Ascension (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Chinese Dream from bottom to top

Posted on February 13, 2022 by kaist455

Documentary film “Ascension”, which received an Oscar nomination in last week, is often mesmerizing in its restrained but effective presentation of the social/economic landscapes of the Chinese society. Because it simply looks at a number of various places and people during its 97-minute running time without any background explanation, the documentary requires some patience from us at first, but we gradually come to see its big picture step by step as it observes the pursuit of the Chinese Dream from bottom to top, and that big picture is alternatively haunting and disturbing to say the least.

After the short excerpt from a 1912 poem written by director Jessica Kingdon’s great-grandfather, the documentary looks at numerous people looking for a job on some urban street. They are all ready to accept any job for earning money, and there are already several company recruiters prepared to draw these job searchers’ attention. Although there are some restrictions, many of them are soon hired, and we soon see them being taken to those factories where they will be hired to work.

The next part shows us a series of manufacturing processes and workers behind these processes. At one point, we observe how plastic bottles and caps are manufactured step by step, and then we see several factory workers examining whether there is any visible defect in the plastic bottles. In case of what may be one of the most amusing scenes in the documentary, we watch a group of female workers doing their respective tasks on many sex dolls, and it is rather fascinating to watch how they put some extra details on these sex dolls.

When the documentary subsequently observes the relationship between workers and their employers, there are some funny moments to observe. During one scene, we see applicants going through a sort of military training, and their instructors often emphasize to them how important their loyalty is to their company. As watching these applicants instructed to keep the small guidebook written by their company CEO, I could not help but think of Red Guard soldiers holding Mao Zeodong’s book, and I found myself sardonically wondering what Mao would think of this rather absurd moment, which is certainly quite opposite to everything he believed.

The rapid changes in the social/economic landscapes of the Chinese society during last 30 years are more apparent when the documentary goes up a bit to show us the middle echelons of the Chinese society. We see a group of young people eagerly listening to an instructor who explains a lot about how they should sell themselves as brands for the ongoing era of digital social media, and we later observe how several social media influencers work in front of their smartphone cameras. Most of them do not look particularly affluent, but they all hope for any chance for big online success, and we surely get some small laughs as observing their efforts.

Another amusing part in the documentary comes from a training session for young people willing to become bodyguards. Under their stern instructor, they go through a series of elementary training sessions, and you may chuckle when they are trying to pass a test demanding a certain driving skill – or when a couple of goats, which seem to belong to their instructor, happen to steal the show a bit later.

When the documentary goes higher along the ladder of economic success and wealth, the mood becomes quite different compared to the early scenes of the documentary. We see a group of young people ready to learn how to work for their rich employers as servants or butlers, and it is certainly odd and funny to watch a certain brief scene if you have ever watched British TV drama series “Downton Abbey”. The documentary, whose production incidentally took place in 51 different locations throughout China, also shows some nice and luxurious places including a big waterpark and a huge aquarium, and we are reminded more of the considerable economic gap in the Chinese society when several businesspeople are enjoying their expensive dinner at some fancy restaurant.

And these and several other scenes in the last part of the documentary surely exemplify how much the Chinese society has rapidly advanced, and you will be amazed from time to time, but the documentary does not overlook the downsides of these swift social/economic changes and developments. The more they manufacture, the more they consume and waste, and that is clearly reflected by the last several shots of the documentary. Sure, the country will grow more and more during next several years at least, but there will be the price to face in one way or another, and I am afraid that will be a big problem for not only the Chinese people but also all of us around the world.

While it mostly sticks to its clinically objective attitude, “Ascension” is a rewarding experience on the whole, and Kingdon, who also edited the documentary in addition to serving as its co-producer and co-cinematographer, demonstrates here that she is another interesting documentary filmmaker to watch. Although she only made a number of short documentary films before making a feature debut here, the overall result shows considerable talent and confidence, and it will be interesting to see what may come next from her.

