Mark James Russell

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Category: Movies (Page 4 of 5)

The Devil From Nowhere

August 16, 2010 / / 5 Comments

So I have seen both of the big new thrillers, Lee Jeong-beom’s THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (aka Ajeosshi) and Kim Jee-woon’s I SAW THE DEVIL. Both are silly, ultra-violent revenge thrillers, but despite their apparent similarities, the they could not feel more different.

AJEOSSHI is a ridiculous film that takes great liberties with logic and physics, but at times was good fun (the fight scenes in particular). It is the story of a mysterious loner (played by Won Bin) who gets sucked into a war with a crime syndicate after his neighbor steals some drugs. Nothing makes much sense in the movie, and the whole film is basically an excuse for Won Bin, a quiet guy who is really a superagent with a secret past, to go Jason Bourne on some very bad people.

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Most of the fight scenes are well done, and a couple times the director suddenly seemed inspired and broke out the creative camera work (I quite liked a tracking shot as Won Bin jumped through a third-storey window). Thai actor Thanayong Wongtrakul has a good presence and handles his action duties really well (although, like much else in the movie, his character does not really make much sense). I do not understand all the praise Won Bin has gotten for his acting in this movie; he is okay but nothing special. His abs look good when he shaves his head, which I think is the important thing.

I SAW THE DEVIL is much darker than AJEOSSHI, and about as violent as a movie can get. It has some inspired moments, too, but the whole film is turned up to 11, and when it gets silly, it gets really silly. Gyeong-cheol (Choi Min Shik) is a brutal serial killer/rapist who murders the fiance of Su-hyeon (Lee Byung-hun), so Su-hyeon decides to take his revenge on the killer.

The opening 10 minutes or so make the film look like it is going to be a fantastic horror film, as Kim Jee-woon builds a dark, terrifying mood. But then Kim goes too far, and the music builds and builds into mawkish melodrama — and then, just when he has gone too far, someone drops the box containing the head of Su-hyeon’s fiance, it bounces out of the box and rolls across the ground by his feet. While hundreds of photojournalists snap away. Seriously. You will laugh, but the scene is not really meant to be funny.

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For the first hour, DEVIL unfolds just about exactly how you expect it would. Except it is happening way too quickly, and by the one-hour point, Su-hyeon is where you think the movie should end. But it does not end, and suddenly takes a very surprising and odd turn.

Like AJEOSSHI, DEVIL has some great sequences. Really, some of Kim’s best. The big two action scenes are incredibly engaging and fun (if that is the right word for a film this dark). The second big action scene in particular is great and you think the movie is over — but it is not done. Somehow, the bad guy gets away and the film continues on for another 30 silly, dreary minutes.

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Do not expect any psychology here. Gyeong-cheol is just an evil, killing machine who cannot control himself for five minutes. How he got to be middle-aged, I have no idea. In fact, a whole bevy of murders turn up throughout the movie (was there a convention going on?) without any explanation. The police are especially useless. Female characters exist only to be raped and killed. In fact, there is a strange fixation on sexuality in general, with a porn-watching criminal and a slutty cannibal (although the cannibalism was deleted from the official cut, you can figure out where it was pretty easily).

DEVIL is also unbelievable and excessive to the extreme. A character gets his Achilles tendon severed, but continues walking (just with a limp). Gyeong-cheol is somewhere between Jason of Friday the 13th and the Terminator. Blood flows and gushes and pops and sprays in endlessly inventive and gory ways (director Kim is incredibly creative in this regard, and there are times you will admire the carnage, if you can stomach it).

It is strange, then, given how similar the two movies are in so many ways, how differently they feel. AJEOSSHI is basically a feel-good superhero movie. DEVIL is dark, dark, dark, so much so it often becomes comic. Audiences seem to be having the same reaction — last weekend, DEVIL opened in No. 2 with just over 4 billion won; AJEOSSHI, in its second week, held onto the No. 1 spot, with 5.9 billion won, bringing its total to 18 billion.

