Grand Prix (Geu-rang-peu-ri) 2010

Like a great many other males of this earth, I am frequently seized with an insuppressible feeling of revulsion when faced with the prospect of sitting down to watch a romance film. Gender bias aside, I do not think that this feeling is unwarranted. Given the quality in recent years of the romance genre across the globe, there is very little reason for any person, let alone men, to waste their time with the products on offer. It used to be that romance films were among the best examples of cinema for any given period in time. Silent cinema produced some gems including F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), but it was in the 30s and 40s that Hollywood really embraced romance. Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934), Fleming’s Gone With the Wind (1939), Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940), Curtiz’s Casablanca (1942), Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), and so many more are all considered to be classics. Indeed even beyond that period and also across the globe, cinema produced magnificent, heartrending, devastating, and brilliant romantic films. I can’t say exactly when it started but at a certain point the beauty, poignancy, lyricism, wit, and levity began to disappear from the genre and what we have today is for the most part a collection of the most astoundingly crass, classless, corporate, consumerized, and commercialized examples of shockingly sexist, hollow, and demeaning drivel. Harsh words but rarely so justly deserved.

Kim Tae-hee's sadface

There are still some great examples, The Notebook (2004) and (500) Days of Summer (2009) among others, represent some of the most worthwhile examples of classical and progressive approaches to the genre. Sadly these are few and far between. For this reason, and innumerable others as you well known by this point, many of us have been drawn to Korean cinema. I am not allergic to romance films because I am a man, I am simply offended by them because I consider myself to be a discerning (and sadly very cynical) film lover. To my shock and wonderful surprise, aside from the great Asia Extreme films that were the introduction for many of us to Korean cinema, I discovered this far eastern Asian cinema was equally adept at making timeless love stories. The first I came across and to date still the most popular export in the genre was My Sassy Girl (2001), a fresh, zany, hilarious, and touching romantic comedy that had the ability to appeal to many demographics. Beyond that there are many romantic Korean films that have moved us, including: Il Mare (2000), The Classic (2003), A Moment to Remember (2004), Someone Special (2004), My Little Bride (2004), and A Millionaire’s First Love (2006), to name but a few.

This is why, unlike anything that comes out of Hollywood, I will give any Korean romance a chance. With this spirit I thought that I would give Grand Prix a chance, a racetrack-themed love story starring the beautiful Kim Tae-hee. Now I know that not every Korean film is going to worthwhile, especially as romance is concerned, but I must say that I was quite taken aback at how truly abysmal this film was. Cloying, saccharine, insincere, vapid, and lacking any finesse and skill, Grand Prix is a film that attempts to be as manipulative as it possibly can and as bad as that sounds, the fact that it is so poorly made and in no way comes anywhere close to affecting us with its confounded opportunism sticks it right at the bottom of the pile.

World's most irritating child

Kim Tae-hee plays a jockey who falls during her race and her horse, who has broken its leg, is put down in front of her. She is so distraught by the experience that she do the only thing she can do and that is to give up her profession and wear pretty clothes while traipsing around the prairies of Jeju island and looking wistfully and longingly at the scenery and other horses. On her travels, or rather the first thing that happens when she steps off the boat, she meets another jockey (Kang Dong-geun) who is a guy she will fall in love with for reasons unknown and is riding the horse that she will ultimately compete with in the Grand Prix of the title. What else happens, let me see there’s a local equestrian center and some old people who are mean to one another because of some longwinded and laughably dark backstory, a frequently topless male model who is just there for no ostensible reason, and the world’s most irritating, uncute, and strangle-worthy child. If these elements can’t combine into a surefire hit then I don’t know what can!

Grand Prix is one of those films that is masterful and awe-inspiring in its complete and all-encompassing ineptitude. There is not one thing that works in this film. The cast: Kim Tae-hee is pretty but can’t really act, she is also the last person I would chose to cast as a jockey; Yang Dong-geun (a replacement for Lee Jun-ki who dropped out to do military service a month into filming) is irritating and a terrible romantic lead; I’ve already mentioned the kid who I would have little reservations dropping off of a cliff; and all the other inconsequential supporting characters are either annoying, dull, or vacuous. The plot is hackneyed, patched together with an odd array of multi-colored and ill-fitting bandaids, and replete with soulless, melodramatic backstories. The production values are okay but there are some real problems with respect to the sound and editing.

