Save the Green Planet! (2003) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): An odd South Korean mixed bag

Posted on November 4, 2025 by kaist455

South Korean filmmaker Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 debut feature film “Save the Green Planet”, which recently received more attention thank to the recent American remake version directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is probably one of the weirdest mixed bags I have even encountered during last 30 years. So wildly swinging among many different genre modes ranging from absurd horror comedy to harrowing melodrama, the movie was destined to be a cult classic from the very beginning, and it is not so surprising that the movie was not received that well even by local audiences at that time.

Although around 20 years have passed since I watched it via a DVD copy (I somehow missed the chance to watch it at movie theater, by the way), the movie remains quite an oddball piece of work to me. While there are many outrageous moments which may make your eyeballs roll at times, we also get numerous moments of stark horror to unnerve and then chill you, and you will be all the amazed by how it even attempts a bit of genuine pathos and poignancy as busily trying to balance itself among those contrasting genre elements in the story.

The story begins with the kidnapping planned by its supposedly unhinged hero and her girlfriend. For some time, a young beekeeper named Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun) has been obsessed with a wealthy and powerful businessman named Kang Man-shik (Baek Yoon-sik) just because he has zealously believed that Man-shik is actually an alien in human disguise, and his rather simple-minded girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jeong-min, a wonderful veteran character actress who should not be confused with a more famous South Korean actor of the same name at any chance), is willing to assist his kidnapping plan without having any doubt at all.

After he and his girlfriend manage to succeed in kidnapping Man-shik and then taking him to their little isolated place located in the middle of some rural mountain area, Byeong-gu is ready to extract the confession from Man-shik by any means necessary, and that is where the movie goes for more horror and absurdity. You may laugh a bit at times as observing more of how loony Byeong-gu is, but then you are also quite horrified by how willing he is to go further and further for saving, yes, a green planet called the Earth. At one point later in the story, we get a chilling moment of sheer horror as Man-shik comes to learn more of what Byeong-gu has done behind his back during last several years, and this makes us all the more unnerved than before.

Nevertheless, we also come to have some pity on this deranged lad as much as, say, the main villain of Park Chan-wook’s “Oldboy” (2003). As shown from a flashback sequence in the middle of the film, his life has been full of misery, pain, and torment for many years, and now he becomes more desperate as he may lose someone very dear to him sooner or later. The movie does not wisely make any cheap excuse on his barbaric acts of cruelty and violence, and that is why we often find ourselves constantly going back and forth between repulsion and sympathy.

In case of his captive, we feel ambivalent about him as much as Byeong-sik. Sure, Man-shik is one of those unlikable “1% people” who usually regard others below him with contempt and apathy, but we come to care a bit about his increasingly despairing struggle for survival, even when we begin to have doubt on whether he is merely another target of Byeong-gu’s worsening madness. 

Frequently toying with that nagging possibility to the end, the movie continues to throw one memorably weird moment after another. The part with involved with a seasoned detective getting closer to Byeong-gu culminates to an outrageous payoff moment involved with those countless bees taken care of by Byeong-gu, which is still darkly hilarious to me. Above all, there is a truly wacky sequence somewhere between Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) and Mike Hodges’ “Flash Gordon” (1980), and all I can tell you here is that this is definitely something you have to see for yourself.

The movie loses some of its narrative momentum as being on the verge of becoming an overkill more than once, but it remains supported well by the strong performances from its three main cast members. Shin Ha-kyun, who rose to more prominence after Park Chan-wook’s “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” (2002), did a good job of going along with the wild genre swings of the movie, and Hwang Jung-min provides a little precious sincerity to her archetype character. In case of Baek Yoon-sik, he masterfully handles several tricky key moments solely depending on his acting talent, and his memorable performance here in this film certainly boosted his movie acting career to a considerable degree.

In conclusion, “Save the Green Planet!” remains as one of the most notable South Korean films during the 2000s, and now I reflect more on what a fantastic time it was for South Korean audiences in 2003. Besides “Save the Green Planet!” and “Oldboy”, we also had Kim Ji-woon’s “A Tale of Two Sisters” (2003), Kim Ki-duk’s “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” (2003), and Bong Joon-ho’s “Memories of Murder” (2003), and this was just the beginning for many highlights to come from South Korean cinema including, yes, that dramatic victory of Bong’s iconic 2019 film “Parasite” at the Academy Awards.

Unfortunately, Jang could not ride on this cultural wave that much due to the big commercial failure of his first feature film, and he only made “Hwayi: A Monters Boy” (2013) and “1987: When The Day Comes” (2017) during last two decades. Nevertheless, “Save the Green Planet!” is still a compelling achievement on the whole, and I sincerely hope that this undeniably offbeat genre film will get more appreciation thanks to the American remake version.

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Dangerous Animals (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): A serial killer with sharks

Posted on October 31, 2025 by kaist455

“Dangerous Animals” is another typical horror film with a lot of sharks, but there is one thing to distinguish itself a bit among many other shark flicks which came out after Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” (1975). It has a crazy serial killer who has been obsessed with sharks, and you may enjoy how it has some twisted fun with the juxtaposition of these two different horror genre elements.

The main story of the movie begins with your average Meet Cute moment. In the Gold Coast area of Queensland, Australia, two different young people come across each other, and we observe how different they are from each other in many aspects. While Moses (Josh Heuston) is a local lad from some affluent family, Zephyr (Hessie Harrison) is a young American woman who simply prefers to be alone while wandering around here and there, but it does not take much time for them to get attracted to each other more as sharing their enthusiasm on surfing.

