And your name is . . . ?

Drew this gal in a hurry about four years ago and for the life of me, I can't remember what movie she's from. All I know is this: it was a Hong Kong movie, shot on video, real cheap. She was a cop, the kind where the actors just sorta show up in their own clothes, dangle a badge holder around their neck from a little chain, and run around the back alleys of Hong Kong with toy guns shooting each other. It must've been late, 'cause I liked this girl's get-up enough to whip out my pencil and start doodling, but a few short years later, I stumble across the sketchpad, and it's driving me nuts wondering who she is and where she was, and why I took little artistic licenses—not sure if she was wearing a belly shirt, definitely wasn't wearing dog tags, and the face is in no way a likeness—to make her and the movie that much harder to ID. But here she is, smudges and all. Click on her and she should sharpen up. Her big-ass North Face-style jacket, the camouflage cargos and the boots are about the only things that I know are in the ballpark. Maybe someday I'll be able to stick a shot from the movie up here so folks can see if I missed by a mile . . .

NARAKA 19 (2007)

NARAKA 19 (2007; Hong Kong)
D: Carol Lau Miu-Suet

Slick but plodding terror tale for teens—based on the wildly popular novel 'The 19th Gate of Hell" by Choi Tsun—about a group of university freshwomen drawn into a "hell game" (in Buddhism, a "naraka" is one of 18 purgatories) via the Short Message Service feature (SMS) on their cell phones, which serve as ersatz user interfaces that help them find weapons, locate exits and earn bonus points. With two of her roommates dead and a third well on her way to insanity, mousy heroine Gillian Chung enters the game in search of answers but ultimately faces demons from her own past. Though told in a way that requires more thought than its intended audience of youngsters might be prepared to give it, the story is nonetheless intriguing if not particularly high on scares, and thanks to some impressive digital effects by Sinai Mountain, holds water for a good long time despite the villain being telegraphed far too early, and an egregious "guest star" dropped into the proceedings for sheer exploitation value.


Gillian Chung

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.