The insufferable Yang Dong-geun

It was very difficult to watch this all the way through to the end and despite being stubbornly democratic in my viewing tastes for Korean cinema, especially as I undertake my 2010 film project, I daresay I regret wasting my time with it. There are many far superior mediocre films that deserve your squandered leisure time over this. Don’t make the same mistake I did.


Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

No Mercy (Yong-seo-neun Eobs-da) 2010

Sol Kyung-gu was the first Korean actor whose name I remembered and after his extraordinary turn in Peppermint Candy (1999) I was convinced that he was someone to look out for. Sure enough, as I poured myself deeper into Korean film I came across Public Enemy (2002) and Oasis (2002), which further cemented him in my eyes as a great actor. After his earlier works, a lot of which were arthouse films, Sol’s career trajectory took a turn. How can I say this, he became a bankable star. Kang Woo-suk’s Public Enemy trilogy made millions and turned into one of the country’s most well-known names. He then starred in an even bigger project, the short-lived highest-grossing Korean film that was Silmido (2003), also by Kang. Beyond that he became a consistent presence at the Blue Dragon and Grand Bell awards (Korea’s most prestigious industry awards ceremonies), the highlight being when he was double-nominated in 2005 for Public Enemy 2 (2005) and Rikidozan (2004). After this it starts to get a little spotty: Another Public Enemy film called… Another Public Enemy (2008); some very successful but somewhat underwhelming blockbusters, Voice of a Murderer (2007) and Tidal Wave (2009); and then in 2010 he made a film about a man connected to the police whose daughter is kidnapped by another man whose bidding he must do to ensure her safety. Wait! He actually made two of those, they are called No Mercy and Troubleshooter.

Sol Kyung-gu in familiar territory

While most of the films that Sol lends his name to these days range from decent to quite good, the problem is that he is horrendously typecast. This is a common phenomenon in most industrialized national cinemas but Sol takes the cake. He invariably plays emasculated men who are single fathers who must protect and/or save their daughters. It is a very specific kind of typecasting and one would wonder why producers think that audiences could still accept him within such confined parameters. The truth is that these films are making a lot of cash, Troubleshooter, his most recent, scored nearly 2 million admissions on the back of his name and a thin premise. It’s little unfortunate that the formula is working as that indicates that we will have to put up with the same Sol characters for a while yet. His best recent role was probably his ethereal cameo in 2009’s wonderful A Brand New Life, which harkens back to the roles that began his career in earnest.

It seems to me that with No Mercy the producers thought they would make a film that ticks a few boxes and lends itself to being marketed overseas under the popular Asia extreme moniker. First off, it stars Sol Kyung-go, who despite my already noted reservations, is one of Korea’s most exportable stars. The premise is dark and twisted and the revenge formula that is predominant in the narrative is nothing new in Korean film. All this is well and good and the film trundles along at a good pace and is never less than engaging. The performances from Sol and the ever versatile Ryoo Seung-beom are strong and production values, if not the best Korea can offer, are top notch. The end of the film is what really gets me, it it was uninspired and worse made me look over that which had already played out very poorly.

Ryoo Seung-beom as the suspect

Sol plays Kang Min-hom a pathology professor who is frequently employed as an expert by the police. After a grisly murder takes place he and Detective Min Seo-yeong (Han Hye-jin) work together to apprehend the killer (Ryoo Seung-beom). They do so but as Kang is at the airport waiting for his daughter he receives word from the jailed suspect through an accomplice that he has his daughter and to see her alive again he must get him out. Thus he must try to mislead the police, perjure himself, taint evidence, and all sorts of degrading and dishonorable things for the sake of his daughter’s life. The past and memory feature prominently as more is revealed of the characters in the film through flashback, which is typical in melodramatic Korean cinema.

*Spoilers ahead* 

Unlike most Hollywood films but not unsurprising for the local industry, things do not turn out well. This is an interesting phenomenon in of itself but I don’t think this is the best film to discuss it with. But I think that Kang’s malfeasances and the hardships that befall him and other characters have a certain sense of inevitability to them. For example, his daughter was born with a genetic disorder, if I understood correctly she was a hemophiliac. This is both very a propos but also very trite as she will of course be sacrificed and will thus bleed for her family, it would seem this is her destiny.

The end is lifted in big spoonfuls from Oldboy (2003) and given that the production has nowhere near that prestige pic feel, this is a giant mistake which serves to derail what should have been a solid, albeit standard, thriller.