In the end, they end up having a romantic time inside a van where Zephyr has lived for a while, and Moses is willing to be more serious about their relationship, but Zephyr, who turns out to have a very unhappy past, hesitates. As a result, she leaves him while he is absent, and then she goes to a certain beach area previously recommended by him.

When Zephyr happens to encounter a stranger there, we get nervous because the opening scene already showed us how dangerous this figure is. While he just looks like a rather eccentric due running his little tourism business involved with those sharks in the sea near the Gold Coast, Tucker (Jai Courtney) is actually a serial killer who incidentally has a very morbid idea about sharks, and he chooses Zephyr as his next victim.

Not long after she is suddenly ambushed by Tucker, Zephyr wakes up to find herself locked up inside Tucker’s boat along with a young woman who has already been trapped there for a while. As your average tough girl, Zephyr naturally tries to find any possible way out, but Tucker is already preparing for another killing, and it seems that all is lost for her.

The movie does flinch at all as depicting how crazy Tucker is about sharks. To him, people are just pieces of meat to be sacrificed to what has fascinated him for years since his unfortunate encounter with a shark during his childhood years. In contrast to Robert Shaw’s shark-hating character in “Jaws”, this dude admires and worships sharks in his own insane way, and we are more chilled when the movie eventually presents his ritual of killing on the screen. 

As Zephyr keeps struggling for her survival, the movie provides a series of intense moments between her and her captor. Although the situation becomes all the more hopeless, Zephyr comes to show some resourcefulness, and that leads to a serious setback for Tucker to our little amusement. After he loses something important due to Zephyr’s little act of defiance, she comes to have more time and opportunity for her survival, and then it looks like there is actually a really good chance.

This suspenseful drama between Zephyr and Tucker is intercut with a part involved with Moses’ search for Zephyr, which often feels like a filler material in my trivial opinion. We just watch Moses looking baffled and then worried as continuing to look for Zephyr, and then there eventually comes a point where he comes upon something which may lead him to her.

Around the last act, the screenplay by Nick Lepard is hampered a bit by some plot contrivance, but it does not disappoint us at all as presenting a lot of sharks on the screen. It goes without saying that they are CGI creatures, but they do look scary as our heroine becomes more terrified along the story, and we come to brace more for whatever may happen in the end.

The main performers in the film are well-cast in their respective parts. As the eventual center of the story, Hassie Harrison is engaging as her character comes to more of vulnerability as well as strength, and she is particularly convincing when her character comes to make a very drastic decision not so far from the climactic part of Danny Boyle’s Oscar-nominated film “127 Hours” (2010). Although he is merely required to play a nice-looking lad, Josh Heuston has a little but precious chemistry with Harrison, and that makes their intimate scene early in the film sweet enough for us to care about their characters.

Needless to say, Jai Courtney has a horribly colorful character to play with gusto, and his committed performance is certainly the best thing in the film. Although he has been rather bland and passable in many of his previous films including “Suicide Squad” (2016), he finally finds a really interesting role for him here, and he willingly chews every moment of his in addition to bringing menacing insanity to several key scenes of his in the movie.

On the whole, “Dangerous Animals” is a solid genre piece to enjoy, and director Sean Byrne, who previously directed “The Devil’s Candy” (2015), did a competent job of maintaining the level of suspense to the end. It does not reach to the level of “Jaws” (Well, how can that be possible?), but it has some enjoyable stuffs to remember, and that is enough for me for now.

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Black Phone 2 (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): He’s back, of course.

Posted on October 30, 2025 by kaist455

“Black Phone 2” is a sequel which is seemingly unnecessary at first but turns out to be more entertaining than expected. While it is closely connected with its predecessor in terms of story and characters, the movie wisely avoids being repetitive as trying to do something different for another good dose of thrill and dread for us, and you will gladly go along with that.

At first, the movie, which is set in 1982, focuses on how things are still not that good for Finney (Mason Thames) and his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) several years after what happened in “The Black Phone” (2021). In that movie, Finney was kidnapped by a notorious local serial killer nicknamed “the Grabber” (Ethan Hawke), but he managed to not only survive and but also kill his captor thanks to some unexpected help from the ghosts of the previous victims and Gwen, who incidentally has some psychic ability. However, Finney has struggled with the remaining trauma from that horrible experience of his during last several years, and both Gwen and their recovering alcoholic father Terrence (Jeremy Davies) do not know what to do about that.

And then something odd happens to Gwen. She begins to have a series of disturbing dreams about several kids horribly murdered at some remote spot, which turns out to be an old Christian youth camp connected with her and Finney’s dead mother. After learning that their mother worked there 27 years ago, Gwen becomes all the more determined to find the reason behind those unnerving dreams of hers, but Finney is understandably not so eager to accompany her and her boyfriend Ernesto (Miguel Moa), who is incidentally the younger brother of one of the Grabber’s victims. However, he eventually decides to go to that Christian youth camp along with them, and we soon see these three kids arriving at that place on one particularly snowy day.

Right from their arrival at the camp, the mood is pretty moody to say the least. Due to the ongoing snowstorm, the camp is virtually empty except its owner Armando (Demián Bichir) and his very few main staff members including his plucky daughter. In addition, Gwen has to sleep alone in a separate cabin not so far from the one for Finney and Ernesto due the camp regulation, and she certainly becomes all the more nervous as she is about to sleep.