(Incidentally, INCEPTION continues to kick butt in Korea. It was third last weekend, adding 3.2 billion won to bring its one-month total to 35.7 billion won).

UPDATE: In response to the request in the comment below, I should mention that both Lee Byung-hun and Choi Min-shik give very strong performances in DEVIL. Lee is particular is very subtle and does a great job, although the film did not give him that much to do — most of the time his character is very passive and lurking, tracking Choi. His character is quite enigmatic and his feelings and thoughts are not well explained. But Lee does very well with what little he has to work with, deepening a thin character.

Choi has the much bigger role, and by nature it is a scenery-chewer — and in general, Choi has always been great at diving into a role and making it bigger-than-life. I am tempted to say Choi overdoes it in DEVIL, but that is the point of the character, isn’t it?

So high marks to both actors, especially Lee. And most of the individual sequences in DEVIL are excellent — really, when director Kim wants to evoke horror or be funny or have action, he nails it. The problems with the film are mostly in the story itself, which is sloppy, inconsistent and very ugly.

Oh, and the link in the second comment goes to the English translation of a good interview with LBH in 10 ASIA magazine (the very good TV and entertainment magazine run by the charming Una Baek).

The Devil You Know

August 10, 2010 / / 2 Comments

The Korean press is reporting I SAW THE DEVIL just passed the KMRB. It will appear in theaters in a couple of days with an 18 rating. It took three tries to get passed by the KMRB, but no one I knew related to the movie seemed worried at all. From what people tell me, this was Kim Jee-woon’s “last hurrah” before going to Hollywood, so he just wanted to have a good time and make a crazy film that he would like. Hopefully I will see it Thursday, and will report what I think asap.

UPDATE: Film Business Asia is reporting that Kim Jee-woon had to delete 7 minutes to make 7 cuts of footage (Film Biz Asia corrected their story) to get the okay from the KMRB. That is pretty big. I assume that Toronto will get the no-cut version when the film makes its international premiere there next month. I wonder what version will be released on DVD.

Will We See the Devil?

August 4, 2010 / / 2 Comments

So, Kim Jee-woon’s new film, I SAW THE DEVIL, has gotten slapped with the prohibitive “restricted” rating by the Korea Media Ratings Board. In effect, it means the film cannot be shown in Korea (well, it can be shown, but only in a few special locations, so it is a de facto ban). Not a huge deal, though, as the filmmakers have another week to re-edit and get a more acceptable rating.

But it is annoying, not least because it has forced the producers to cancel all the premiere screenings that were going to be held later today (Thursday). As the film stars Lee Byung-hun and Choi Min-shik, it has the potential to be one of the biggest movies of the year, so canceling the screenings is a pretty big inconvenience. Hopefully things will work out over the next few days.

Like a lot of Korean thrillers these days, DEVIL features a lot of ultra-violence. But apparently the eating-human-flesh thing was too much for the KMRB. As is normal for Korea’s soft and mushy censorship system, the reasoning is vague — “destroying human dignity” is how I think you would translate it. Lord forbid the standards were actually measurable in some way. If the KMRB had a less subjective ratings system, it could help avoid these sorts of embarrassing situations. Or, better yet, the KMRB could just stop treating Korean citizens like children and let people here judge for themselves what they want to watch.

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(Note: I originally wrote a stronger post that was probably premature. So I took it down and put this one up instead. Will wait and see what the KMRB does before writing any more about this).

From PiFan to Pentaport — a Week of Festivals

July 26, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Last week was surprisingly busy, but mostly in a fun way. Starting the 16th, I was over in Bucheon for the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, or PiFan. It was the first time in three years I had spent that much time at the festival, and it was a lot of fun to get reacquainted with its rhythms and style.