*End of Spoilers*

"Graphic" autopsy

The film tries very hard to be hard boiled and dark. There are a number of autopsy scenes that are meant go the distance to make you squirm (although they look kind of ridiculous) and even some surprisingly graphic sex scenes but they feel tacked on and do nothing to help the narrative. It’s unfortunate that the proceedings become so obvious as the film progresses because I feel that the film had quite a lot of potential. The early red herring that is supposed to explain the murder is far more interesting and original than what ends up happening. Oh well, maybe next time. In the meantime: Mr. Sol, please get a new agent before you become completely irrelevant!


Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

The Unjust (Bu-dang-geo-rae) 2010

(Opening film for KOFFIA 2011)

Ryoo Seung-wan is already a popular and respected filmmaker who has pleased fanboys (The City of Violence, 2006) and critics alike (Crying Fist, 2005), but with his new film The Unjust, he has elevated himself to a new level, from which he can now comfortably tower over the majority of his peers. Principally known for his exceptional action sequences and choreography, Ryoo is a technical wizard who has the ability to inject vitality into just about any subject. What he has done here is namely to use his strengths in action filmmaking and apply those techniques laterally into different elements of the film. While The Unjust may be a film about cops and murder, there is much less action than you would imagine from Ryoo, although it is to his credit that it never feels that way.

Hwang Jeong-min and Yu Hae-jin

With a blistering pace, a cool head, and intense focus Ryoo has fashioned a film that has successfully built on its most accomplished predecessors. It feels like a Korean and slightly more stylized version of a New Hollywood film from the 1970s. In particular I’m reminded of Serpico (1973) and The French Connection (1971) but also many others. The paranoia from that era’s conspiracy thrillers and the composed, organized, and yet organic framing and juxtaposition of those tempered filmmakers like Sydney Lumet and Billy Friedkin’s mise-en-scene, are all on evident display in this simultaneously old school and progressive masterclass of filmmaking.

The Unjust is probably the most richly conceived film to come out of Korea in 2010, although The Yellow Sea comes in as a close second. The busy, cluttered, and yet highly precise production design is more than amply matched by the constantly angled cinematography which is so richly composed and sequenced to highlight the  proliferate characters in all their physical and psychological states. In essence mirroring the deliberately convoluted and tense narrative, the mise-en-scene is dense and mesmerizing. The sound is exceptionally well-crafted and carefully orchestrated with the tight editing, and some key sequences employ parallel editing while also taking advantage of the intense and powerful music, especially the recurring, sinister horns.

Ryoo Seung-beom

The story involves a great number of characters but at the heart of the plot there is a stoic and gruff police captain Cheol-gi (Hwang Jeong-min) who has been passed over for promotion one too many times, Joo-yang a young prosecutor (Ryoo Seung-beom), ruthlessly ambitious in his profession but conflicted by his frequently compromised ethics, and Jang, a cagey gangster (Yu Hae-jin) who wears a suit and pretends to inhabit the business world despite being more comfortable stabbing someone in the back with his knife. The narrative begins with the manhunt for the killer of a young girl which has a lot at stake for the police department. Its conflict arises from the higher-ups enlisting of Cheol-gi to cover up a death and make a conviction stick to a patsy while Jang harbors ambitions to take down his rival who has Joo-yang in his pocket. As the story gets more complicated they get more entangled together.

My primary misgiving with The Unjust is that like a great number of the New Hollywood filmmakers, Ryoo Seung-wan doesn’t seem to have strong or relatable female characters in most of his work. The film is a prime example of a male-driven thriller that makes no effort to portray the opposite gender. In one sense this is sort of a blessing in disguise as all the males and therefore all the protagonists in this narrative are shown to be corrupt, ruthless, and/or motivated purely by personal gain. Moral fiber figures in some of the characters ideals but this veneer is swiftly peeled away to show the moral turpitude of everyone associated with the system and then some.

Film noir

The main theme of the day is police corruption which is something that is so frequent and dare-I-say blasé in modern Korean film that the proposition could potentially seem a little risky. I don’t know if it has ever been so pronounced and vociferous though, everyone is a very dark shade of grey in this film and the corruption is so all-consuming, depraved, and simply conducted that it kind of takes your breath away.

The performances are among the cast’s best, the script (from I Saw the Devil scribe Park Hoon-jung) is tight and menacing, the sparse choreography by Jeong Doo-hong will blow your socks off, and Ryoo’s expert and thrilling direction will keep you on the edge of your seats all throughout. This film noir is one of the best Korean movies of the last few years and I suggest that you don’t miss it!


Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Korean Cinema News (08/15-08/21, 2011)

KOFFIA

More KOFFIA news this week including the MKC preview of the event which is set to kick off on the 24th in Sydney.

Closing Night Info

Time Out Profiles KOFFIA

Why You Shouldn't Dare Miss KOFFIA 2011! 

KOREAN CINEMA NEWS

Lots of festival news, especially regarding the once-again prolific Kim Ki-duk.

Montreal World Film Festival to Feature Two Korean Films
At this year's Montreal World Film Festival, two Korean films will be screened. They are Dance Town and Secrets, Objects. The MWFF is a good opportunity for people to see Korean films if they did not get a chance to at Fantasia, the screenings of which frequently sell out. (Montreal Gazette, August 13, 2011)

Busan Announces Selection for 30-Film Project
The Asina Project Market has selected 30 films for the Busan International Film Festival's Pusan Promotion Plan. Projects include the new Park Jung-bum and Park Chan-kyong films. (Film Business Asia, August 17, 2011)

Kim Ki-duk's Latest to Premiere at San Sebastian
Amen, a new film by Kim Ki-duk will get its world premiere at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. The film was shot in Europe and depicts the mysterious journey of a young Korean girl and her meetings with a man on her trail. (Film Business Asia, August 17, 2011)

Info Gleaned From The Host's DVD Commentary Track
34 nuggests of information taken from the DVD commentary track to The Host (2006) with director Bong Joon-ho and revered critic Tony Rayns. (Film School Rejects, August 17, 2011)

Busan Fest Moves to New Location
The Busan Cinema Center, which will house the Busan International Film Festival, has nearly finished construction and is scheduled to open its doors on Sep.29, a week before the festival begins. (Joong Ang Daily, August 17, 2011)

Arirang Picks Up Grand Prix at New Horizons Film Fest
This yea'r s New Horizon Film Festival has awarded Kim Ki-duk's latest film Arirang its Grand Prize. The film beat out 11 other competitors at the Polish festival. (The Chosun Ilbo, August 18, 2011)

Blind Announced for Fantastic Fest in Austin
The second wave of the Fantastic Fest, which will take place in Austin, TX during September 22-29, will include the US premier of current Korean hit Blind. (Fantastic Fest, August 18, 2011)

Arirang to Screen at CinDi
The Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival welcomes Kim Ki-duk's latest oeuvre Arirang to its lineup as a surprise screening. This film the film's Korean premiere. (Film Business Asia, August 18, 2011)

The Servant to Be Revived as Mini-Series
Last year's phenomenal The Servant will breath life again as a mini-series on Korean TV. Director Kim Dae-woo was involved in the writing process. The show will air in 4 episodes and air in October of next year. (Asian Media Wiki, August 2011)

My Wife Is a Gangster Gets Chinese Remake
The immensely popular My Wife Is a Gangster trilogy is set to be remade as a film in China. The film's production is in the early stages and will likely not begin shooting until next year. (Asian Media Wiki, August 2011)

INTERVIEWS

Conversation With Korean-Brazilian Director Iara Lee
An interview with the Korean-Brazilian Director Iara Lee, whose new film Cultures of Resistance will screen at the EBS International Documentary Festival in Seoul. (10 Magazine, August 17, 2011)

Interview of Cast and Crew of Ashamed
A view interview of the cast and crew of Ashamed, including director Kim Soo-hyun and stars Kim Hyo-jina and Kim KKot-Bi. Video is in Korean with no subtitles. (youtube.com, August 20, 2011)

TRAILERS

Countdown

Silenced

BOX OFFICE

Arrow Stays Strong in Second Week
Despite some competition from Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Arrow had a confident second weekend where it dropped less than 15% for 894,000 admissions and 3.1 million overall, surpassing all of the summer's other blockbusters. Blind and Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild also held very well for 338,000 and 168,000 and 1.35 and 1.69 million total, respectively. Meanwhile Quick just managed to cross over the 3 million mark as it wraps up its run while The Front Line may fall just short of that mark. (hancinema.net, August 21, 2011)


Korean Cinema News is a weekly feature which provides wide-ranging news coverage on Korean cinema, including but not limited to: features; festival news; interviews; industry news; trailers; posters; and box office. It appears every Wednesday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update and the Weekly Review Round-up. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Why You Shouldn't Dare Miss KOFFIA 2011!

