A PUBLIC CEMETERY OF WOL-HA (Korea; 1967)

NOW UPDATED WITH CLIPPAGE!

This review was previously published on this blog in 2008.



Adultery. Suicide. Murder. Insanity. Drug addiction. Severed arms. Severed Heads. Impaled eye sockets. Acid facials. Attempted infanticide. To name a few.

Sure, it all sounds like the grocery list for some lurid Category III thriller from Hong Kong, or a par-for-the-course exercise in J-horror.

But it's not.

Welcome to Korea, 1967.

The film is A PUBLIC CEMETERY OF WOL-HA, a contemporary-set chiller about a conniving housemaid who keeps her wealthy matron in perpetual sickness in the hopes that her eventual death will free up a little space in her husband's love life...and bank account. While the victim takes the eternal yawn by her own hand, and in abject sorrow and humiliation as befits only the most beautiful Korean tragediennes, payback begins in earnest for her tormentors (and yes, there's more than one!) when her ghost returns home to settle up the bill.

There's some remarkably effective imagery here on what appears to be a modest budget (jazzed up with enough cheap-scare violin shrieks to make then-WKU student John Carpenter proud). One might easily draw visual links to similar Japanese films of the period, but on the basis of this, my first foray into old-school K-horror, I'm tempted to think the Korean shock film industry was vogueing to it's own gruesome beat, one that still reverberates in many of the country's unique modern shockers.

Regardless, Michael Carreras would most definitely have been impressed.







Click through to YouTube via any of the above videos for more clips from this and other amazing (and often rare!) Asian Cinema!

Available at many fine retailers near your keyboard

I got your NINJA ASSASSIN right here.

Really, now, does this look like the kind of fellow who could turn your extremities into sashimi while carving a watermelon wedge out of your throat? I didn't think so. I mean, come on, he's making a little heart shape with his hands. Just for you. Awwwww.


Korean pop sensation—and sometime archenemy to Stephen Colbert—Rain is hawking some tasty little chocolate covered, orange-goo streaked goodies here called Fei Cakes, produced by the Fuma Group Food Company of China, which has in recent years invested heavily in the Industrial Bank, China Everbright Bank and Bank of Communications as part of their plan to become the "China Cake Kingdom." You will eat their cake some day. Oh yes, you will.

Fuma's marketing spiel for the cakes might sound a little . . . suggestive to western ears, and seems to be trying to encourage you to put something besides cake in your mouth:

Rain between your lips, rain in your mouth and in your heart
Fall in love with the Fei cake, with Rain and with the smelling of Rain!

Rain's Coming, indeed.

Now, if that doesn't make you want to run out and buy a box to munch on while Rain slices and dices his way through the ranks of his former ninja clan, I don't know what will.

Well, how about the image from the side of the box, then?



Nah, didn't work for me either. They had me at Sho Kosugi. But the Fei Cakes are mighty good.

As always, my eternal gratitude to Canada's most awesomest Asian mega-grocery chain, T&T, for stocking some of the coolest little nibblies this side of Hong Kong.

SINGLES (2003; Korea)

R.I.P. Jang Jin-young
1974-2009

D: Kwon Chil-in
W: No Hye-yeong, Park Hun-Su


Uhm Jeong-hwa, Jang Jin-young

SINGLES is an incisive, progressive Korean comedy-drama that leaves many films in its overworked genre looking exactly like the disguised condoning of tradition they really are, but it's nothing like the U.S. television program, SEX AND THE CITY the U.S. DVD distributor has chosen to compare it to, despite the refreshingly liberal attitude taken by the filmmakers towards the sex lives of single people in a culture that pushes way too hard for traditional, culturally-protective dating and marriage.

One can only begin to imagine how entrenched thinkers in Korean society would react to this honest, observant, level-headed look at four late-twenty-somethings for whom life provides obstacles in both career and love that neither regressive-collective cultural thinking nor parents - who barely figure into the plot - can solve. Nan (Jang Jin-young), is a wide-eyed fashion industry drone busted down to Chili's manager by her sexist middle manager. The shift stings, but also points out realities she's not entirely uncomfortable with. Into her world comes Seo-hoon (Kim Ju-hyeok) a decent-fella securities trader who clearly wants to pursue a relationship despite her reservations.

Meanwhile, her best friend Dong Mi (Uhm Jeong-hwa), a web company employee out of work thanks to her own sexist superior, shares a flat with old pal Joon (Lee Beom-soo, in a 180 degree turn from his creepy role in OH! BROTHERS), who's as unsuccessful at removing himself from bad relationships as she is successful at bringing home a long string of bad boyfriends.

That both of these couples should end up together is a given. That the film provides no easy resolutions yet plenty of optimism for these truly modern Korean women is 2003's most pleasant K-cinema surprise: it allows the protagonists an honesty and resolve in deciding their own fates that many recent K-romances seem hell-bent on denying similar characters. Here, marriage to a handsome man and financial success - long the expectations of many young Korean women - are not depicted as an absolute guarantee of security and/or happiness, and turning 30 without being defined is hardly the end of the world, particularly for those who remain adaptable to the changes happening around them, rather than being pressured to fit a mold as their ancestors were. It should hardly surprise, then, that the film resonated so strongly with many young, independent Korean women who viewed it, some reportedly to the point of adopting Jang's distinctive and spunky bobbed hairstyle, as well as elements of her wardrobe!


