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Reviews
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Written by Ernest Woo
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 When Bong Joon-ho announced his fourth film after the record-breaking hit The Host would be a murder mystery about a mother and her wrongly accused son, I was one of many worried about it being a retread of his masterful second film, Memories of Murder. Would Bong be able to replicate the tight pacing and cinematic completeness he had with that film once more? As it stands, his latest Mother is thankfully not a retread in the slightest. Its lead is obviously a woman – not a young face, but a veteran actress with wrinkles and a compelling presence throughout. In the titular role, Kim Hye-ja is up against circumstantial evidence, impatient police, a self-important lawyer, and unbelieving townsfolk. This mother descends into the dilemma of clearing the murder charge on her only son. I call it a descent because she goes down a long, dark rabbit hole full of questions to face the unfortunate souls that may have answers to the real murderer of the high school girl that her son is alleged to have killed. Each newly uncovered piece of evidence and person of interest needs more than a few rounds of vetting, and the turns made are fast and always unexpected. Kim Hye-ja is, as Bong once said, and rightly so, the “mother” of a certain generation of South Koreans that watched years and years worth of her on television dramas. I'd take a rough guess they are the generations born somewhere between the 1950's and 80's that fit the category more than any other – the folks that narrowly missed the war, saw a Republic of Korea rise from the ashes, stumble through the labor demonstrations and extended presidencies, that felt the pride of hosting the Olympics and the throes of a massive financial bubble burst. All along, there was a mother on TV and she was Kim Hye-ja.  It is a welcome but sobering surprise that in all these years, Bong Joon-ho is only the third director to capture this very talented actress for the big screen. Bong has crafted a murder story set in a poorer countryside town that some have disagreeably called cliché. But many will agree that he was able to capture this character's every essence with Kim Hye-ja's nuanced portrayal – and that it is truly one of the strongest, most hard-hitting performances from any actress in Korean cinema. The full-body title shot of Hye-ja in the country field, as the word “Mother” scrawls into place is at once powerful yet wanting, because we instantly recognize that certain look on her face – not what it means exactly, but what it feels. Kim's superb performance that follows is similarly riddled with the grace, nerve, love, hysteria, and honesty that we have come to expect from our mothers. Do-joon is her 27-year-old son, unemployed and mentally challenged. He needs his mother, it is as simple and as complicated as that. When he is arrested and separated from her, both find themselves at odds with the idea of each other. Although I never really paid attention to Won Bin's previous drama and film work mostly as a “pretty-boy,” Do-joon's revelations and moments of "clarity" is where he shines, with an uncanny knack for gripping urgency that shakes up our expectations of this helpless character.
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Read more... [Mother, by Bong Joon-ho]
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Interviews
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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South Korean star director Park Chan-wook has thrilled both critics and audiences in his native country for a decade. His "vengeance" trilogy brought international recognition, including a Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize and a Jury Prize, and established Park as a virtuoso filmmaker with a thoroughly original artistic vision. On July 24, 2009, The Korea Society recorded a special interview with director Park Chan-wook in which he spoke about his influences, his meteoric ascension into the pantheon of internationally celebrated directors, and his latest film, Thirst.
Q: Song Kang-ho is enormously popular in Korea, mostly for playing crude, lower-class gangster types. Here he's cast as a priest. How do you think the audiences will react to him in this very different role?
Also, I thought Kim Ok-bin, a relatively unknown, was a gem in this film, with very glamorous and elegant movements--at times almost like a puppet. Likewise, Kim Hae-sook, whose character becomes paralyzed during the movie and can only communicate through her eyes, had to play a difficult role. How did you make these casting choices?
A: Song Kang-ho is a very close friend of mine, a weekly drinking buddy even. He's been in many of my previous films before. In fact, 10 years ago when I first came up with a coherent concept for Thirst, I told Song Kang-ho about it right away: We were on the set of JSA at the time. So in a very natural and unforced way, both of us agreed at that time—10 years ago—that he would star in this project. When I decided to start up the film, then, I didn't have to ask him to star and he didn't have to ask me for the part.
Of course Song Kang-ho has been in many films already, but I wanted to show a side of him that we haven't seen in any of his previous roles. In one of the films we did together, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Song played a really cold, cruel character, so in Thirst, I thought it would be very interesting to show him as wishy-washy, nervous and indecisive.
When casting Kim Ok-bin, the female lead for Thirst, what first drew me to her were her hands. Most Korean actresses have very small, delicate hands. Kim Ok-bin's hands are rough and rather large, larger than some men's hands, even, with thick knuckles. So when you look at her hands, they're scary in a way, very imposing. Her hands, especially when contrasted with her beautiful face, really show that she has this force that grips something and won't let go. So, it was her hands that I thought would really give her character the sense of being a femme fatale.
