Sad Movie: Your Life Is Going Down, Down, Down, Down, Down

What strikes you as the most pathetic? A young boy (Yeo Jin-gu) who wishes his mother (Yum Jung-ah) would stay sick since she's so much nicer since she's been hospitalized? An unemployed guy (Cha Tae-hyun) who makes money getting punched at the local gym? A young woman (Shin Min-a) who won't take off the head of her Raggedy Ann costume because her face is badly burned? Or a woman (Lim Su-jeong) who can't get a marriage proposal from her firefighter-boyfriend (Jung Woo-sung)? Before you decide, please consider the potential for things to get much worse. Indeed, director Kwon Jong-kwan's bittersweet Sad Movie sets up these four woeful tales then intertwines them as he has them race towards the bottom of a pretty deep well of sorrow. So while the boy's mother will get better (temporarily), and the jobless dude will become an entrepreneur (of sorts), no one will escape the cruel hand of fate. See life as tough today? Just wait for tomorrow! I suppose a few of the characters learn something about loving others and accepting themselves while experiencing their personal tragedies but they don't seem better people for it, only bruised. Picture the ways your life can go wrong. Now live it. Or don't think about it and live for today.

My Mighty Princess: She's Even Cuter When She's Kicking Your Butt

A martial arts teen romantic comedy with a dash of evil sorcery? Yes, that's right. Kwak Jae-young's My Mighty Princess is just the mash-up that you've been waiting for. But boy, is it complicated. So-hwi (Shin Min-a) wants to hook up with cutie Jun-mo (Yu Geon) from the school hockey team but she's constantly distracted by a family legacy which involves recapturing The Green Destiny Sword and mastering The Lightning Stroke technique perfected by her mother, now dead. She's also got stiff competition for her man by way of a no-nonsense lady cop who her prospective boyfriend is obsessed with. And then there's that pretty-boy childhood friend (On Ju-wan) who says he loves So-hwi but is really more enamored of getting a Kawasaki motorcycle. Will she ever be able to get a kiss from the dude with a mother complex? Will she stop being a brat long enough to learn the sword fighting skills dictated by her dying mother to her telepathic dad? One of the pleasures of My Mighty Princess is how the story keeps incorporating more and complications without ever letting them slow the momentum. Another is Shin's performance which is effortless adorableness even after she's drawn on a mustache to fight incognito to save her man.

Volcano High: The Remedial Students of Chopsocky

I sense two possibilities here. The first is that writer-director Kim Tae-gyun commissioned a storyboard for Volcano High but was given a manhwa (a Korean manga) instead. The second is that he found the manhwa first and used it as his storyboard. Either way, this movie is really just a series of four-color panels in which actors do everything overemphatically as they strive to become cartoons. There's plenty of talk about destiny, screams shouted at the heavens, and even guys with superpowers and Matrix coats. But character development and a nuanced plot.... Well, you'll have to look elsewhere for those. You won't find much comedy either despite all the hammy acting and a ludicrous storyline about rebelious students who want to rule the high school by getting access to a magical scroll. I'll be damned if I could figure out who I was supposed to cheer on: the dorky blonde transfer student (Jang Hyuk), the ice princess (Shin Min-a) who helms the Kendo team, or a group of adult outsiders brought in as disciplinarians. MTV re-edited the film then dubbed it with hip hop artists (Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Mya) and I say why not. For all its excesses, Volcano High has very little to recommend it in its original form. It's hyper-boring.

A Bittersweet Life: Payback Is Murder

Jopok means Korean mafia. But it also refers to a genre of movies dealing with same. Example: A Bittersweet Life, Kim Ji-woon's superfine and shiny genre flick about a slick bad-ass (Lee Byung-hun) whose career as a criminal hits the skids when he falls for the young lady (Shin Min-a) he's supposed to be shadowing. He discovers she's cheating on his boss (Kim Yeong-cheol) but he's so enamored of her shoulder and her ear that he can't bring himself to kill her even if she doesn't love him back. Anyway, who has time for love when you're just trying to survive. Gang members armed with knives, sticks, and wrenches, not to mention a sick imagination when it comes to torture, are everwhere you turn. That's when it's time to get creative. Dig your way out of your own muddy grave. Figure out a way to use a telephone battery as a weapon. Track down the underground of the underground and get yourself a black market Stechkin, a Russian automatic pistol. Whatever you do, don't let them break your spirit. Not when they tie you up. Not when they stab you in the gut. Not when they shoot you with an Uzi so blood is pouring out your front. Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord. But is this what he was talking about? Maybe. Because he also said an eye for an eye. And there's plenty of that here in technicolor.