Jang Jin-young

Fine acting across the board, anchored by Jang's captivating, authentic performance, raises this far above the low-brow antics too often seen in these kinds of films (CRAZY FIRST LOVE immediately comes to mind). Almost needless to say, the production design and cinematography are sterling, with warm and inviting environments (including an absolutely gorgeous Seoul) serving as extensions of the optimism with which these characters face an uncertain, hopeful future. Must-see contemporary Korean cinema, and easily one against which all similar Korean romantic films should be measured.

TUBE (Korea; 2003)

TUBE (Korea; 2003)
D: Baek Woon-Hak

While I can't highly recommend it, TUBE is kind of fun, provided you don't think too much about the plot, which has a stereotypical loose-canon cop (Kim Seok-hoon) battling a terrorist (Pak Sang-min) onboard a hijacked subway train. The terrorist is a former government eraser that the government tried, but failed, to erase, and he's taken the train, and Seoul's mayor, hostage to uhh, well . . . to apparently have the plan be doomed from the start.

Equal parts SPEED and THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, and lesser parts DIE HARD and MONEY TRAIN (the hero's boss does his best crazy Robert Blake impersonation), the film has few pretensions, which make it easy on the derriere, but overall it's a victim of ridiculous logic and a story that begs a few too many questions. Poor Bae Doo-na gets one of the stranger film roles in film history, as a pickpocket who apparently knows she must love the hero even before she knows the hero, and indulges all the necessary Korean histrionics along the way (as well as almost bearing more physical brutality than the hero!) while our glowering protagonist poses with a series of unlit cigarettes in his mouth (and which only one person will ever be allowed to light, care to guess who?).

Production wise, though, TUBE delivers the goods, with slick production values throughout, and some nicely handled chase and fight scenes. Turns out, if I read the docu-stuff on the Korean 2-disc set correctly, that the Korean subway trains don't even look as hi-tech as they do here, and the ones in the film were almost entirely CG apart from the sets for close-ups! Columbia Tri-Star's sleeve is highly reminiscent of the art for TRANSPORTER and, not entirely unexpectedly, substitutes a generic Asian face for that of star Kim Seok-hoon. Nice.

NO MERCY FOR THE RUDE (Korea; 2006)

Shin Ha-kyun

NO MERCY FOR THE RUDE (Korea; 2006)
D: Park Chul-hee

Superb production values aside--and really, what Korean movies aren't well made these days?--NO MERCY FOR THE RUDE has a lot of the elements that, when viewed in too many consecutive movies (which can happen in this country's films), tend to shift people away from Korean cinema for short periods of time, and help to explain the terrible financial slump that is plaguing the K-film industry right now. You'd think they could avoid it by mixing genres, but there's often a streak of emotional violence in many (but obviously not all) Korean movies --including comedies--that takes a toll after awhile, and this film has some of that, in addition to some rather cringe-inducing physical violence at odds with it's self-consciously quirky characters.

It's the story of a mute, loner assassin (Shin Ha-kyun, essaying yet another oddball like he did in SAVE THE GREEN PLANET) who lives by his own code of "cool" and dreams of becoming a bullfighter despite being a bit of a bumbler in his profession. His best friend is also an assassin and former ballet dancer who is saving up to buy a warehouse to make into his own studio. Isn't that just quirky and cool? He picks up and beds a sexy bar girl (Yoon Ji-hye) from a favourite post-kill gin joint, and she comes and goes from his life as she pleases, at least until a little street-urchin attaches himself to Shin, at which point a weirdly dysfunctional family is created. Oh, how inventive!

The killer's motto is summed up in the title, as he only kills those who deserve it (of course, the victims are so one-dimensionally sketched that we have to take the filmmakers' word for it that they're really deserving of the grisly deaths they receive). When a hit results in the death of the intended victim's twin brother, the usual volleyballs of revenge start getting served, leading this wannabe black comedy to a typically melodramatic and tragic ending that is almost a foregone conclusion in these kinds of films. Especially the ones from Korea.

Watching this as a double bill with CITY OF VIOLENCE (released the same year as this film; check the archives for a look at the love affair with J&B that it shares with this film) makes for an interesting contrast in styles of on screen physical carnage. Where CITY is cartoonish and winkingly overblown, MERCY marks each kill with the juicy pop of an exit wound or the nauseating (and repeated) "chukks" of knives thrusting into chests and stomachs--all lovingly and realistically recreated in crispity-crunchity DTS and effected as realistically as possible. A flashback scene involving a paid hit on an unsuspecting fisherman is a queasy highlight only because the filmmakers cleverly place the audience in the shoes of the first-time assassin, who (initially) has difficulty with the job because he knows nothing about his scared, misunderstanding victim, and neither do we, which makes it all the more difficult to watch. After that, blood flows with an abject realism but in the end there's no point to anything these self-consciously eccentric characters do, and their fates are made predictable by the very genre!

