ON YOUR WEDDING DAY (2018) – people need people

There’s an old song called “People” sung by Barbra Streisand. It goes something like this…

People,
People who need people,
Are the luckiest people in the world

It’s a simple song with a simple premise – but boy does it deliver its message.

On Your Wedding Day is like that song. It’s a story about two people who come together, at different points in time and under different circumstances, and how their interactions change each others lives. It illustrates how they would not be the people they are if it weren’t for the other person. Whether good or bad or somewhere inbetween, their influence over each other’s lives can not be dismissed.

And that’s what this bittersweet romantic drama is about. The people you have united with, who you have loved, and how that changes who you are.

Park Bo-Young is adorable, as always. She’s probably the cutest actress in the country, with an almost other-wordly quality that reminds me more of an anime character than a human. And Kim Young-Kwang is a big, gangly guy with a genuine charisma that feels very familiar and relatable. He was perfect casting as the struggling dude who doesn’t seem particularly good at navigating his own life – but with the proper motivation can defy all odds and move mountains. The two had great chemistry together. Kim Young-Kwang, in particular, sold me on his boyish obsession with a pretty girl that carried over into manhood.

Life is a struggle. It’s easy to get sidetracked or waylaid. You are conditioned, by society and circumstances, to settle. To choose the path of least resistance. When you’re little, you believe you can do anything. And then life comes with a hatchet and carves away at your confidence and you start to wonder if maybe this is enough… or this? And the next thing you know, years have passed. Sometimes we need other people to remind of us the things we’ve set aside, to remind us of our past, of who we were and what we wanted before. Sometimes we need other people to ground us when we start living too much in our heads. Sometimes we just need another person to see us so that we can see ourselves through their eyes.

Relationships are a fundamental part of the human experience. People will come and go in your life, and it’s nearly impossible to know how long you will ever have with any one person.

This movie is a celebration of life. Of perspective. Of the understanding you gain from time.

You’ll fall in love, you’ll be curious, your heart might break a time or two. But you carry on.

If you’re in the mood for a very beautifully filmed movie about two very attractive people falling in love and growing up, then this film is for you.

RATING – 4/5 STARS.

Oh, and here’s Barbra.

Review – Hwayi: A Monster Boy

Hwayi: A Monster Boy is melodrama mixed with mayhem. It’s bloody, it’s brutal, and it’s blunt in its delivery… but it works. I enjoyed this movie so much I watched it twice.

The plot is relatively simple – a young boy is kidnapped and held hostage, but something goes wrong in the exchange. Rather than kill the boy (or, you know, return him), the group of vicious criminals known as the Daylight Robbers decide to keep the kid and raise him themselves.

Shockingly, the young boy grows up to be a solid student, a talent artist, and an overall nice guy. Sure, he’s got obvious problems… like imagining a gigantic, horrific creature stalks him, always just around the corner. He seems shy around girls, which is not surprising considering the only female influence he’s had is the shattered woman the gang keep chained to the kitchen sink. But overall, all things considered, our hostage seems to be hanging in there with his rowdy bunch of degenerate fathers.

Of course… that’s all about to spiral drastically out of control in the next hour and a half of the film, so… buckle up.

The main plot kicks off right before our young protagonist is set to go off to art school and possibly escape his “family.”  Fate lures the whole gang back to the beginning – to the boy’s parents and secret grudges and haunting connections between all the characters. It was… tragic and heartbreaking and deeply, deeply disturbing.

This movie felt like someone had condensed an entire 16 episode violent melodrama drama down into 2 episodes. Each character felt fully realized, unique, and solid in the world – and it was easy to imagine exploring each of their backstories and current lives in more detail had it been a drama series instead of a film. The twists and turns of the plot were wild but also worked easily within the narrative and world of the story. The acting was exceptional – in particular the two male leads (Kim Yun-Seok and Yeo Jin-Goo) – though even side characters charged into their scenes with the gusto and confidence of a leading role, as if each were trying to steal the entire movie.

Watch it when you want an evening of exciting, blood-soaked melodrama.

4.5/5 Stars

Review – The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion

The Witch starts out with a bang – including eerie opening credits that feature archival (real or fake, who knows?) images of human experiments and cruelty: witch hunts, the Holocaust, and more. As if that didn’t set the tone enough, you’re then greeted with a ridiculously bloody aftermath scene. There is blood splatter galore, but all seems quiet… men with bats catch their breath as something or someone twitches underneath a tarp. You quickly deduce this facility has been experimenting on children and that one of them has escaped.  A cold, cruel-seeming woman shrugs it off, saying the child won’t live long anyways… and a blood soaked girl runs through the night.

