The Righteous Thief: Robin Hood Has a Family

Steal from the rich. Give to the poor. That's the modus operandi of one exceedingly popular folk hero who has manifested in various forms across various cultures. In England, they called him Robin Hood; in Germany, Schinderhannes; in Korea, Hong Gil-dong. In The Righteous Thief, Jeong Yong-ki's reboot of the People's Criminal, the man (Lee Beom-su) redistributing the wealth is a latter day descendant -- 18 generations removed -- who teaches piano and courts fellow faculty (Lee Si-young) at the local high school during the day then wears black tights, scales buildings and inhales helium to rob shady millionaires at night. Lately, he's developed an obsession with one evil mogul (Kim Su-ro), an absurdly rich businessman who's developed a somewhat fetishistic obsession himself with superhero paraphernalia.

Folk hero vs. superhero? Not really. Since we never really see the needy getting a piece of the pilfered pie, a more accurate description of the central conflict here would be indie criminal vs. corporate criminal. As crookery goes this isn't the most antiestablishment. Asked to testify which crimes are the worst in The Righteous Thief, I'd say probably say, they're the ones committed by the performers, not by the characters. Someone should be slapping the wrists of two stars immediately. Would Kim Su-ro and Song Dong-il please take the stand!

It's not often you see a movie in which two actors define their characters with identical mannerisms. So lazy. So felonious. Is Song, as the prosecutor, trying to steal Kim's characterization of the criminal mastermind? Or is Kim pickpocketing the performance of Song? Who's ripping off whom? Regardless, the mirroring of a shit-eating grin and the echoing of a self-deprecating laugh halves every potential laugh in The Righteous Thief. If I were the offended party, I would have left the opening night party in a fury and headed straight to the nearest bar. There I would've ordered a double.

Couples: The Domino Effect in Comedy

It's hard to imagine recommending director Jeong Yong-ki's clunky comedy Couples to anyone, unreservedly. It's also hard to remember a time spent laughing this loudly in a movie theater. The reason behind these two conflicting bits of information is the amount of setting up that goes into each of the big sight gags and jokes within Jeong's deliberately constructed romcom. You're going to laugh, yes, and laugh hard too, but you're also going to have to wait to do so, sometimes for a fairly long time.

Presented as a series of minisodes (of varying length) that chart the progress of a half dozen relationships from first meeting to impending marriage, Couples is the cinematic equivalent of an uneven collection of interconnected short stories -- some are super-short, some are not-so-interesting, one is hilarious and they all tie up in the end. If you stick around until the final story, the pay-off is well worth it but it's also good to know going in that you're going to have to be patient until you get there.

The best story revolves around Na-ri (Lee Si-young), a ruthless gold digger who snags not one, not two, but three very different men -- a nerdy tea shop owner (Kim Ju-hyuk), an even nerdier private investigator (Oh Jeong-se) and a lovestruck gangster (Kong Hyeong-jin) who ends up severing his ties to the mob in hopes of tying the big knot with this femme fatale. Lee's definitely the breakout star in this ensemble comedy. She's somehow incredibly likable while simultaneously projecting a persona that suggests she doesn't give a damn if you like her or not. False in everything except her pursuit of money, she's delectably diabolical. She also seems to bring the best out of her co-stars, especially Kong who transforms from toughie to teddy bear in one particularly humorous scene at a restaurant.

The other primary story involves the tea shop owner and a female cop (Lee Yun-ji) who keep bumping into each other at the weirdest places (cafe, bus stop, bank robbery, etc.). Their story has as much screen time as Na-ri's but isn't nearly as funny. That's what happens when your job is to set up the jokes instead of deliver them.

Note: Couples is a remake of a Japanese film entitled A Stranger of Mine which, from one online description, sounds dramatically different.

Marrying the Mafia III: Hey Ma. This Kimchi Tastes Awfully Funny

Whether it actually was or not originally, Marrying the Mafia III is straight-to-video in spirit. By that I mean, this jopok comedy is a hammy, shameless structural mess: Two extended flashbacks last so long that you'll forget about the movie they've left behind: one concerns the anti-romance of the playboy brother (Tak Jae-hun) and his no-class wife (Shin Yi); the other concerns the ascent of the mafia mom (Kim Su-mi) in the White Tiger clan. Neither tale enriches the story really. The first just lets the actors wear ridiculous wigs while the second permits a few shoddily edited fight scenes. Mostly, writer-director Jeong Yong-ki is playing fast and loose with the material as he goes for the quick laugh. And there are quite a few of those: a woman jerks off a guy with her foot, a man makes a cartoon cutout in a wall after getting killed by a bus... You'll get restless when the jokes get thin and you're simply watching a crooked prosecutor (Kong Hyeong-Jin) revenge the lovebirds (Shin Hyeon-jun and Kim Won-hie) who put him in jail before founding their kimchi empire. This is the kind of movie where bad guys laugh like "Muahahahaha." Does that make you go "Hahahaha" yourself? Then laugh away. I did.

Marrying the Mafia II: Above the Law and Below the Belt

I watched Marrying the Mafia II, not because I liked the first one but because I wanted to see actress Kim Jung-eum do her weirdo act again. That curiosity had to be shelved though since Kim's role this time is minimal if memorable. In truth, Jeong Yong-ki's MTM II isn't an extension of the first movie; it just reuses the same formula with a stronger cast, tighter storyline, and funnier gags. What happens this time is more or less the same: Two pretty people on different sides of the law fall in love forcing one to change his ways if church bells are going to chime. Here it's a gangster (Shin Hyeon-jun) gaga for a female prosecutor (Kim Won-hie). Far from getting her to marry into the mob, he's doing all he can to clean up his act and marry out of it. Before he gets to the wedding aisle, however, you'll get plenty of giggles from jokes based on Big Big breast cream, a padded penis protector, and his outlandish mother (Kim Su-mi) who runs the syndicate. Many of the devices from the first film are repeated (the observatory courtship, the botched serenade, the numbskull brothers) but what felt stale the first time, feels room temperature for take two. Maybe by Marrying the Mafia III, it will feel inventive!