Korean Movie Reviews for 2. The year 2. 01. 6 is one filled with anticipation for Korean cinema fans. With an unusually large number of high- profile directors getting ready to release new films, the level of local and international interest is already quite high. Inspired by Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith, and set in the colonial era of the 1. Cannes - - the first Korean film to receive that honor since 2. Also invited to Cannes in a high- profile out of competition slot was Na Hong- jin's creepy The Wailing, a film that for several years has been generating buzz among those who have read the screenplay. And not to be overlooked is Kim Jee- woon, whose colonial- era The Age of Shadows starring Song Kang- ho is scheduled for a release in the second half of the year. Although 2. 01. 5's Assassination was the first major commercial success for films set during this dark historical era, the trend only seems to be gaining strength. Two lower- budget films from early 2. Spirits' Homecoming and Dong- ju: The Portrait of a Poet, provoked much discussion and performed much better at the box- office than anyone anticipated. With more films like Ryoo Seung- wan's Battleship Island slated for 2. Such criticism might be justified, but on rare occasions, something truly unusual does still slip through the cracks. A quick look at the synopsis of Sori: Voice From the Heart confirms this. Although officially it's just an ordinary telecommunications satellite, in reality it's no such thing. Equipped with cutting- edge AI and voice recognition technology, it has been secretly tasked with tracking all phone conversations taking place down on earth. But eventually, the self- aware satellite figures out that the conversations it records are being used to target drone strikes in which innocent civilians are among the dead and wounded. Tormented, Sori decides to go AWOL. For over a decade, he has been wandering the country in search of her. Everyone he knows insists that she was killed in a tragic subway fire in Daegu, even though her body was never recovered. Sori needs Hae- gwan's help to move around on land, particularly given that the machine's ultimate goal is to go to the Middle East. Hae- gwan, for his part, realizes that Sori's technology could help him find his daughter. All-star cast includes Oscar and Golden Globe-nominee Samuel L. The two become an unlikely team, searching across Korea and into past telephone records for a woman who seems to have vanished into thin air. But unbeknownst to them, various figures from the NSA, NASA and Korean intelligence services are searching desperately for the missing satellite. Sori: Voice From the Heart is a film filled with surprises. One of the surprises is that a story so eccentric and outlandish should end up working so well. It's true that sometimes, such as in the climactic sequence, the film spins a bit out of control. Scenes involving US or Korean intelligence figures can also feel silly at times. Nonetheless, for all its shifts in tone, the emotions in this film feel real. That sense of authenticity comes from the fact that the filmmakers are pushing boundaries from a creative standpoint, and also because second- time director Lee Ho- jae (The Scam) proves willing to tackle difficult emotional issues, such as grief and loss, in a direct way. There's a genuine beating heart at the center of this film.
Of course, those familiar with actor Lee Sung- min (Broken, Venus Talk), who after a long career as a supporting actor is now emerging into the spotlight, might be less surprised. Lee has tremendous range as an actor, including numerous roles as calculating villains (The Piper, A Violent Prosecutor), but he seems most effective in roles like this where he portrays an ordinary person dealing with ordinary (if very tragic) life experiences. When you look at all the pieces that make up Sori: Voice From the Heart, it seems inconceivable that they might all fit together to make a coherent movie. But somehow, director Lee manages to keep everything from flying apart, and the result is a truly original and engaging story. Swimming at a pace far beyond any of his competitors, he is South Korea's greatest hope for medal glory in the upcoming Olympics. Canadian universities see jump in American applications after Trump's election win The National. But underneath his cocky, self- assured exterior is a volatility and lack of judgement that causes conflict with his coach, and threatens his success. The boy, Joon- ho, shows some talent for swimming, but in competitions he continually places 4th. Desperate to improve her son's performance and open up a path to a swimming scholarship, the mother seeks out Gwang- soo, despite his reputation for being unreasonably harsh to his students. It's a story about parents, teachers and children, and more generally about the pressure placed on young children to succeed. How much pain and misery is worth enduring for a shot at success? And what is the line that separates pressure from abuse? The fact that it is produced