 Of course, more strange things soon happen around Gwen and her brother, and they eventually come to learn something quite terrifying. Although he is dead now, the Grabber has been hovering over the camp and its surrounding region as a malevolent spirit, and he turns out to be capable of coming into their dreams just like Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven’s classic horror film “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984). As the Grabber menaces Gwen more and more in her dreams, she and Finney must find a way to defeat their powerful opponent, but then they and several others around them are cornered by the Grabber in one way or another along the story.         

As its several main characters embark on their fight against the Grabber, the movie constantly fills the screen with a chilly sense of dread. Whenever Gwen gets asleep, the movie adds a nice visual touch for accentuating the rather hazy condition of her unconsciousness, and we seldom get confused even when it busily goes back and forth between reality and dream. While surely often reminiscent of Craven’s aforementioned movie and its several sequels, the movie distinguishes itself with a number of effective moments to unnerve or thrill us, and it does not disappoint us at all when everything in the story culminates to the climactic sequence unfolded across a big frozen lake.

Most of all, the movie did a good job of making us care about its main characters more. While it touchingly handles the ongoing drama surrounding Gwen and Finney’s strained relationship, there are also some extra warmth and personality via several other main characters around them, and I especially like a quietly moving moment when Armando gives Finney a sincere and thoughtful advice on his ongoing personal struggle.

As the center of the story, Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw diligently carry the film to the end. While Thames is convincing in his character’s gradual inner transformation along the story, McGraw brings genuine poignancy to several key scenes of hers in the film, and they are also supported well by a number of good performers placed around them. Miguel Mora, who previously played a supporting character in the previous film, has a couple of sweet scenes between him and McGraw, and Demián Bichir and Jeremy Davies are reliable as usual while imbuing their respective supporting roles with enough sense of life. In case of Ethan Hawke, he has another naughty fun with his uncompromisingly evil character, and it is clear that he relishes every minute of his despite being mostly masked throughout the movie just like he was in the previous film.

In conclusion, “Black Phone” has its own dark fun just like its predecessor, and director/co-writer/co-producer Scott Derrickson, who wrote the screenplay with co-producer C. Robert Cargill, adds another solid genre film to his filmmaking career, which was incidentally started with “Hellraiser: Inferno” (2000). Although it is not totally necessary, the movie accomplishes its goal fairly well on the whole, and I will not grumble for now.   

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Babygirl (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Her object of kinky desire

Posted on October 30, 2025 by kaist455

“Babygirl” is about the risky sexual transgression of a woman supposed to have all. While not fully delving into what really makes her tick, the movie intrigues us with the oddly dynamic interactions between her and her much younger sex partner, and it is a rather shame that the movie hesitates to go further with its lurid and disturbing sexual elements later in the story.  

 Nicole Kidman plays Romy Mathis, the female CEO of some promising robotic automation company in New York City. As preparing for a very important moment for her company, she is introduced to a bunch of new interns, and her attention is drawn to Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a handsome lad she incidentally encountered not long before the formal introduction between them. At that time, something about him tantalized her, and he seems to be aware of that even though he does not signify much on the surface.

After Romy is assigned to Samuel as his mentor during the following internship, we come to sense more of the weird sexual tension between them. As Romy gets attracted more to him, Samuel seems to toy with her in one indirect way or another. As they continue to push and pull each other, it looks like he wants to play some morbid game of power and desire, and she is quite willing to go along with that when he makes a small but significant forward move later.  

What happens between them in a rather cheap hotel room will alternatively fascinate and disturb you for good reasons. It is apparent from the beginning of the story that Romy has nurtured a kinky sexual fantasy involved with subjugation and obedience, and Samuel seems to be the one who may fully satisfy her at last. Even though she hesitates more than once, she cannot help but do whatever she is driven to do by him, and he seems to be enjoying this as much as she does.

Needless to say, their relationship is totally inappropriate in more than one aspect, but Romy still cannot help herself. No matter how much she tries to draw the line between herself and Samuel, she always finds herself attracted to their kinky play of sex and power, and then, to her little dismay, Samuel also begins to cross some lines bit by bit.

 As observing more of how happy and stable Romy’s private life with her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) and their two daughters, we wonder more about the psychological motivation behind her increasingly tricky sexual transgression. At one point, it is implied that she had a rather unconventional childhood in the past, and that seems to be the origin of her growing desire for being subjugated, but the screenplay by director/writer Halina Reijn, who previous made “Bodies Bodies Bodies” (2022), does not provide any simple explanation. It simply presents her behaviors and feelings on the screen, and this surely generates more intrigue for us.

However, the movie stumbles more than once during its last act, where the situation between its two main characters becomes rather mellow and soapy. Compared to all those odd and kinky moments unfolded between them, what eventually happens later in the story feels quite anti-climactic in comparison, and it looks like the movie itself gets scared right before going further along with its two main characters. In case of a subplot involved with one of the female employees working under Romy, it ends up being half-baked despite some interesting potential shown at the beginning, and that is another disappointment in the movie.

Nevertheless, there are still some good elements to engage us, and one of them is the committed performance of Kidman, who incidentally received the Best Actress award when the movie was shown at the Venice International Film Festival in last year. Although we never get to know much about what is really behind her character’s dark impulse, Kidman ably handles several key moments of naked emotions besides showing considerable commitment, and the result is another notable performance to be added to her admirable acting career. 

