Arang: The High-falutin' Physics of Fear

Will science rescue horror or destroy it? Ahn Sang-hoon's Arang (2006) supports both sides of the argument. Anti-modern mystics will insist that the explaining of how the murders "actually" happened just makes the bloodshot-eyed ghost feel superfluous. Fact freaks will argue that the problem with Arang is that the ghost never should have been there to begin with. Who's right? Would this atmospheric (i.e., intermittently boring) movie have fared better if it had left the spirit of the raped teenage girl at the grave and built up some crazy theory involving the incriminating properties of NaCl? (That's salt for you ignoramuses.) Or is Arang's one chance at being effectively creepy to strip it of logic and to have a vengeful poltergeist wreaking havoc with a causality limited to "I'm angry; hence, I kill." Neither bias would've saved the film in the end. Too much of Arang is too familiar: the tinkly piano music that means childhood innocence-turned-evil, the long, tangled black hair of the bogeywoman who if she was played by the same actress in all these Asian fright flicks would be richer than Croesus (and by this point would demand a new 'do). Does blonde hair have no scares? Where are the bald succubi?

Untold Scandal: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Some stories bear repeating. Such is the case with Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the oft-adapted epistolary novel of romantic deceit. I've seen the jazzy French movie adaptation with Jeanne Moreau; the stately American one with Glenn Close; and now this polished Korean version set at the close of the Chosun Dynasty of the 18th century. I like it every time. I've always believed that it never hurts to know the ending of a story beforehand because if the tale is well-told you'll still keep wondering what comes next. Spoilers are for secondary works of art. There's also a perverse pleasure that accompanies knowing what's ahead and riding the tension caused by not knowing how you're going to get there. In short, if you think you already know this story, you kind of do and you kind of don't. Performed as a costume drama with all the crazy wigs and silken garments any girl could ask for, Untold Scandal has the predestination of a Greek tragedy, the philosophical learning of The Art of Seduction, and enough deadpan faces for a poker tournament. Love might be the ultimate game but it's also a dangerous one in which the most consumate players are fated to end up losers.

Guns & Talks: Hitting All the Wrong Notes

There was a point midway through this awful buddy comedy (co-starring Lee Seo-jin) about hired killers when I wondered whether Guns & Talks would work better as a musical. As the young narrator (a bee-stung lipped Won Bin) waxed philosophical about the transformative power of love, I thought maybe this wouldn't be so unbearable if it were sung to a catchy tune. A later scene in which Shakespeare was shouted by actors in an avant garde production of Hamlet had me thinking: Yes! Yes! And here director Jang Jin could use Verdi's operatic version of the tragedy instead! But even that idea grew tired as the clock ticked away and my drifted to whether the toilet needed cleaning or the dog brushing and so on. Subplots involving a pretty newscaster, a smitten high school student, and one of the unlikeliest abortion strategies that I can recall never got overly complicated but they didn't add much to the experience either. The one surprise about Guns & Talks was Cantonese was the default language on the DVD even though the film is Korean. A background soundtrack lifted from a bad seventies porno movie meant no matter whether the actors were dubbed or speaking in their native tongue, the dialogue always sounded out of tune.

3-Iron: Return of the Silent Movie

Kim Ki-duk is no lover of dialogue. His favorite characters are the ones who keep their mouths shut. In 3-Iron, he's got two like that. The first (Lee Hyun-kyoon) is a drifter who crashes at temporarily empty apartments where he does the laundry and rigs booby traps. The second (Lee Syeung-yeon) is an abused housewife looking for an alternative to the black eye and the fat lip. Once they've met, they're a match made in heaven. But before earthly bliss is theirs longterm, they'll have to surmount police brutality, an incriminating digital camera, golfing accidents, and all those pesky talkers. For Kim Ki-duk film, there's not dialogue so much as monologues told to those who listen. That the two main characters are both listeners means huge stretches pass by with nary a word. Admittedly, it often feels implausible -- does no one in Korea have friends water their plants when they're on vacation? -- but if realism is your cup of green tea, you're drinking from the wrong pot here. Kim is out to create a shadow universe to ours. That the transient has attained an odd living ghosthood while in prison is a way of saying that maybe reality isn't just the hard facts and the words that describe them. Maybe what's left unsaid is what's important.

Public Enemy: Why Cops Are Tops in Korea

Public Enemy epitomizes the best of Korean film. A certifiable noir masterpiece, Kang Woo-suk's adrenaline-pumping, fast-paced thriller is a cat-and-mouse game minus the cheese. Standing in for the mouse is sympathetic, slovenly Sol Kyung-gu as the dishonest cop about to rediscover his moral code. In the cat corner, we've got perverse pretty boy Lee Sung-jae as a soulless sociopath cut from the same cloth as American Psycho. But even before these two engage in their battle of wits and fists, the first few minutes before the title pack in more suspense and humor (favoring the former) than most crime movies do in two hours. I actually saw the sequel to this movie (Another Public Enemy) a number of years ago and remember liking it quite a bit. But the original's better: The dialogue crackles. The soundtrack rocks. And the chemistry between the performers suggest backstories you never really need to learn. While the jokes can get scatalogical (a man actually slips in his own shit), Public Enemy knows when to take matters seriously and when to turn the tension into titters. Supposedly, another Public Enemy is slated for 2008. Bring it on.

Spygirl: The Pleasure That Causes Shame

Don't listen to those liars!!! I would never recommend Spygirl to a friend under any condition. It's just a silly romantic comedy filled with pretty young things doing pretty dumb things at the Burger King. (This young cast is so cute that the notion that the "new girl" is the real beauty doesn't actually make any sense. This is what happens when you don't cast ugly people, folks!) Furthermore, you'd have to hold a gun to my head to get me to admit that I laughed at all the stupid antics of the central doofus or cried an actual tear when this selfsame guy massaged the feet of his love interest instead of jumping her in bed. Far from endorsing Spygirl, I'd say this was a slight, reckless piece of entertainment that perpetuates dangerous romantic comedy myths like stalking is cute, klutziness is adorable, and boring people will win you over if they simply persist long enough. That you might see the names of director Park Han-jun, screenwriter Ha Won-jun or teeniebopper Kong Yu in upcoming posts is simply a coincidence. My taste is much more sophisticated. Watching an attractive woman practice her martial arts on bourgeois boors might be fun but it's not enough to make a movie great.

Ban Gyeumryeon: Hello, My Concubines

Since Japanese invaders destroyed Korea's films from the early 20th century, a director like Kim Ki-young (who worked regularly through the eighties), can be deigned an Old Master simply because his early work dates to the second beginning. If his torrid Ban Gyeumryeon is any indicator, that's like elevating Roger Corman to the status of D.W. Griffith or Orson Welles. (Not such a terrible idea, really, is it?) Created in 1975 then banned until 1981, the aforementioned, convoluted costume drama about a salt merchant and his Darwinian harem plays like Asia's answer to Hammer Films. Pretty women scheme and scream; men cackle crazily or feel up the ladies through fancy silks; cameras scan latticework or zoom in meaningfully to compensate for bad acting; footage of a slow-moving river is inserted (and occassionally tinted) as if a repeated symbol could gain meaning by not having any real meaning at all. But this isn't some museum piece of melodrama or an unintentional symbolist drama. It's much more fun than that. In Kim's universe, cats kill babies and faithful wives love their husbands even after death and decapitation. In a world where recycling has become a necessity, let's take the time to give trash the respect it deserves.