The Ring Virus: Here's the Version You Haven't Heard About

If a movie's cultural relevance could be calculated by the number of sequels and copycats it spawned, then surely Japanese fanboy fright flick Ringu would count as globally significant since it's inspired not just two sequels and a prequel in its native country but also a popular American remake (which in turn has its own Part 2) and a Korean spin-off. Given that worldwide impact, you'd be asking a lot of the transnational versions if you expected any of them to achieve the same level of notoriety. Never heard of The Ring Virus, the Korean variation? Well, that's not because it's bad. It's because it came out a mere year after the original and shifted the stylistic frame from horror to supernatural detective story. Think serviceable more than sensational.

So while you've still got the videotape that kills you a week after you watch it and a pissed off female spirit (Bae Doona) who hides behind long black hair even when she's crawling out of a television to shock you to death, the central quest of one potential victim hoping to break the video's fatal curse before it snuffs her entails less screaming and more forehead wrinkling this time. This is a mystery after all. So when her niece dies from a premature heart attack and Sun-ju (Shin Eun-kyung) senses something's amiss, she's sniffing out a story, not a dead body per se. A closet newshound, she applies her admittedly undeveloped investigative skills -- to date, she's been working on art exhibits, not breaking news -- to unearth the cause of her relative's death. Out of her league, she enlists the help of offbeat forensic doctor Choi Yeol (Jeong Jin-yeong) and together they search, worry, ponder, get goosebumps, take a boat, and obsess over details neither can decode nor piece together. (The only puzzle that actually comes together in The Ring Virus is the jigsaw on Choi's floor.) Although he's ostensibly the sidekick, Choi is the more interesting character -- a cold-blooded man of science who sees this chase after death as a temporary respite from existential ennui. Writer-director Kim Dong-bin believes, dying is better than boredom. That's a sentiment with which I agree.

The Case of Itaewon Homicide: One Murder. Two Suspects. No Verdict.

Ripped from the headlines, Hong Ki-seon's sensational docudrama The Case of Itaewon Homicide retells the real-life grisly murder of Jong-pil (Song Joong-ki), a hard-working, clean cut student who gets randomly knifed one night in the restroom of a Burger King by one of two vacationing American teens -- either AJ (Sin Seung-Hwan), a spoiled brat from NYC, or Pearson (Jang Geun-Seok), a half-Mexican gang member with whom he's been hanging out for the last three months. Each of the young men accuses the other of the pointless slaying; both have secrets to hide; and ultimately, both are to blame. Throughout this courtroom drama, you get the feeling that neither is out for justice so much as he's looking for a way to save his own hide. As such, they're both unlikable, and even if you're pretty sure you know who did it, the villain of The Case of Itaewon Homicide actually ends up being not one of the suspects but AJ's attorney (Oh Kwang-rok) who, because his motives are clearly mercenary, undermines the very legal system that he should be honoring.

A defense lawyer's job isn't to decide whether the client is guilty or not; it's to provide the client with the best defense possible.

I've heard that sentiment before and while I "get it," it's also always left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. It's not quite "innocent until proven guilty." It's more like "not guilty if any mistakes are made." The burden as always lies with the prosecution, here represented by Public Prosecutor Park (Jeong Jin-yeong), one of those noble souls who fights the good fight even if victory isn't necessarily attainable. Park's also, interestingly, a perpetual skeptic. He's not a champion. He's a doubter. He doubts the system, his opponent, his client, even himself. Which isn't to say that everything's relative to him or to us. It's just that in a world where no one can be counted on to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, what you end up parsing is a collection of half-truths, coverups, and bogus assertions. It's why nothing ever works as the ultimate truth -- the church, science, the legal system... Every institution is made of people, and people lie, cheat, and hide information for reasons that sometimes we'll never know. In life, I guess you've got to do the best with what you've got. The Case of Itaewon Homicide definitely does that because despite some second-rate performances, it's still a first-rate film.

The King and The Clown: A Daisy Chain of Tops and Bottoms

Indigent circus performers strike it rich. Now that's a cause for celebration, right? Sure, it is. But for some lucky clowns, it's also a cause for consternation. You see, when this particular tightrope walker (Kam Woo-seong) and his cross-dressing sidekick (Lee Jun-gi) find favor with a somewhat crazy, petulantly sadistic emperor (Jeong Jin-yeong), they also find themselves drawn into more than one troubled love triangle and some life-threatening political intrigue. But can the rope-walking acrobat help caring so deeply about his cross-dressing cohort? And can the cross-dresser help inspiring lusty thoughts in that kooky king? And, for that matter, can the royal courtesan (Kang Seong-yeon) help being jealous of that role-playing pretty boy who's also good with puppets and has a unique calligraphic style? No. No. No. A magnificently told tale based on a true story from the 16th century Chosun dynasty, The King and the Clown is a topnotch, romantic costume drama that knows when to be comic even if it's headed for tragedy. The performances are uniformly excellent, right down to the minor characters. Needless to say, I'll be checking out other collaborations of director Lee Jun-ik and writer Choi Seok-hwan.

Hi Dharma: The Bald Truth About Monks and Mayhem

Maybe dressing like a monk is as ha-ha funny as dressing in drag to Buddhist temple-goers. True or not, for a cutesy comedy about gangsters hiding out in a monastery, you kind of wish the impostors had gone all the way and shaved their heads. Instead, Park Chul-kwan's Hi! Dharma! has the mafiosos swapping two-piece suits for drab brown robes and leaves it at that. (The actors probably didn't want to jeopardize their chances at better roles when the shoot for this one was done.) What we've got here isn't a group of thugs trying to pass as ascetics. It's a competition between the bad boys and the goody goodies: Who can bow more? Who can hold his breath longer? Who's better at cards? Not the most cinematic of challenges for sure. The winner gets to decide whether the gang-members get to stay and for how long. Also not too dramatic. When it comes down to who's the fiercest fighter, predictably, the most kick-ass martial artist (Jeong Jin-yeong) comes from the nonviolent side. Unabashedly cornball and cheesy, Hi! Dharma! is definitely fast food cinema. You won't laugh until your stomach hurts but you'll be tided over until something more fulfilling comes along.