On the opposite, Harrison Dickinson, who has been more notable during last several years since his breakthrough turn in Eliza Hittman’s “Beach Rats” (2017), is simply fabulous as subtly suggesting the unpleasant sides of his elusive but compelling character. Right from his very first scene in the film, he holds his own place well in front of his co-star, and he is particularly effective whenever his character says one thing but also seems to be suggesting the other thing.

Around Kidman and Dickinson, Reijn places a number of good performers, though most of them are limited by their rather thin supporting parts. While Antonio Banderas, who could have played Dickinson’s character if the movie had been made around 30 years ago, is mostly stuck with his thankless role, Sophie Wilde, Vaughn Reilly, and Esther McGregor (Yes, she is the daughter of Ewan McGregor) leave some impression despite their under-developed characters.

Overall, “Babygirl” attempts to be a mix of Luis Buñuel’s “Belle de Jour” (1965), Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher” (2001), and a bit of Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” (1999), but the result is not satisfying enough for recommendation. Although its first two acts are fairly tantalizing, what followed next fizzles to my disappointment, and I would rather recommend any of the three films mentioned above.

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The Godfather Part II (1974) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): An ambitious sequel equal to its predecessor

Posted on October 29, 2025 by kaist455

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film “The Godfather Part II”, which was re-released in South Korean theaters not long after “The Godfather” (1972) was shown first, tries to do two different things together at once. Whether this is really successful is rather debatable, the movie is an ambitious sequel equal to its predecessor in terms of scope, and it surely has a number of great elements to shine inside its darkly epic crime drama.

The movie consists of two main stories. The first one, which is actually the real center of the story considering that it occupies around the two thirds of the running time (200 minutes), illustrates what happens several years after the ending of “The Godfather”. It is 1958, and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and his criminal organization have grown much with more power and influence since they moved to Nevada from New York City. During the sequence clearly reminiscent of the opening sequence of “The Godfather”, Michael meets a number of various people in private while the big party for his son’s First Communion is being held outside his big house, and we are introduced to some new characters besides Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and several other notable supporting characters from the first film.

Everything feels fine on the surface with Michael quietly exerting his power and influence over others around him just like his father did, but, of course, there soon comes a big problem. Probably because of the ongoing expansion of his criminal business, Michael is ambushed by a sudden attack on him and his wife, and he must find whoever is associated with this attack, while also trying to close a big upcoming business deal with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), an aging but powerful Jewish mob boss who once worked under Michael’s father.

Just like the predecessor, the film juggles numerous characters along its story, which becomes more complicated as unfolding its sprawling narrative among several different places besides Nevada. Michael later goes to Cuba for finally settling his business with Roth, but the situation becomes much trickier than expected due to the increasingly unstable political mood in Cuba. Not long after his return from Cuba, there come two different bad news for Michael, and they make him all the more paranoid and suspicious about everything around him, though he still mostly keeps his thoughts and feelings to himself as usual.

Although the story sometimes becomes a bit too murky and complex for us to process and understand the ongoing plot against Michael, the screenplay by Coppola and his co-writer Mario Puzo, which is partially based on Puzo’s bestseller novel of the same name, keeps things rolling via excellent writing and solid characterization. As Michael descends further into his criminal darkness, the story doles out small and big moments between him and several other characters around him, and we become more engaged in his drama even though we are often chilled or devastated by how much he lets himself driven by his ruthless pursuit of power and safety.

In contrast, the other part of the story, which depicts the past of Michael’s father, sometimes looks like something solely existing for lightening up the overall mood a bit. We see how his father had to leave his hometown in Sicily, Italy in 1901. We see how he entered the world of crime after growing up and then trying to raise his own family in New York City in 1917. And we see how he eventually took the first steps toward his powerful status shown in the first film.

On paper, the criminal ascent of Michael’s father is supposed to be a dramatic part to complement Michael’s moral descent, but, as revisiting the film at a local movie theater at last night, I felt that the former interrupts the narrative flow of the latter to some degree as they are intertwined with each other throughout the movie. Robert De Niro, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, did a good job of embodying the recognizable aspects of Marlon Brando’s Oscar-winning performance in the first film without cheaply imitating them at all, but his character’s drama does not have much surprise compared to Micheal’s, and I also heard that De Niro’s Italian speaking in the film has not been received that well by many native speakers (This is why I do not have much objection on the AI-correction on the Hungarian speaking in Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” (2024)). At least, it is clear that Coppola’s production designer Dean Tavoularis had a field day as filling the screen with vivid period atmosphere and details to bring more epic qualities to the movie, and he deservedly won an Oscar (The movie garnered total six Oscars including the ones for Best Picture and Best Director, by the way).

In the end, the restrained but undeniably powerful performance by Al Pacino, who was Oscar-nominated again after “The Godfather” and Sidney Lumet’s “Serpico” (1973), is the one which ultimately takes the center. Although we become more and more distant to his character along the story, Pacino keeps engaging us with subtle nuances to observe, and that is why several striking moments of his character in the film are so effective.

In case of a bunch of other supporting performers around Pacino, they are all splendid as having each own moment to stand out. While Lee Strasberg and Michael V. Gazzo, who were Oscar-nominated along with De Niro in the same category, are terrific in their respective parts, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, who also received a well-deserved Oscar nomination, and John Cazale are equally wonderful as being effortlessly back in their familiar roles, and Keaton, who sadly passed away a few weeks ago, and Shire provide some female perspective on the adamantly male-dominant qualities of the movie.