The Witch quickly shifts from the dark, bloody, and tension filled opening to a misty morning on a small farm. An older man spots the runaway sleeping and scoops her up, calling for his wife as he runs towards the house.

Eight years later and our runaway is now a teenager. The country town is bright and filled with lovable characters. The movie is now about a young lady who is trying to help her aging parents as they deal with financial and medical problems. Our teen witch seems perfectly ordinary, a nice young woman who jokes around with her best friend and cares for her parents. Yet there is tension in the air, built with small hints that something dreadful is just around the corner… her increasingly crippling headaches… her unexpected participation in a national singing contest… her mysterious abilities. You know something is about to happen… but what? When? What sort of experiments were they doing in that creepy building from the opening scene? What sort of powers does our innocent girl have…?

I’ve watched this three times now and each time I marvel at how well crafted this film is. The balance of action and humor, the dark scenes and the light ones. Like a Cohen Brothers movie, this film is packed with side characters and each one of them is memorable. They’re given small character quirks, signature elements that make them distinctive. And they’re all drawn together at the end for a high stakes showdown between multiple parties with multiple interests. It’s bloody and violent without being shockingly so – and the end is satisfying while also leaving you wanting more.

Rating: 5 stars. Go watch it.

More musings on The Witch including SPOILERS…. so you are warned….

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LUCK KEY (2016) – Korean Film Review

Luck Key is one of those adorable, entertaining movies about identity and assumptions. The plot is simple – two very different men swap identities. One is faltering in life, the other is successful. How will they both fair when their circumstances are reversed?

Surprisingly, the answer is… exactly the same.  I say this is surprising because it subverts the usual trope of identity swapping. These sort of stories usually go like this… “Rich Man” is forced to live the life of poverty and learns valuable lessons about kindness and making genuine connections with people not based on monetary value. The “Poor Man,” by contrast, brings humanity and insight into positive working relationships with others to the cold, calculating world of wealth. Both learn the challenges the other faces and become better for it.

This is not the standard identity swapping story. Instead – it’s a humorous tale of two men whose personalities prevail despite circumstances. The hard working hit man and the train wreck youth.

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Movie Review – The Villainess

The Villainess opens with one of the most exciting, intense action sequences I have ever seen. Entirely from the protagonists point of view, you rush through a multi story building on a killing spree – seeing what she sees. I guess they mounted a camera to the stunt double’s head but geesh is it intense! Like a live action video game – with guns and blades and blood splatter everywhere. And, honestly, as deeply unrealistic as a video game… but why knit pick? Who cares if the bad guys cue up to fight her? Who cares if randomly none of them have guns when she’s brandishing a knives? It’s so awesome – just enjoy it. Enjoy it for the fun, furious murder ballad it is.

The Villainess is one of those rare movies where I was pretty sure I was going to love it before I even started watching it. Why? Because it’s loosely based on one of my favorite stories of all time: La Femme Nikita! It all started with French film Nikita by Luc Besson, which was excellent. America remade it, with the film The Point of No Return, which was also excellent. The Canadians did us all a favor and created an unbelievably sexy, sinister television series out of it – called La Femme Nikita. Oh Peta Wilson… you will forever be my first serious girl-crush. America followed suit, again, and made their own tv show several years later called Nikita… which I didn’t watch, for some reason, probably out of loyalty to Peta Wilson… but I hear it was pretty good too.

The premise is simple. A young criminal girl is caught up in the seedy underworld and ends up caught by the police. She will surely be sentenced to life in prison or death for her transgressions. A shady government organization sees potential in her and offers her an option – work for us and live… or serve out your sentence. She gets a makeover, learns to pass as a classy lady, and the next thing you know she’s off on assassination assignments and living under an assumed identity. In all stories, her handler is obsessed with her. There’s betrayal and secrets and amazing action sequences. And that’s Nikita.

The Villainess is a new Nikita. And she’s a worthy addition to the cannon.

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Movie Review – Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned

Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned is a slow paced, achingly beautiful movie about isolation and friendship. The cinematography alone would be enough to warrant a recommendation – but the plot, the acting, and the direction are equally exceptional.

There are images and sequences in this film that will stick in my brain for the rest of my life. Ideas that will continue to pick at me. Moments that will continually unravel.