If you are fan of Korean cinema but have not heard of the brilliant and imminent Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA), surely you must be living under some sort of internet-repelling rock. I want to take a little bit of time to explain in plain terms why you should know about it, why you should be very exited about it, and, as it follows, why you be remiss to miss this wonderful celebration of the ingenuity, versatility, beauty, explosiveness, and awe-inspiring power of the South Korean film industry.

Jang Cheol-soo's Bedevilled

I make no secret and certainly no apologies for my zealous love of this national cinema. I've spent my entire life watching films from across the globe spanning time immemorial, or at least since the Lumieres Brothers, Thomas Edison, or Louis Le Prince, depending on what you believe, changed and enriched our lives forever. I have witnessed; the wondrous and striking early treasures of 1920s and 30s cinema from the US, Weimar Germany, Communist Russia, and many more; the bold and majestic glory of 1940s Hollywood and the heart-rending honesty of Italian Neorealism; the triumphant and poetic genius of 1950s Japanese cinema; the witty, cool, and powerful French Cinema of the 60s; the progressive confidence of 1970s Hollywood and New German Cinema; and the infinitely versatile and too many to name global cinemas of the 1980s, 90s, and new millenium. So much to love, so much to inspire, so much to revere. Yet none more so than an industry that has been plugging away at full steam for over a decade and show no signs of letting up. For me cinema as an industry has never been so complete as it has in the hands of the globalized, revitalized, and ferociously competent Korean cineastes of the modern era.

Kim Tae-kyun's A Barefoot Dream

It's a rather lofty endorsement and not one that I expect all to ascribe to, but no matter what your tastes, if you are a lover of cinema then more or less by default, you should be a lover of Korean film. Those Korean films that have penetrated into the Western consciousness have been unquestionable successes, films like Oldboy (2003), Memories of Murder (2003), A Bittersweet Life (2005), and The Host (2006). However, they only hint at the depth of the industry from which they emanated. Dig a little deeper and you will finds some of the world's greatest art films, romantic comedies, horrors, action films, thrillers, melodramas, and so, so, so much more. For this reason and more I urge you to take a look at KOFFIA 2011.

Hong Sang-soo's Oki's Movie

This year's expanded edition of KOFFIA demonstrates why Korean cinema demands and deserves your attention. The event, which takes place in Sydney August 24-29 and then moves to Melbourne for September 10-13, is split into a variety of categories that cater to your preference in cinema, including: Crime and Punishment, Bloody Friday, Ride the Dream, Extraordinary Ordinary Families, Indie Cinema, Brothers Divided and Masters and Students.

Lee Jeong-beom's The Man From Nowhere

The festival's most well-known offerings are a dizzying display of modern cinematic technique, impeccable storytelling, and thoughtful creativity. Ryu Seung-wan's The Unjust, Lee Jeong-beom's The Man From Nowhere, and Jang Cheol-soo's Bedevilled are three out of the most well-known Korean films from 2010 to western audiences and for good reason. Looking beyond these hardboiled thrillers you will find: some of last year's most lauded arthouse films, including Hong Sang-soo's Oki's Movie and Park Jung-bum's The Journals of Musan; as well as emotional and well-crafted inspirational films such as Kim Tae-kyun's A Barefoot Dream. Beyond last year's films the festival will also present an eclectic mix of past but still recent Korean movies that you may not have had a chance to see on the big screen, like: Park Chan-wook's Joint Security Area (2000), Ryu Seung-wan's No Blood No Tears (2002), and Han Jae-rim's The Show Must Go On (2007). These and many more promise great things for one of the world's most exiting yearly exhibitions of Asian film. Don't you dare miss out!

Weekly Review Round-Up (08/13-08/19, 2011)

Lots of reviews this week including a number for Blind, which opened last week in Korea. I should mention that there are always reviews I don't agree with but I try to be democratic and include everything in this weekly update. I mention this because of the particularly off-point NY Times review of The Journals of Musan. However, it would be very safe to say that he is in the minority. If I've missed anything that you know of please let me know!