On the whole, “The Godfather Part II” may be one small step down from the almost perfect achievement of its predecessor, but it has firmly and steadily occupied its position during last five decades. Coppola surely reaches for more greatness here, and the result may not be entirely successful, but I was totally absorbed in the story and characters again. That says a lot about its own greatness, folks.

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Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Remembering his famous parents

Posted on October 26, 2025 by kaist455

Documentary film “Stiller & Miller: Nothing Is Lost”, which was released on Apple TV+ a few days ago, presents an intimate personal perspective on the life and career of one famous American husband-and-wife comedy team. Although their life and career were often riddled with one issue after another, they stuck together to the end via a lot of love, respect, and understanding, and the documentary is often engaging as closely examining their life and career with considerable care and honesty.

They are Jerry Stiller and Anne Maera, who are incidentally the parents of director/co-producer Ben Stiller. When his father died several years after his mother passed away in 2015, Stiller and his older sister decided to sell their family apartment in New York City, and we see him looking into a bunch of archival records left by his parents. His father often recorded a lot of stuffs here and there throughout his and his wife’s life and career, and the documentary is mainly driven by the excerpts from those numerous recordings and home video clips made by his father.

The early part of the documentary focuses on how Stiller’s parents became quite famous not long after they came across each other in the 1950s. As they got closer to each other and then eventually married in 1954, they came to find the comic potential between their talent and presence. Although Anne wanted to be a serious actress, Jerry instantly saw her natural talent and how she could be a perfect comic counterpart for him, and they quickly distinguished themselves together as an excellent comic duo during next several years. 

When they came to have two kids in the 1960s, they became more determined to have more success for their career, and they eventually got a big break thanks to appearing in the Ed Sullivan Show. While they were certainly very, very, very nervous right before their very first appearance in this legendary American variety TV show, they deftly impressed and entertained millions of audiences out there in the end, and, what do you know, they were frequently invited to the show while enjoying more success to come into their career.

However, there were also a number of issues in their career as well as their private life, and the documentary does not pull any punch on that. As your average perfectionist, Jerry was frequently driven toward being quite fastidious, and that often exasperated Anne, who was more relaxed and natural compared to her husband. While this personality contrast between them was crucial in the success of many of their humorous skits, they could not help but clash a lot with each other, and Stiller and his older sister still remember well those frequent clashes between their parents during their childhood years.

And they also remember how usually their parents were absent in their childhood years due to their busy career. Although Jerry and Anne sometimes let their kids a bit more into their life and profession, they were mostly too occupied with their works, and Stiller, who has also been a busy and consummate entertainer for many years just like his parents, ironically sees a lot of his parents from himself as reflecting more on the considerable distance between him and his own family in the past. When he talks with his wife and two kids respectively, Stiller is touchingly frank about the flawed aspects of his private life, and his family members respond to his honesty with warm recognition and acceptance.

The documentary later delves a bit into how unhappy Jerry and Anne were during their respective early years. While Jerry’s father did not support much of his aspiration to become a good comedian, Anne was deeply traumatized by her mother’s suicide which happened during her childhood years. Nevertheless, both of them really tried hard for being good parents to their kids, and Stiller and his older sister are certainly thankful to their parents’ efforts, though they were sometimes burdened a lot by their parents’ fame and success.

Around the 1980s, Jerry and Anne eventually found how to balance their relationship between life and career as they respectively tried something different outside their comedy team. Anne actively pursued her longtime aspiration to be recognized as a serious actress and the following results were quite rewarding for her (She received a Tony nomination for her supporting performance in the 1993 Broadway production of “Anna Christie”, for instance). Jerry also ventured into a number of movies and TV series alone by himself, and some of you probably remember well his Emmy-nominated guest performance in TV comedy series “Seinfeld”.    

I must point out that “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost” becomes rather repetitive especially during its second half, and its frequent change in the screen ratio feels a bit too distracting in my trivial opinion. Fortunately, this and several other weak aspects are mostly compensated by its undeniably sincere and respectful attitude. While clearly recognizing and accepting many human flaws of their parents, Stiller, who will incidentally become 60 in the next month, also shows a lot of affection and respect toward his parents, and that is why his documentary works as a wonderful personal tribute to his loving parents. They were indeed talented people besides being quite interesting to observe, and you may want to know more about their considerable achievements after watching this solid documentary.

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The Rules of the Game (1939) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): A comedy of manners right before World War II

Posted on October 26, 2025 by kaist455

Jean Renoir’s 1939 film “The Rules of the Game” has been regarded as one of the greatest works in the movie history, and it deserves such admiration like that for good reasons. While it is still a very witty class comedy of manners which gives a sharp and biting commentary on the European society right before World War II, the movie is also often quite compelling for its vibrantly timeless cinematic qualities from its top-notch technical aspects, and it does not feel aged at all just like many of other great films out there.

The title of the movie refers to the social rules and codes supposedly maintaining the status quo for all of the main characters in the story, and most of the most amusing moments of the movie come from how many of them casually do not follow their social rules and codes that much while a few others actually do in contrast. In case of André Jurieux (Roland Toutain), a famous aviator who has just made another world record at the beginning of the story, he has been in love with Christine (Nora Gregor) even though she is married to a rich Jewish aristocrat, and he is not so pleased when Christine does not show up at all during what is supposed to be one of the grandest moments in his life. As a result, he impulsively expresses his bitter private feelings in front of a group of reporters, and this certainly embarrasses Christine.