and financed by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea only reinforces this first impression. But soon after the film starts, it becomes clear that Fourth Place is more nuanced than a simple issue film. It inspires you to think, but it does not tell you what to think. There is a world of difference between the young, confident Gwang- soo who looks capable of anything, and the haunted, angry person he becomes later in life. Actor Park Hae- jun makes little effort to make his character likeable, but having seen what he was in his youth changes the way that we look at him. Yoo Jae- sang portrays Joon- ho as a quiet boy who nonetheless betrays hints of a rich inner life. At no time does he come across as a one- dimensional victim. Finally Lee Hang- na, who plays Joon- ho's mother, brings a desperate intensity to her performance that suggests how much pressure she herself feels in a society that surely ranks among the world's most competitive. One senses that she is causing harm to her son, but there is also love mixed in with her actions. The convincingly ordinary setting and lesser degree of visual ornament is a change of pace for director Jung Ji- woo, who is accustomed to working on mainstream projects with major stars. But the artistic sensibility that is present in all of his films comes through particularly strong in Fourth Place, giving the work an unusual emotional intensity. He has taken advantage of the low- budget format to make a film that is more serious, but no less gripping, than a mainstream commercial feature. So in Korea, the effort to make children feel happier is more than just a project for individual families, but a broader social and political issue. Fourth Place demonstrates many of the complexities and challenges involved in addressing this problem, but the very fact that it exists can perhaps serve as a note of encouragement. Country cop Jong- gu (Gwak Do- won, Tazza: The Hidden Card)'s life is so uneventful that he has plenty of time to eat meals cooked by his nice wife (Jang So- yeon, Veteran) and help his precocious but charming ten- year- old daughter, Hyo- jin (Kim Hwan- hee, Night Fishing) prepare for school, before showing up at his patrol station. One day, however, an inhumanly gruesome murder takes place in the local herb and ginseng dealer's house, and Jong- gu and other cops are startled and unnerved by the murderer's otherworldly, zombie- like countenance, even though forensic analysis has pointed out the intoxication by hallucinogenic mushrooms as the likely reason for his berserk behavior. However, as the body count begins to multiply, Jong- gu and his colleagues become increasingly nervous and frightened. They come to give credence to the rumor that a Japanese old man (Kunimura Jun, Outrage), a local hermit, might have something to do with the strange goings- on. When Hyo- jin begins to show symptoms of possession (zombie- fication?), including inexplicable rashes, bouts of traumatic nightmares, and Regan- like shift of personality into a vicious, foul- mouthed tart, Jong- gu breaks down and seeks help from a charismatic shaman, Il- gwang (Hwang Jung- min, The Himalaya), who pegs the old Japanese as the Evil Spirit, and promises to exorcise him out of Hyo- jin's body. However, Jong- gu's nightmare has only begun as the cacophony of drums and gongs announce commencement of the ritual. Having taken six years to prepare for his third film, however, Na has dialed down none of his signature intensity, nor sheer film- making hutzpah. The Wailing has already garnered among film critics and the movie- going public its share of I've- never- seen- anything- like- it shocked testimonies (Lee Dong- jin) as well as it's- all- smoke- and- mirrors denunciations and dismissals (most notably from Kim Young- jin), while handily conquering the spring- season box office with 6. June 1. 5, 2. 01. The Wailing is one of those genre- bound motion pictures that only South Korean filmmakers seem capable of putting together these days: an unholy marriage of the most vulgar, openly pulp- ish, garishly generic horror- thriller elements, on the one hand, and the kind of deceptively cerebral, diabolically manipulative film- making, goading its viewers towards existential despair or fundamental questioning of their conventional world- view, on the other, that would be regarded, in the North American market at least, as abjectly . The brain- exploding theological/metaphysical questions generated by The Wailling have already compelled some American critics to compare it to the cinematic works of Luis Bunuel and Carl Dreyer: yet the same film features possibly the most emotionally harrowing and physically unnerving child- possessed- by- evil- spirit sequences since The Exorcist (1. George Romero's original Dead trilogy. Indeed, The Wailing is the kind of film George Romero at the height of his '7. Shindo Kaneto's Onibaba (1. Kuroneko (1. 96. 8) into the nuclear- fission extreme, if you could even imagine such a motion picture.
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