The general pattern was: go to an early movie at 11am, then do my interviews and writing (I was contributing to the festival’s dailies), then there was usually some kind of reception or event starting around 7, which would be followed by some informal drinking, which would be followed by more fun (or a noraebang), finally wrapping up some time around 3-4am. Repeat. Some days you have more movies, some days more work, some days more fun, but that was the basic outline. But with plenty of interesting guests in town, it was quite fun.

The Festival now has an industry section called the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF), with a country spotlight, film education events, film pitch sessions for filmmakers and investors and things like that. It really contributes to the number of film professionals at the festival and makes everything feel more official.

But it also creates a bit of a cocoon effect, where you spend a lot of time hanging out in this big group, and the movie part of the festival gets a little sidelined. Especially now that almost all the movies are in two big multiplexes down the road from the industry hotel, PiFan has lost a lot of the festival mood it once had. Festival director Kim Young Bin said as much to me, and he really wants to get the city more involved next year.

One of the things I really liked about PiFan the first time I went, around 2000 or so, was how integrated with the community it felt. You could sit outside at a chicken restaurant (when it was not raining), and in one big group you might have some directors and actors, some press, some volunteers and some local film fans. The city seemed a lot more excited about the festival. It would be nice to get a little of that vibe back.

The short film winner was my friend David Kaplan, who made the very good movie PLAY. And you can actually see it online. It is a lot of fun and even has some thinky bits.

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Then on Thursday, I traveled a little further west to Incheon, where I was a participant at the first Pentaport Music Conference. Obviously, this event is a spinoff of the Pentaport Rock Festival (held last weekend), and this year, for the first time, they invited some big music professionals from the United States and around Asia to network with the local music scene.

And I do not mean SM Entertainment or the big pop labels. Korea actually has a few dozen small rock and indie labels, and they came out to meet some experts from other countries.

Among the speakers was me, which was a little strange — as a writer, my only audience is usually cats. But it was fun (and scary) speaking before a big room of music industry professionals. And it was great to meet so many new people in the music biz.

Saturday, a few of us went to Pentaport for the actual music. No way was there 27,000 people there, as reported, but it was a decent turnout. The highlight was seeing LCD Soundsystem, who were as bouncy and dancy as I had hoped — although I think their new album is kind of dull compared to their earlier stuff. The Korean band Ynot had a pretty good turnout. Vassline was WAY TOO LOUD, but from a distance it seemed solid. A surprising good diversity of food in the food area, and lines were all reasonable. All in all, a good time.

Random Updates (Inception Rocks!)

July 13, 2010 / / 0 Comments

– Very interesting article up on Film Business Asia about the state of movie box office all over Asia. Good news from Korea, where 3D, IMAX and rising ticket prices are helping the industry make more money:

In Korea, using KOBIS (영화관입장권통합전산망) data, admissions were down 4% at 69.4 million tickets, but box office expressed in local currency was up 15% at ₩547 billion ($447 million).

But the crazy news comes from China, where apparently the film business could DOUBLE again this year. In fact, at the current pace, it looks like the China box office is going to overtake Korea’s for the first time:

The biggest growth story of the lot was China – again – where box office revenue doubled year-on-year. Revenue for Jan. 1 – June 27 was an estimated RMB4.52 billion ($667 million) compared with RMB2.26 billion in the first half of 2009.

– By the way, in CJ CGV’s Korea box office report for the first half of 2010 (no links, sorry) — and they say that it was Korea’s worst first-half in over four years by attendance, with 70.04 million admissions (CJ’s numbers were slightly higher than KOBIS, which had 69.4 million). Overall for 2010, Korean films have accounted for 43 percent of the box office, down from 45 percent last year (although up from 37.6 percent in 2008).

Thanks to the World Cup, June was the worst June in years, with barely 10 million admissions (compared to 11, 11, 14 and 13 million over the past four years). But while attendance was down, Korean movies did relatively well with 50.4 percent of the box office (compared to 30, 30, 25, and 36 over the past four years).