In case of her husband Robert (Marcel Dalio), he is not concerned that much because 1) he is usually occupied with collecting sophisticated (and expensive) toy machines and 2) he has also been involved with some other woman behind his back. As his wife becomes rather distressed due to André, he briefly considers breaking up with his mistress, but, not so surprisingly, he quickly changes his mind when he visits her later. After all, everything is fine as long as both he and his wife do not tell or ask anything about their respective infidelities, and it seems that they will be able to continue their pretension as before.

Things eventually become a bit more complicated when André is subsequently invited to a country manor belonging to Robert because of some persuasion from André and Christine’s mutual friend Octave, who is incidentally played by Renoir himself. Even while knowing well how it will be rather awkward between André and him, Robert does not object to this at all, and Christine seems willing to put some distance between her and André for a while.

Needless to say, both Christine and André soon find themselves emotionally entangled more with each other than before. Although she manages to keep her reputation as high as before while respectfully welcoming André in front of many of her guests, Christine only becomes more attracted to him, and, to our little amusement, it later turns out that there is some other dude who has also been in love with her just like André. In case of Robert, he must deal with his mistress who is also invited, and this certainly causes more troubles inside his country manor.

As humorously illustrating the absurdities among these and many other members of high society, the movie also pays attention to what is going on among Robert’s and his guests’ servants, who are no better than their employers on the whole as often mirroring the moral callousness of their employers. In case of Christine’s personal maid Lisette (Paulette Dubost), she is married to Robert’s gamekeeper Edouard (Gaston Modot), but she does not love him that much while being willing to have some fun of her own. When a poacher comes to join the serving staff of Robert’s country manor after ingratiating himself a bit with Robert, she does not mind flirting with this dude, and Edouard is not so amused to say the least.  

While cheerfully juggling numerous figures in one way another, the movie immerses more into their little closed world, and cinematography by Jean Bachelet is inarguably crucial for that. His camera frequently moves as attentively following the characters’ actions and movements, and the deft utilization of deep focus throughout the film often makes us more aware of what is happening in the background as well as the foreground. The achievement by Bachelet here in this film is remarkable, considering that 1) deep focus and several other cinematography techniques used in the film were quite new and challenging at that time and 2) the overall result still looks effortless on the whole.

Meanwhile, the indirect but acerbic social commentary of the film gradually emerges from its busy and labyrinthine narrative. There is a hunting sequence which is now regarded as the critical reflection on how many people in Europe remained callous and indifferent to what would soon shake up their world. And there is an inevitable moment of violence and tragedy around the end of the story, which is incidentally preceded by a textbook comic situation of mistaken identity. 

It is rather ironic that the movie could have been lost forever right after its theatrical release in France in 1939. Despite being one of the most expensive movies during its time, the movie was a critical and commercial flop, and then it was heavily cut down from 113 minutes to 85 minutes by Renoir himself. Its original negative was deemed to be destroyed after its storage place was heavily bombed during World War II, but the movie fortunately went through an extensive restoration process in the late 1950s. Although it does not contain one minor scene, the resulting restored version was wholeheartedly approved by Renoir himself, and the movie has remained around the top of many lists of great movies during last seven decades.

 In conclusion, “The Rules of the Game” still shines as a masterpiece which has influenced a bunch of subsequent films such as Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park” (2001), which is also a quintessential upstairs/downstairs comedy film about class and manner. When I watched it for the first time in the early 2000s, it was just a homework for me as a young movie fan, but now I came to admire and appreciate it more after revisiting it yesterday, and I am certainly willing to learn and feel more from this great film.

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French Cancan (1955) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): There is no business like French show business

Posted on October 26, 2025 by kaist455

Jean Renoir’s 1955 film “French Cancan” is often exuberant for its colorful mood and spirit. As a fictional story about the foundation of the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre of Paris, the movie cheerfully goes up and down along with its almost unflappable hero and many various characters, and the result is one of the best works from one of the great filmmakers in the 20th century.

The hero of the film is Henri “Zizi” Danglard (Jean Gabin), a middle-aged impresario who has run a little Parisian nightclub called “Le Paravent Chinois”. Although his nightclub has been known for his beautiful belly dancer Lola de Castro (María Félix), it is not exactly profitable enough for him at present, and it later turns out that his financial situation is not very good to say the least.

Nevertheless, as a seasoned but passionate show business guy, Danglard cannot help but drawn to another possibly good idea for his show business. When he later comes to a simple dance hall in Montmartre along with Lola and several admirers of hers, he observes how joyfully people doing an old-fashioned dance called, yes, cancan, and then the idea for presenting a cancan show soon comes to his mind. In addition, he also notices one particular young lady dancing with considerable spirit and charm, and he subsequently approaches to her with an offer she cannot refuse.

Danglard’s idea is simple but bold. He is going to buy the dance hall and then turn it into a big cabaret, and he is willing to take a big chance even though his financial status is still not so positive. Fortunately, one of Lola’s admirers, who is incidentally quite rich, soon becomes willing to finance Danglard’s new project thanks to a little persuasion from Lola, and we soon see Danglard working on the project along with a bunch of figures including Nini (Françoise Arnoul), the aforementioned young girl who comes to show more passion toward show business under Danglard’s guidance.

