-genre that Korean filmmakers have come to endow a distinct personality all its own. And now comes "A Company Man" as a welcome addition. Though the film is arguably uninviting in the early part, it is able thankfully to pick up momentum and gravitas the moment So Ji-sub's character reaches a crisis of conscience in regards being a prized taciturn assassin for a discreet organization disguising as a business company (simply referred to as "The Company"), as he slowly falls for the mother of his young aid. This is where the element of "revenge" starts to figure out, the moment So's "disobedience" to his company begins to put his life and that of the family he has come to care for on the line. This act of vengeance is punctuated by a remorseless and bloody bullet-riddled climax, akin in context and execution to that in "A Bittersweet Life". Yet, the film's conclusion suggests that there may still be a promising future ahead for So. 

• "Hwayi: A Monster Boy" by Jang Joon-hwan (2013, 127 mins) 

The last film that I saw at the festival turns out to be my favorite one. While all the film entries are exceptionally good, "Hwayi: A Monster Boy" is the superior work. The helmer of "Save the Green Planet!" delivers, about a decade after that film, yet another offbeat, engaging and ultra-violent piece of gonzo filmmaking, something in which Korean directors never fail to excel. As in Indonesia's excellent "The Raid 2", the tragedy that befalls the characters in "Hwayi" achieves a Shakespearean level in its operatic intensity and cruelty, pitting fathers and sons against each other while being fuelled by feelings of anger, deception, betrayal and revenge. We certainly know that Hwayi's (stunningly portrayed by Yeo Jin-goo) five adoptive fathers, who collectively call themselves Daybreakers, are methodical and ruthless criminals being maintained by a corrupt public official, yet when the young boy begins to turn the tables on them after he learns of a dark truth we can't help feeling sorry as this once happy and close-knit family gradually disintegrates, not without bloodshed and loss of lives. The character arcs drawn in the film are strong and complex, from Hwayi's transformation from a meek and gentle youth to a rampaging and wrathful monster boy, all the way to the five fathers who all have their distinct traits yet are all conflicted in their relationship towards their adopted son, such as the character of Kim Yun-seok (who did offbeat roles in "The Chaser" and "Yellow Sea") whose stern and unsmiling demeanor, while telling indications of a deadly persona, nevertheless belies a sincere fatherly affection for Hwayi. Moreover, just like in "The King of Pigs", the film has a paradoxical, if unsettling, concept of the nature of evil (something which, more or less, pretty occupied a number of Korea's violent and disturbing films - "Oldboy", "I Saw the Devil", "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", "Bad Guy", "Peppermint Candy", among others): that to confront and overcome the monster in us, we must become one ourselves. 

With the films shown at the Korean Film Festival, Filipino moviegoers have come to learn, in a truly stunning way, that Korean mass media culture doesn't only mean K-pop groups/bands and TV drama/romantic series. This is the kind of brazen and untamed filmmaking that has strongly piqued the interest of avid cineastes in Korean cinema. Though it wasn't explicitly stated by the festival organizers, I was wondering if violence was the main theme (if any) of this year's edition of the film event. 

(Jang Joon-hwan's "Hwayi: A Monster Boy": Of violence and being evil.)