Kim also dances very well. When you see her acting, even if she's just doing something simple like walking, it's very elegant to watch. There are some flying scenes in the film, which we did with wire action, and she does them very gracefully. The way she takes flight, or lands, is almost like dancing.
Kim Hae-sook is, of course, a seasoned, veteran actress and for her and for myself, as a director, her character in the film was a sort of challenge. Playing someone that has lost all means of expression, with only their eyelids to convey meaning, confirms how great her abilities are as an actress. It was an exciting character challenge for both of us.
Q: One location in the film, the Happy Hanbok House, is very unique: A Korean clothing shop built in a Japanese style, where women drink Russian vodka, play Chinese Mahjong, and listen to Korean "trot" music by Lee Nan-young. The shop is the scene of much jealousy, hatred and death. Clearly the Happy Hanbok house is not a happy place. Was its ironic name your idea?
A: In the early stages of the script I called it the Saimdang Hanbok Shop, after Shin Saimdang, the famous 16th century poetess and painter. This was a strange name in its own right, but as I rethought it, I found that the name Haengbok Hanbok had a lyrical quality to it, and with "haengbok" meaning happiness or good fortune, this contrast really pops up between the store's name and the unfortunate, tragic things that happen there.
I think the most comic aspect of the hanbok shop are the mannequins. The mannequins used for traditional Korean clothing and for Western clothing are actually quite different, and are made quite differently. Mannequins made to exhibit Korean clothing are actually made with smaller, rounder faces and smoother body lines; it fits what some might call a more typically Korean sense of beauty. Mannequins for Western clothing are completely different. What we did, then, was to dress Western-style mannequins in traditional Korean clothing.
These visual aspects, along with the music in the film—which included Johannes Sebastian Bach as well as old Korean music by Nam Isu and Lee Nam-young—and along with the narrative elements, all reflect the theme of how external forces, things from the outside, come face to face with and clash with things on the inside. These external things can be accepted or rejected, and that's what I wanted to show. Vampirism and Catholicism are both external things that have been brought to Korea from the West. The occupation of priest is also a part of that external religion, which was brought to Korea. Sang-hyun the priest is, in a way, an external person who has intruded on this closeted family of three. You can see this idea in the way the FIV virus works as well, how the process of becoming a vampire starts with foreign blood entering one's body. All these things center around the idea of an external entity making its way inside.
Q: It's especially interesting to build a movie around a priest vampire because, more than ordinary people, priests must suppress physical desires and pleasures. The film is peppered with biblical metaphors and Catholic symbolism, like Sang-hyun cleaning Tae-ju's feet. I believe you were raised in a strict Catholic family. Did this upbringing influence how you made Thirst?
A: It's true I was raised Catholic, but my family wasn't particularly strict about it, rather more liberal. I never felt any pressure to make this film, or not make this film, because of my upbringing. Although I haven't attended church regularly since I was in high school, I have always had a great respect for the role of priests, because they renounce their own pleasures and desires. I think people who choose to become priests are halfway martyrs for the church in that sense, and for that I have great respect for them.
A priest that experiences the most difficult trial, of becoming a vampire against his will, of suddenly being able to remain alive only by killing others, when his instincts have only ever been to help people: I wanted the film to show how painful and agonizing an experience that must be. The other element that I think shows I do, in fact, have a reverence for Catholicism and religion in general, is that even as the character is going through this difficult experience, he does not renounce or abandon his faith, his religion. He's a vampire, but he does everything possible to avoid killing. Even if he has to commit a sin, he tries to make it a lesser one, and so forth. The greatest tragedy of this character is that he is unable to throw away either his vampire desires or his religion, and he has to struggle to make these very incompatible elements co-exist somehow. That's the greatest tragedy. If there is any comedic segment in the film, it's in those scenes where we see Sang-hyun struggling to make this co-existence happen.
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Read more... [The Korea Society Interviews Park Chan-wook]
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Diary
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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Looks like one of them is not gonna make it.
Scheduled for release in South Korea on June 18, the fifth instalment of the (mostly) excellent horror film series, Whispering Corridors, 동반자살, “Suicide Pact” or “Blood Pledge” is getting some buzz here and there., at a rather awkward juncture, if I may add, considering the piling number of suicides in the good Republic of Korea. To go back to film stuff, it's odd but, but... that title vaguely reminds me of Sion Sono's horror film called... Suicide Club?