Of course, just like many other show business stories, there comes one setback after another. For example, Lola, who still has some feelings toward Danglard, is not amused as Danglard and Nini get attracted to each other, even though she knows well what a womanizer Danglard is. This eventually leads to a hilarious group fight scene, which consequently jeopardizes the construction of Danglard’s cabaret.

The movie has some fun with how Danglard remains phlegmatic and practical as steadily pushing his project in one way or another despite those setbacks. Even when he has to leave an expensive hotel due to another financial problem of his, he keeps his appearance as usual, and, above all, he continues to prepare for the cancan show as before.

Meanwhile, the story also focuses on a little romantic complication of Nini, who already finds herself surrounded by more than one admirer besides Danglard. There is a young baker who was quite close to her before she met Danglard, but he wants her to give up her aspiration toward show business. There is also a young foreign princess who has been madly in love with her right from when he saw her for the first time, but she does not love him much even though she is touched by how sincerely he promises her a lot of things including jewelry.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Danglard’s cabaret is eventually completed and then opened for many audiences to come, and the movie does not disappoint us at all once the show begins. Besides the cancan show, Danglard also presents several different shows to entertain and excite his audiences, and Renoir and his crew members including cinematographer Michel Kelber skillfully present the growing excitement among the audiences as one good show after another is presented on the stage.

When the moment for the cancan show eventually arrives, the movie brings more spirit and energy to the screen as those lovely dancers including Nini joyfully present their dancing skills in front of their enthusiastic audiences, and Renoir also did a nice job of delivering a feel-good ending for everyone in the story. Regardless of all those conflicts among them, they are all swept by the joy and excitement around them, and they all feel really happy and spirited for a while at least.

Like any good show business movie, the movie is packed with many colorful characters to remember, and the main cast members effortlessly embody their respective roles. While Jean Gabin, who is often regarded as one of the best actors in the French cinema during the 20th century and also previously collaborated with Renoir in several films including “Grand Illusion” (1937), steadily holds the ground with his gently graceful acting, a number of different performers including Françoise Arnoul and María Félix have each own moment to shine, and you will be also delighted by the brief appearance of several notable French singers including Édith Piaf, who does not need any introduction or explanation at all because of her own distinctive singing voice.

On the whole, “French Cancan” is quite charming and entertaining for not only its vibrant mood and style but also its witty handling of story and characters. I must confess that I was rather tired and sleepy when I watched it at a local arthouse movie theater during last evening, but my interest and spirit soon got perked up within 30 minutes, and I really felt like watching an excellent show in the end. Folks, that is what a good show business movie can do in my trivial opinion.

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Seven (1995) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4): A gruesome masterwork by David Fincher

Posted on October 25, 2025 by kaist455

David Fincher’s 1995 film “Seven”, whose 4K remastered version is currently shown in selected theaters in South Korea, is a gruesome but undeniably compelling thriller to admire and appreciate. While it is surely as grim, unpleasant, and disturbing as your average serial killer flick can possibly be, the movie engages us with a considerable amount of style and mood first, and then it haunts our mind much more than expected with its weary human attitude to the sheer evil and nihilism presented in the story.

At first, the movie, which is set in some anonymous city, briefly establishes the nascent partnership between two very different cops: Detective Lieutenant William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt). Having been quite tired of what he has faced for many years, Somerset is planning to retire within a week, and that is why he does not welcome much being partnered with Mills, your typical rookie detective who is rather indiscreet and impulsive besides being too cocky and confident.

On the next day, these two cops are assigned to a case which baffles and shocks both of them a lot. An extremely obese dude was found dead inside his house, and it is clear that somebody forced him to eat a lot of food for hours right before his eventual death. As a seasoned investigator, Somerset instinctively senses that this is not a simple case at all, and, of course, another equally grotesque murder happens on the very next day.

It does not take much time for Somerset to realize that these two murders are just the beginning for several next killings to happen. The killer in question is executing his murderous plan according to the Seven Deadly Sins mentioned in the Bible and several works of literature including Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy”, and Somerset and his partner come to see more of how deviously patient and methodical the killer is. In case of the third killing, it is apparent that the killer has been carefully preparing for this for at least one year, and there is some twisted sense of humor from how the killer leads the police from the second murder to the third one later in the story.

While the identity of the killer functions as sort of MacGuffin to hold our attention, the screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker gradually develops its two main characters via several small but crucial personal moments. While we get to know more about Mills and his pretty wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow in one of her early roles), we also come to learn more of how weary Somerset has been about his work and the despairing enviornment surrounding him and many others in the city. As a wise and well-experienced old man, he certainly knows a lot about how evil man can be – and how apathic and uncaring one can be as living in the city for years.

Nevertheless, though he usually sticks to his reserved appearance, Somerset is also capable of compassion and empathy, and there is a little poignant moment between him and Tracy, who later comes to him for getting some advice on a certain personal conflict behind her warm and bright appearance. He quietly listens to her, and then he tells her a bit about a certain personal choice of his in the past. Although he does not signify much on the whole, we sense some bitter feelings behind his phlegmatic attitude, and so does Tracy.

While never flinching from the gruesome details of the murders in the story, the movie constantly fills the screen with a lot of dark but palpable ambiance. Fincher and his cinematographer Darius Khondji frequently utilize the high contrast between light and shadow in many of the interior scenes in the film, and this accentuates the sense of dread and horror as Somerset and Mills delve more into their increasingly fiendish case. The city in the movie looks as rainy and moody as that futuristic city in Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” (1982), and we are often overwhelmed by the depravity and despair felt from the streets and alleys of the city.

