Tell Me Something? Okay. How about I first saw this serial killer thriller over five years ago yet this viewing proved super suspenseful? How about a number of scenes are so gruesome, you'll need to turn away from the screen? How about actor Han Suk-kyu is perfect as Detective Cho, the lead investigator with a shady past of his own? How about deadpan actress Shim Eun-ha is infinitely more intriguing here than she was in that sickly sentimental Christmas in August? How about the soundtrack is great, and not just the public domain-sounding music but the Foley art as well which heightens agitation by periodically upping the volume on footsteps, doors shutting, and other environmental noise? How about I don't understand why director Chang Yoon-hyun hasn't written another mystery since this one from the late '90s? How about Jang Hang-seon and Yum Jung-ah both turn in compelling performances as a police officer and a student doctor respectively? How about this is exactly the kind of slick, atmospheric flick that made me fall in love with Korean movies? How about Tell Me Something might leave you with questions but they won't interfere with your enjoyment? How about it's good to have questions that can't be answered? How about the best movies aren't flawless? How about that?
Christmas in August is sick. If I were a doctor, I'd go so far as to diagnose its lead character (played by Han Syu-kyu) with a brain tumor. We know he's dying of something; professionally, I'd say his tendency to giggle over nothing indicates a foreign mass causing unwanted stress in the cranial cavity. Either that or he's borderline brain dead. Same for his simpleton girlfriend (Shim Euh-ha), a traffic cop inexplicably drawn to his childlike, masochistic ways. She never learns (while he's alive) that his days are numbered; he's too busy being stoic in his gratingly lighthearted way. But before he's found his resting place in the local crematorium and she's learned to flirt with other guys at a rockabilly bar, director Hur Jin-ho will force us to sit through their stumbling, maudlin courtship. It's a big screen romance skipping from one cliche to the next: the late night stroll in which one lover tells the other a ghost story about farting, the rollercoaster ride at the amusement park followed by shared ice cream... vanilla, of course. They never have sex but then, it's hard to have a menage a trois when the third party is death. Next up for Hur? Hanukkah in July. Prognosis? Fatal.