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BURNING (2018) – a meditation in isolation

Burning, a Korean film starring Yoo Ah-In, Jeon Jong-Seo, and Steven Yeun, is a bleak, atmospheric examination of the modern man. And by man I mean mankind, both men and women. It’s based on the short story Barn Burning from The Elephant Vanishes by author Haruki Murakami.

Yoo Ah-In, one of my all time favorite Korean actors, plays a young man who is struggling. In every way imaginable. He struggles to find work. He struggles to come to terms with his upbringing. He struggles to relate to people. He struggles to piece together sentences. You can almost hear the wheels creaking as he struggles to form his own thoughts. It’s ironic that he considers himself a writer, even though there is little evidence of this aspiration around him. Yet perhaps it is most telling that he yearns to find a way to express himself, as this seems to be the insurmountable task of life.

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Movie Review – Alice: Boy From Wonderland

Movie Review – Alice: Boy From Wonderland

What a surreal, moody, broody, twisted little movie.  I adored it, as I have always been a fan of ghost stories and haunted houses.  Especially with tragic tales (but aren’t they always?) as back stories.  This was a strange piece of work… definitely not a mainstream film.  It reminded me of Werewolf Boy (which is far, far superior in every way), in that it’s so odd, so touching, so horrible, that I know it will stick with me for a long time.  It’s basically about a young woman whose nightmares have become so thick they’re blurring into reality – and threaten to take her, and her family, to the grave.  With the help of her aunts, she goes to an inbetween-world, Wonderland, an estate that burnt to the ground but is, mystically, available to our Alice for a few precious days while she sorts out her past and the souls lost that are still pulling at her life.

Jung So-Min plays our lead female – and she was perfect as the surreal, beautiful, dreamy girl caught between worlds.  Hong Jong-Hyun was lovely as the tragic soul who clings to her side, helping her navigate the strange world she now inhabits.

Eerie.  Romantic.  Bloody.  Confusing.  A dream within a dream in a dream world.  Not a bad way to spend an evening.  If you liked movies such as… The Others, The Girl In A Swing, or Skeleton Key or even something like Virgin Suicides or The Dreamers, you’ll probably like this one.

Movie Reviews – Pure Love & My Annoying Brother

Movie Reviews – Pure Love & My Annoying Brother

I was on a Do Kyung-Soo kick… or maybe just a crying kick, I’m not sure… but I ended up watching two Do Kyung-Soo tearjerkers back to back yesterday.  They were both lovely films – full of outstanding performances from all the actors involved.  Pure Love was a story about a group of teenage friends who are home for the summer in 1991, enjoying their beautiful coastal village and the pains and joys of growing up.  One of the girl’s has a genetic problem with her legs and struggles to walk – while secretly hoping for an operation that will cure her.  The boys in the group all love her, in their own ways, but in particular one sensitive young man who follows her around like a lost puppy.  It’s a gorgeous film… a thoughtful, nostalgic piece about youth and also about the betrayal of coming of age.  I ain’t gonna lie… I cried.  A lot.  They really did not intend for anyone to leave this movie with dry eyes and I’m sure succeeded…. cause a lot of it tore my heart out.

My Annoying Brother was, in my opinion, even better.  I’m a total sucker for redemption stories.  The youngest brother is a Judo champion who looses his sight during an accident.  The eldest brother is a petty criminal who uses his brother’s misfortune to get out of prison on parole early.  The two have been estranged for years – ever since the older brother ran away from home as a teenager.  And yet, slowly, wonderfully, these two are able to come back together… and restore hope and meaning to one another’s lives.  Cho Jung-Seok was genuine and hysterical as the unruly brother (seriously, I laughed a lot over this guy and his ridiculous behavior… I have an older brother, and let’s face it… they’re kind of jerks most of the time but also your heroes)… and Do Kyung-Soo was outstanding as the young man struggling to find the will to live with his new disability.  This is also a melodrama… and it’s pretty freakin’ sad, too.  But I also felt good at the end, hopeful even… my faith in humanity restored a little bit.

Anyways, check ’em out if you’re in the mood.  Quality stuff.

 

Movie Musings – Haunters

Movie Musings – Haunters

So, finished HAUNTERS – a movie about a man who can control people en masse with his mind, and the one dude who is immune and thus fated to stop him. It kinda reminded me of Unbreakable, in a strange way. And of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones… except even he didn’t throw a baby at a speeding subway train. Anyways, it was visually stunning and creepy but there really wasn’t much more to it than a showdown between two dudes. With some character development, this could have been stellar… cause if we knew anything about these guys, we might care a bit more who won in the end.

More…

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