In the end, the movie eventually culminates to the confrontation between our two detectives and the killer, but it takes time for arriving at its starkly nihilistic finale, and that depends a lot on what is precisely exchanged among the three main performers during this part. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt complement each other well besides imbuing their archetype roles with enough sense of life; Freeman is absolutely terrific as eventually becoming as the main voice of reason and morality in the story, and Pitt holds his own place fairly well even though his character is rather flat compared to Freeman’s. In case of the actor who plays the killer in the film, I will not talk a lot about him because 1) he is still a surprise for anyone watching the film for the first time and 2) he has been quite infamous for the reason many of you know well, but I can tell you instead that he is quite effective as subtly conveying to us his character’s unfathomable depravity and confident intelligence behind his understated appearance.

In conclusion, “Seven” is one of the best works in Fincher’s interesting filmmaking career. Although I do not like some of his works such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008), he has never made any lousy movie yet, and it is interesting to observe how he has often focused on the dark and unpleasant sides of humanity as shown from “Zodiac” (2007), “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2011), and recent Netflix drama series “Mindhunter”. I may not totally embrace “Seven”, but its grim but vivid presentation of the dark sides of the humanity remains fresh and compelling as before thanks to his skillful direction, and I am glad to revisit at a big local theater.

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My Missing Aunt (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Her erased aunt

Posted on October 24, 2025 by kaist455

South Korean independent documentary film “My Missing Aunt” presents a modest but intimate personal story to tell. Looking into how one promising young woman was unjustly erased by her own family, it makes some sharp point on the sexist influence of patriarchy upon women, and you will also come to reflect more on how the South Korean society has not been free from that yet.

The story begins with when director/writer Yang Ju-yeon came to know about a hidden secret inside her supposedly harmonious family. On one day, her father happened to talk about his eldest sister when he was a bit drunk, and that baffled Yang a lot because her father or many other family members of theirs had never talked about this hidden family member in question. As becoming more curious about the aunt she had never known, Yang decided to delve more into who she was, and the documentary follows her subsequent investigation.

Although both of her parents were not so willing to talk about her hidden aunt because she unfortunately killed herself around 50 years ago, it did not take much time for Yang to find some old stuffs associated with he aunt, including an old photograph album belonging to Yang’s paternal grandmother. That photograph album has a number of photographs showing Yang’s aunt during her childhood and adolescent years, and they made Yang all the more curious about who her aunt really was.

Thanks to the old records from a high school where her aunt studied, Yang could locate several classmates of her aunt, who were all willing to tell many things about her aunt. According to them, Yang’s aunt was a smart and confident girl who wanted to be an artist someday, and it later turns out that she went to a local university after her high school graduation. Yang interviews several people who knew her during her college time, and they all fondly remember how spirited she often was.

However, just like many other young women during that time, Yang’s aunt also found herself often frustrated and suffocated mainly due to her family. Although her father made sure that all of his five children received a fair amount of education, he always put his two sons first even though Yang’s aunt was his eldest child. When she asked for the permission to study in Seoul, he said no without any hesitation, and this certainly broke her heart.

As coming to learn more about how her aunt struggled with gender bias and discrimination, Yang reflects more on how frequently she has faced the same problems throughout her own life. In a home video clip showing her birthday party, her father’s camera often showed more attention to her younger brother even though she should be the focus of the home video, and her grandfather was no better than that.

Later in the documentary, Yang has an honest conversation with her father in front of the camera. Although he visibly feels awkward as listening to his daughter, Yang’s father frankly admits that, despite his sincere efforts to love both of his two children equally, he had usually put Yang’s younger brother above her a bit because of those sexist ideas handed from his father, and that leads to more conversation between him and his daughter.

Meanwhile, Yang came to learn more about the rather suspicious circumstance surrounding her aunt’s suicide. According to the people close to her at that time, she had a very close relationship with some young man, but, not so surprisingly, this dude turned out to be quite petty and possessive, and she really tried hard to break up with him as soon as possible.

In the end, Yang’s aunt killed herself with a bottle of poison in that guy’s residence on one day of 1975, but, to her bafflement, Yang could not find any police record on this serious incident. It is apparent that her family covered that up just for avoiding getting their reputation tarnished in public, and they even changed the date of her death when they applied for her death certification later.

As wondering whether her aunt really committed suicide at that time, Yang’s mind naturally muses more on how many women get beaten or killed in the South Korean society every year – and how often the South Korean society has overlooked that mainly due to its male-dominant aspects. Although many of South Korean women came to speak and shout louder during last several years, they have been often ridiculed or persecuted by many men out there nonetheless, and that says a lot how much the South Korean society needs to be changed in case of gender equality.

Nevertheless, the documentary shows a bit of hope and optimism as Yang actively persuades her father to do something important for his forgotten eldest sister. Although too much time has passed since her death, Yang is determined to remember and honor her aunt as much as possible, and that is followed by a brief but quietly poignant private moment between her and her father.

Overall, “My Missing Aunt” presents well its engaging personal story within its rather short running time (78 minutes), and I appreciate how Yang handles her personal project with genuine care and passion. In short, this is another interesting South Korean documentary of this year, and its haunting main human subject will linger on your mind for a while after it is over.

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