– The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival starts this Thursday. Looks like a fun lineup this year, especially the Korean ’70s action cinema section. Definitely looking forward to spending some time there this year.

– Oh, and I just saw INCEPTION, the latest Christopher Nolan film. All I can say is “Wow,” what an amazing movie. Total spectacle, but a first-rate story, too. Creative and difficult, but totally accessible.

These days, when people say a film is “nonstop action”, what they usually mean is nonstop shaky camera, noise and silliness. INCEPTION is nonstop, but all the action and effects are going toward telling a great story (in this regard, it is almost like a Pixar movie). In fact, INCEPTION almost makes me angry — angry that so few other filmmakers take the time to tell a story so engrossing and so tight.

Requiem for a Cinema

June 1, 2010 / / 0 Comments

One of Korea’s more famous, older cinemas, the Joongang, apparently closed on Monday (thanks to Darcy for pointing that out). Not a big surprise, I guess — its facilities were not the best, and the land under it, at the eastern edge of Myeongdong in downtown Seoul, is way too valuable. But there are not many theaters left in Seoul with any history anymore, so the end of the Joongang is something of a sad thing.

Joongang cinema

The Joongang was built in 1966 by the Byucksan Group. For most of its history, it was a second-string theater, showing movies after they had already played at the nicer cinemas in town. But in 1998 it was renovated, and turned into a multiplex, giving a new lease on life.

Like a lot of older, less popular cinemas in Seoul, the Joongang became a popular place for press screenings, so I used to go there a lot. I can remember seeing THE TWO TOWERS there, as well as OSEAM, GANGS OF NEW YORK, and many other films before the rest of the world got to see them. I think the last preview I saw there was a special screening of Hong Sangsoo’s NIGHT AND DAY (which was followed by typically Hong levels of drinking afterward).

(Note: To read about the closing of the last single-screen, old-style theater in Seoul, the Dream Cinema, you can click here).

I talked a bit about the Joongang in POP GOES KOREA. It is a story I told to illustrate the dysfunctional way movie distribution used to work in Korea, about the famous Korean producer Shin Chul, and the fight he had with the Joongang back in 1994 over his movie THE 101ST PROPOSITION and JURASSIC PARK. In honor of the theater’s memory, I will reprint that story here:

Back in 1994, one of downtown Seoul’s most important theaters, the Joongang Cinema, signed a deal with ShinCine Communications to distribute their film The 101st Proposition. The deal called for the Joongang to play the film a minimum number of weeks, with the exception that, should attendance drop below 1,500 people per day, the cinema could put in something else.
That same year, the film everybody wanted to see was Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. The Joongang owner, like all other theater owners in Korea, was eager to get such an obvious blockbuster onto its screen. The 101st Proposition, however, was still under contract, and its attendance was not dropping below the lower limit of 1,500 people. At the time, even the biggest movies rolled out on few screens, usually just fifteen to twenty in the entire nation. In Seoul, a movie would show in only one or two theaters, so it took a long time for everyone who wanted to see a film to get in. With this much business at stake, getting the blockbuster of the year was a financial bonanza.
So the management at the Joongang took action. First they pulled their ads and promotions for The 101st Proposition, and attendance dropped a little. Next, the theater hired some thick-necked goons to stand out front to intimidate customers and prevent them from buying tickets. It did not take long for the film’s production company ShinCine to find out about this, but what could they do?
Luckily, ShinCine had good ties with many young progressives willing to stand up for Korean movies. Even in the 1990s, progressives in Korea were used to taking their lumps from the people in charge (be they government or private industry). Plenty of producer Shin Chul’s friends had recently gotten work as schoolteachers around the city, so a friend called up the teachers and invited them to bring their students to see the movie.
To further vex the Joongang, one person went to the bank and changed his regular won to thousands and thousands of one-won coins—each worth about one-tenth of a cent, still legal tender, although not in general circulation. With movie tickets costing about 4,000 won each, that added up to a lot of coins.
The students came to see the movie, carrying great bags of one-won coins, much to the consternation of the thick-necked gentlemen and their employer. By this point, the whole mess had turned into an event. The goons tried intimidating the schoolkids, which led to plenty of shrieking and mayhem. Other progressive friends of ShinCine came down to support the drive, such as the well-known and always politically inclined actor Moon Sung-keun (who also starred in the film). Moon stood on a chair, shouting out the importance of Korean culture and Korean movies, the need for the screen quota, and similar credos. The Joongang management called the protestors communists. It was chaos.
In the end, the Joongang got its Jurassic Park. Worried that the situation was escalating and that someone could get hurt, ShinCine’s owner/producer Shin Chul asked producer Lee Tae-won (then the top producer in Korea) to intervene. Lee negotiated with the Joongang Cinema, and they decided that the dinosaurs would get to play. In exchange, Shin was promised a prime slot for one of his movies the following summer.

