Showing posts with label kim hye-soo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kim hye-soo. Show all posts

Friday, November 24, 2017

Review: A SPECIAL LADY, the Wrong Kind of Remarkable


By Pierce Conran


Two years after Coin Locker Girl, Kim Hye-soo returns as a woman gang boss with a bold wig in Lee An-gyu's debut A Special Lady. Unfortunately, the freshness of her earlier gang saga makes way for an abundance of hollow flash in this tired and frustrating genre pic.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Coming Attractions: CHINATOWN to Battle In Theaters This April


By Rex Baylon

It seems that almost every trailer I write about ends up being an upcoming thriller or crime picture and this time is no different. Han Jun-hee, screenwriter for the 2013 thriller The Gifted Hands, debuts as director this April with Chinatown, or for people who've been paying attention, Coin Locker Girl. Starring Kim Hye-soo, of The Thieves (2012) fame, and Kim Go-eun, who you might remember from the erotic drama Eungyo (2012), Han's picture seems to be a gangster-cum-family melodrama with Kim Hye-soo playing a stern and powerful Chinatown gang boss and Kim Go-eun as her troubled adopted daughter.

Friday, April 26, 2013

UDINE 2013: The Thieves (도둑들, 2012)


Part of MKC's coverage of the 15th Udine Far East Film Festival.

The most anticipated Korean film of the year, with its dazzling cast and international locations, opened late last month and has since become the biggest domestic box office behemoth in years. The Thieves, Choi Dong-hoon’s fourth feature, following The Big Swindle (2004), Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), and Woochi: The Taoist Wizard (2009), is his most ambitious yet. It is a vibrant and complex heist movie with one of the most high profile casts ever assembled for a local production.

Monday, August 20, 2012

The Thieves (도둑들, Dodookdeul) 2012


The most anticipated Korean film of the year, with its dazzling cast and international locations, opened late last month and has since become the biggest domestic box office behemoth in years. The Thieves, Choi Dong-hoon’s fourth feature, following The Big Swindle (2004), Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), and Woochi: The Taoist Wizard (2009), is his most ambitious yet. It is a vibrant and complex heist movie with one of the most high profile casts ever assembled for a local production.

Popeye and his crew leave Korea to get in on some action in Macao. He brings Pepsi, who has just been paroled, along for the ride. The mastermind behind the big scheme is Macao Park, Popeye’s former partner and Pepsi’s old lover. The plan is to steal the Tear of the Sun, a valuable diamond in transit in one of the city’s casinos. With Popeye’s crew, a Hong Kong team, Park and a few more vested interests, can the plan go off without a hitch?

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Villain and Widow (I-cheung-eui Ak-dang) 2010

Once again I’ve come head to head with a genre-bending Korean film and as usual I feel it necessary to comment on this fact. Villain and Widow is Son Jae-gon’s third feature, after The Man Who Saw Too Much (2000) and My Scary Girl (2006) and it is, as others before me have noted, perfectly uncategorizable. Being so used to the schizophrenic generic tendencies of South Korea cinema, this one actually seemed a little different. What I mean by that is that while it embodies many genres it doesn’t veer aggressively between them as is the norm. Instead it is a film which dares you to pigeonhole it, knowing full well you will come up empty-handed. Films like Save the Green Planet (2003) and The Host (2006) are both criticized and lauded for jumping with both feet from one genre to another as each new scene unfolds. I personally love that fresh style of filmmaking and find it invigorating and exciting, if done well. I suppose it could only last so long as the local film industry developed.

Han Suk-kyu and Kim Hye-soo
Villain and Widow is a film that seems to have taken the next step. Dare I say it, it transcends genre. Korean cinema understands genre and plays with it (and abuses it) with the utmost skill and it seems to me that Son is so acutely aware of the various tropes on offer that he has managed to mix and match them as he pleases but in doing so he has made something that doesn’t necessarily draw attention to itself. The previously mentioned films are nearly Brechtian in their blithe disregard for generic consistency and that can take you out of the experience if you resist it. In this film Son has managed to weave together elements from across the board to create a balanced narrative. I am very curious to see whether subsequent films will manage the same feat.

Han Suk-kyu plays Chang-in, a thief who is trying to get his hands on a valuable Chinese teacup that is somewhere in widower Yeon-joo (Kim Hye Soo)’s house, unbeknownst to her and her ex-child model daughter. The widower is dealing with depression, the child is an emotional wreck who is bullied in school, and the thief is up against a powerful, violent, and immature corporate heir. All the while there is the constant forward momentum as he tries to uncover the teacup not to mention some kind of relationship developing between the two leads.

Chang-in keeps getting stuck in the basement
If that sounds like a lot, it is. Throw in a young cop with his sights set on Yeon-joo, a nosy old neighbour, and Chang-in’s older partner in crime, and you’re left with too many strands, a number of which ultimately fall through the cracks. Despite this, the narrative is very easy to follow and Son quite skillfully guides us through this convoluted comedy/thriller/drama/etc. The film takes many unexpected turns as the situation becomes increasingly more complicated and it is full of inventive set pieces, not least a successfully protracted gag in which Chang-in keeps getting stuck in the basement. The film is never less than clever but it can be a little much at times although it also feels slight. It sounds like a contradiction in terms but I think it comes down to a lack of urgency in the narrative (save for the crime element) and the considerable depth of the plot.

The characters are well-rounded and quite unique. While Han is perfectly cast as the slimy and debonair burglar, it is Kim who steals the show as the fragile and complicated Yeon-joo. Her daughter is also well portrayed by Ji Woo and is quite an interesting character, having been a successful child model/actress she is now on the verge of becoming a teenager and is already all washed-up. She is considered ugly and wants plastic surgery, which is something that gets a lot of press in the country. It is a little distressing to see this young girl who already seems so damaged, not to mention the death of her father and the bizarre behavior of her mother.

Ji Woo as the daughter
I didn’t love Villain and Widow but I did enjoy it as it reminded me of films like The Ladykillers (1955) in the way that it managed to incorporate dark subject matter in what plays out like a mild-mannered comedy. I look forward to Son’s next film and I hope that he, as well as other Korean filmmakers, can successfully build on this evolution of hybrid filmmaking and provide us with some well-made and balanced offerings.


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