Some films in the "oddball assassins" genre will take at least modest pains to show the pointless and unrewarding nature of killing and its inevitable consequences, and I guess this one MIGHT be trying to get that across, but I find some of the more effective ones have at least a believable hero worth rooting for: MERCY's hero is practically a byproduct of his own imagination, but he's not even a remotely likable character once you see how viciously he can dispatch targets that usually don't get much opportunity to fight back. Nor is anyone he comes into contact with particularly likable beyond their wardrobes. By the time the festivities climaxed with the by-now de-rigeur Korean blend of melodrama and spitting blood, I found I couldn't have cared less.

Always remember, labels out! Yoon Ji-hye and Shin Ha-kyun

SEOUL (2000; Korea)

Choi Min Soo, Tomoyo Nagase

SEOUL (2000)
D: Masahiko Nagasawa

Japanese cop Tomoyo Nagase, on vacation in Seoul is held over for questioning after he foils an armored car robbery. Meanwhile, Dawn of Nation, a terrorist organization, plots to disrupt the upcoming Asian summit, kidnapping Japan's Foreign Minister to back up their demands. Tomoyo inserts himself into the investigation of hard-nosed Korean cop Choi Min-soo, an unwavering protocol-follower who teaches him the finer points of Korean etiquette along the way, most often at the receiving end of a punch in the face. Choi himself is saddled with obstructive KCIA guys who regularly overrule his authority. Meanwhile, Tomoyo, against the wishes of his handlers, begins to suspect a link between the terrorists, the robbers and the monolithic Korea Japan Union Bank that could spell a deadly threat to Pan-Asian relationships. Slick, solid thriller with crackling action sequences, and a worthy cousin to the seminal 1999 actioner SHIRI, though one rooted less in Tom Clancy-ish techno-fantasy than that film. Writer Yasuo Hasegawa lightly acknowledges Japan's shameful presence in Korea's history, largely through the character of a wizened Korean noodle-stand proprietor whose Japanese fluency surprises Tomoyo, but then in the film's climactic turning point, in which Tomoyo rescues hostages on a city bus in defiance of Choi's orders (and is ultimately joined by Choi in his efforts), this act of Japanese redemption on behalf of Korean innocents seems tantamount to the Japanese (historical revisionists with the best of them) telling the stuffy, face-saving South Koreans to remove the stick from up their collective ass and get over themselves. A minor quibble, considering the film's general intelligence and quality in the face of so many cop thriller genre clichés. Trimming a few of the film's multiple denouements might have helped, though.

Tuh-ran-su-fo-mah!

Just came into possession of a small pile of Korean theatre flyers via the globetrotting Ms. Saigon, and thought this one from Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS was kinda cool. I'm no fan of Michael Bay, but I do love movie posters in languages not my own. In moviehouses in my neck of the woods, they give you these shitty little magazines filled with studio press-kit rewrites, "interviews" that are really just...blowjobs-in-disguise, upcoming DVD review-lets that largely parrot sleeve copy, and for whatever reason, horoscopes and celebrity birthdays. Basically, crap that can be read in thoses few moments you've got before the movie begins. Well, in Korea, you get these cool little 9' x 12' one-sheets with just the information you need. Sure, it's still studio fluff, but compared to some of the reading material I've seen in theaters, this is marketing minimalism. I'm sure Korean theatres have plenty of other tie-ins going on, but since I've only seen these little flyers, I can live in my bubble a little bit longer.

From Giallo to Jjakpae

I remember a couple of years back, a Korean movie called SPY GIRL took heat for essentially being a feature-length advertisement for the fast food chain Burger King, and while one of the chain's restaurants was featured prominently throughout the film, part of me couldn't help but appreciate the verisimilitude it brought to an otherwise dull picture. I mean, in real life people work at Burger King, and Harold and Kumar went to White Castle, so why bother "creating" a Burger Shack or a Burger Barn that people will know is fake when there's a chance the real deal might not mind being in your movie? And besides, it didn't feel as insidious as MAC & ME. At lest the makers of SPY GIRL were largely in control of their project, and the heroine didn't defeat the villains by throwing juicy, flame-broiled Whoppers® and succulent Tendercrisp® Chicken Sandwiches.

Sometimes, though, it's the little product placements that can get out of hand. Have a look at these stills from Ryoo Seung Wan's THE CITY OF VIOLENCE and see if you can guess what he probably has cases of in his garage.

(a word of warning: this first one's tricky, so you may have to stare at it for a long, long time to feel thirsty spot the placement)





Still not certain? Well, they do get a little more difficult from this point on:








And if you think this next shot is here just because I loved watching this beautiful girl kick both of our heroes' asses, you'd be half right. But look closer...


I'm not entirely convinced even Sergio Martino wouldn't consider this a bit much...