Ha-Ha-Having the Last Laugh

May 23, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Wow. Hong Sangsoo’s latest film, HA HA HA, has just won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival.

Hong has been to Cannes before, but it always seemed to me that his films usually got some pretty mediocre reviews. I am rather surprised that he pulled off the big win for this year. Good for him.

I have not seen HA HA HA yet. Derek Elley said it was not as good as his last film, SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW IT ALL … but Hong strikes me as one of those directors who is remembered more fondly than he is appreciated. It seems like each new film gets mixed reviews, while the critics claim that his earlier films were better (David Cronenberg is the king of that condition).

Anyhow, big congratulations to Hong. I am looking forward to seeing HA HA HA before too long.

Oh, you can see a trailer (with English subtitles) for his new movie here.

Robots and Maids

May 17, 2010 / / 2 Comments

The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (July 15-25) just announced a pretty sweet program in its lineup this summer — a retrospective of eight Gundam movies. In fact, I believe this is the first official screening on all eight films in Korea (as Japanese culture and animation was officially banned in Korea until recently).

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Gundam is one of the most famous and popular of the Japanese giant robot series (although I was more of a Robotech geek myself), having started way back in 1979.

Scheduled to be screened are MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM I, II, III (1981-1982), MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: CHAR’S COUNTERATTACK (1988), MOBILE SUIT Z GUNDAM I, II, III (2005-2006), and MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM UC (UNICORN) EPISODE: 1 (2010)

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In other news, Im Sangsoo’s remake of THE HOUSEMAID had a very strong opening in Korea, with 815,111 admissions (about 6.2 billion won, or $5.4 million). Mirovision is saying that is the biggest opening for any Korean movie so far in 2010.

Considering THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG had about 1.1 million admissions, GOOD LAWYER’S WIFE had 633,000 admissions, GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT about 800,000 admissions and THE OLD GARDEN was a total dud, it is safe to say THE HOUSEMAID is going to be Im’s biggest hit.

More Asian Film Markets?

May 14, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Strange news today out of Singapore, as the Media Development Authority is announcing plans to start a new film market there in June 2011.

I say strange because Asia already has Filmart in Hong Kong in March, the Asian Film Market in Busan in October, and TIFFCOM in Tokyo, a couple of weeks after Busan. AFM and TIFFCOM are both rather quiet, and others have tried and failed to launch film markets in the past (most notably Bangkok, which used to have a market in February in the mid-2000s).

Singapore’s MDA says that it hopes to use the June slot, a month after Cannes, to focus on Southeast Asian countries and to launch Hollywood films in China.

Of course I wish them well (especially if they want to fly me over to participate). Certainly the MDA has the resources and the ambition to give it a good shot. But it is hard to imagine Asia needed another film market at this point. Especially one at that time of year — half of the big summer films launch in May and June, so really they are left with July and late releases.

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