NEW KOREAN RELEASES

Arrow, the Ultimate Weapon

(Seongyong's Private Place, August 14, 2011)

Blind

(gordsellar.com, August 15, 2011)

(Seongyong's Private Place, August 14, 2011)

(The Korea Times, August 18, 2011)

Quick

(National Post, August 18, 2011)

RECENT RELEASES

Arirang

(Bright Lights Film Journal, August 2011)

Hanji

(Beyond Hollywood, August 15, 2011)

I Saw the Devil

(Commentary Track, August 16, 2011)

Mama

(nanoomi.net, August 16, 2011)

Metamorphoses

(hancinema.net, August 13, 2011)

Romantic Heaven

(Beyond Hollywood, August 16, 2011)

Shotgun Love

(JapanCinema.net, August 17, 2011)

The Journals of Musan

(The New York Times, August 16, 2011)

The Quiz Show Scandal

(Modern Korean Cinema, August 16, 2011)

PAST FILMS

Secret Sunshine, 2007

(DVD talk, August 15, 2011)

The City of Violence, 2006

(Twitch, August 17, 2011)

The Host, 2006

(Acid Cinema, August 15, 2011)

The Uprising, 1999

(Hangul Celluloid, August 16, 2011)

The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office Update. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

The Quiz Show Scandal (Kwijeu Wang) 2010

At first, I wasn’t too exited about The Quiz Show Scandal despite the fact that it is a recent effort from one of my favorite Korean filmmakers. There has been very little buzz surrounding it, which is strange for a Jang Jin film. I cannot express my delight as the film unspooled and grabbed me from the opening minutes. It is a wonderful ensemble piece stuffed with sparkling dialogue and surely one of the funniest Korean films of the last few years.

The Quiz Show

It is often the case that while Korean thrillers, horrors, and certain romance films make the leap into foreign territories, comedies have a little more trouble accomplishing this. There are certainly some films with elements of humor that have crossed over, such as Save the Green Planet (2003) and The Host (2006) but few outright comedies have managed this feat. The obvious reason for this is a language barrier or a cultural gap. You can’t really laugh at a joke on a subject of which you know nothing about. Korean comedies often suffer from this, at least from a foreigner’s perspective. Those comedies that can be understood by westerners are often simplistic and not always the most shining examples of the genre, the Marrying the Mafia and My Wife Is a Gangster series come to mind. 

The more sophisticated the comedy the more likely it is to go over our heads. Jang Jin’s films have definitely suffered from this from time to time due to the fact that he has such a keen wit and is so articulate. He has both those things in spades, but in Korean, which means that some elements may fall by the wayside. But every so often there is a film that breaks through that is both intelligent and jaw-droppingly hilarious. Lee Hae-joon did it with Castaway on the Moon (2009), Jang Jin did it with his script for Going By the Book (2007) and he’s now done it again with The Quiz Show Scandal.

Jeong Jae-yeong in a great cameo

Like in his previous films, his ever-inventive scripts are brought to life by the excellent ensemble casts he surrounds himself with. Ryoo Seung-yong, Kim Soo-ro, Song Yeong-chang, Kim Byeong-ok, Lee Moon-so, and Im Won-hee are only some of standouts in the stellar cast, which is supplemented by uproarious cameos from Shin Ha-gyun and Jeong Jae-yeong as well as Jang himself.

While it may not have the political rhetoric of Good Morning President (2009), the North-South rapprochement themes of Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005), the criticism of the media of Murder, Take One (2005) or the indictment of authority of Going By the Book, The Quiz Show Scandal uses a clever premise and razor-sharp dialogue as it light-heartedly explores what it means to be intelligent.

After a few opening scenes which loosely give us an idea of the characters that populate the mosaic script, they are all thrown together into a police station for the better part of 30 minutes of screen time. A woman has been run over and they are all somehow involved but they don’t know eachother yet. Most of this extended sequence does absolutely nothing to advance the narrative but it brilliantly shows us who these characters are. Suddenly we are given a piece of information, the woman’s USB stick features the answer to the 30^th and final question of a very difficult TV quiz show, no one has answered it before and the rolling jackpot is enormous. All our variegated protagonists need to do is get to that 30^th question. What follows isn’t surprising but due to its dialogue and characters, it feels like a much more substantial film than it ought to.

Arguing over toy cars

The comedy is truly top notch and I think that anyone could appreciate it. Some gems include the banner to a depression group that reads “We’re not depressed, we’re just less exited than everyone else”, and the pedantic argument that stems from which model of toy car the characters are being represented with as the police try to reconstruct the scene of the accident at the precinct. Another great bit in the opening scenes, which could only come from the mind of Jang Jin is when a pair of gangsters, who are torturing and preparing to kill someone, argue about the provenance of a quote, which the first identifies as Pavarotti while the latter corrects him by pointing out that it was from Goethe’s Faust.

Without spoiling anything else I would urge you to immediately seek out this wonderful film, it is definitely one of Jang’s best.


Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.