Here's the official synopsis at any rate:
“Strange rumors start to spread at the Catholic girls’ high school after
Unjoo committed suicide one night. Unjoo’s younger sister Jung-un who
attends the same school gets suspicious about Unjoo’s death. After
persistent investigation, Jung-un finds out that on the night of the
incident, Soy [me: ? Soy?] Eugene, Eun-young, Unjoo, the four of them had tried to
commit a joint suicide after making a vow on blood. But the three are
still alive, and only Unjoo had died. the desire, jealousy, and lies
behind the pledge of death between the four girls are revealed, along
with the hidden truth behind Unjoo’s suicide.”
(Something tells me we missed konglish by a hair's breadth.)
Unlike your typical, interminable American horror flick franchise (Saw being a rather spectacular instance of this utterly cynical and exploitative phenomenon, but hey, cinema is about making money too, I suppose), Whispering Corridors doesn't involve a continuing plot (or gimmick, one might say) or overlapping character - and therefore doesn't feature recurring cast members. Instead, the series
takes its name after its context, in this case the “Girls' High
School” (which is the literal translation of (Yeogo goedam, 여고괴담) in which all the bloody fun is taking place.
The four films released so far have all been above average and enjoyable to
varying degress, depending on what you're expecting to get from them.
The first three, Whispering Corridors, Memento Mori and Wishing Stairs were released by Tartan as The Ghost School Trilogy in a 4-disc boxset back in late 2007. The fourth film, Voice , was released in the middle of last year by Genius Entertainment, with a rather misleading cover by the way (my guess is that they were trying to sell it as a gorefest, which it isn't).
Part 1, as is customary for the inaugural film of a franchise, was a strong, well-written horror film that found a twisted way of inserting some scathing criticism of the Korean educational system. It pretty much set the tone and a template for the rest of the series, in the sense that they were all, one way or another, about something more than just creepy girls with long black hair. Part 2 (Memento Mori) got praised to the high heavens, a little excessively, I think. I didn't really buy the lesbian subtext/storyline, but visually, it's certainly the most interesting. I missed Part 3
(Wishing Stairs), so no comments. As for Part 4 (Ghost Voice), I liked it... as far as I can remember: it's been slowly fading from my fallible memory.
Other than that The Whispering Corridors series has been a major launching platform for new
actresses.
Part 1 featured the debuts of Park Jin-hee and Choi Kang-hie in
supporting roles, Part 2 the debut of Kong Hyo-jin Kong, Kim Min-sun, and
Park Yeh-jin. Part 3, the debut of Song Ji-hyo and Park Han-byeol. Lastly, Part
4 featured the debuts of Ye-ryeon Cha & Kim Ok-bin. Let's hope the best (and assume the worst?) for the new "batch".
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Diary
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Written by Samuel Jamier
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[Credit where credit is due: please find the French source there (if you can read French, that is), which I shamelessly pillaged from Le Zèbre (who was not nonetheless mercyful enough to forgive me). July 9]
Noh Young-seok's Daytime Drinking: one for the road.
Earlier this year, the Sisa
Journal, a major weekly news magazine in Korea, published an article
entitled “Cinema has a hangover”. Here are a few comments about this article
and its author, U Sok-hun (우석훈), an economist who wrote the
bestseller 880,000 Won Generation.
The “880,000 Won Generation”
is a popular coinage that refers to low-paid non-regular workers who earn about
$650 (net pay) a month, a new lost generation in South Korea as it were. What it
means for a lot of young people is the complete failure of an educational
system in which graduating from a good university was as good as getting a
blank check for a well-paid career in one of the big local corporations.
For U Sok-sun, it
is clear that this general job insecurity is also affecting the film industry: South Korean movies saw their worst sales
figures in eight years in 2008, which fell by more than 20 percent from the
previous year. Only eight films topped the 2 million mark in ticket sales last
year compared to 16 in 2006 and 10 in 2007.
His article is quite
the buckshot attack against the Korean financiers and filmmakers who he pretty
much accuses of incompetence: according to him, they were unable to endow the industry
with adequate structures, conducive to the formation of new talents and funding
of new productions. Instead, the professionals of Korean cinema have maintained
the “mirage” of the so-called Korean Wave, and have been demanding more and more flexibility,
or indulgence, from their collaborators and business partners.
Nothing really earth-shattering
there, but the debate took a new dimension in March with the unexpected success
of an ultra low-budget indie film, Daytime
Drinking, which costs the trifling sum of 10 million wons ($8,000) was shot
in 13 days but raked in about 170 millions wons ($135,000 ). This shows
that it is actually possible to make quality films without inordinate (Hollywood-style)
amounts of money at hand (which Chungmuro doesn’t have anyway) and still draw a
large audience.
In the light of the
recent commercial performances of the documentary Old Partner and Daytime
Drinking, one is tempted to think that South Korean audiences have changed
and are ready for something else (better). An artistically ambitious cinema with
more modest financial means, perhaps that is the future of Korean cinema?
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