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The Good Boss (2021) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A mild Spanish social satire starring Javier Bardem

Posted on February 13, 2022 by kaist455

Spanish film “The Good Boss”, which was selected as the Spain’s entry to Best International Film Oscar instead of Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers” (2021), is a mild social satire which could be tauter and edgier for more laughs. Although it is carried fairly well by the good lead performance at its center, its ironic comic moments do not strike us that hard due to being often deficient in surprise, which is always a crucial element for laughs. Right from the beginning, we can clearly see where the story is heading, and the movie takes a very predictable course without generating enough comic momentum to hold our attention.

Javier Bardem, a charismatic Spanish actor who has steadily impressed us since his international breakthrough turn in Julian Schnabel’s “Before Night Falls” (2000), plays Julio Blanco, a middle-aged businessman who has run a small company producing industrial scales for years. During the opening part, we see Julio about to begin another busy week along with the employees of his company, and we come to gather that he is very anxious about getting some prestigious local industrial award again, but it turns out that there are a few serious problems on his way to that glorious achievement. There is an ex-employee who is very angry about suddenly becoming unemployed, and Julio also notices that Miralles (Manolo Solo), a close friend of his who has also worked under him for many years, is not doing that well for some personal reason he is not so willing to tell.

As the boss of the company, Julio tries to handle these problems as soon as possible before those evaluators come to his company factory for the final evaluation, but the situation only becomes more complicated to his frustration and exasperation. While that unemployed dude begins to protest against Julio right in front of the company factory day by day, Miralles turns out to be much messier than expected, and Julio has no choice but to get involved more into Miralles’ private life as an old friend, though it is revealed later that their relationship is not as truthful as he has believed.

Meanwhile, a trio of young female interns start to work in Julio’s company, and Julio finds himself quite attracted to one of these young ladies. Because he already had an affair with a previous female intern without getting noticed by his trusting wife, he has no qualms about approaching to this lass a bit closer, and, what do you know, she does not mind his indecent approach at all. When they later happen to come across each other at a nightclub, both of them are ready to move onto the next step, but, not so surprisingly, there is something important she has not revealed to him yet.

The screenplay by director/writer/co-producer Fernando León de Aranoa has some fun with throwing more troubles into its hero’s increasingly difficult circumstance, but the overall result does not surprise or shock us enough. For example, the part involved with that unemployed dude feels repetitive as going nowhere till the last act of the story, and there is not much surprise in what eventually happens between him and Julio. In case of the subplot involved with that female intern, we do get some laughs from the absurd situation between her and Julio, but de Aranoa’s screenplay does not push this situation further while only rolling it toward a predictable outcome.

Of course, the movie frequently attempts to ridicule and satirize its hero’s gradually emerging hypocrisy, but its attempts are not accompanied with enough edge and bare. As merely observing how selfish and hypocritical its hero really is, the movie seems to maintain its supposedly balanced viewpoint, but its resulting lack of attitude often makes it feel shallow and superficial, and that only accentuates its rather thin narrative and broad characterization.

Anyway, Bardem, who was incidentally Oscar-nominated in last week for a bit better performance in Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos” (2021), dutifully holds the center via his engaging performance. While never making any excuse on his character’s unlikable aspects, Bardem effortlessly handles a number of comic moments in the film, and he is particularly funny during one scene where his character happens to have a dinner with his wife and several other figures who make him very uncomfortable for a good reason. Without any ounce of exaggeration, Bardem deftly conveys to us his character’s growing inconvenience and annoyance, and we are tickled by how his character manages to hide his feelings in front of others except one particular figure.

In case of the other main cast members in the film, they fill their caricature supporting roles as much as they can. While Manolo Solo, Almudena Amor, and Óscar de la Fuente are notable as more colorful ones in the bunch, Sonia Almarcha does not have much to do as Julio’s unsuspecting wife, and Celso Bugallo gains some sympathy from us as an old employee exploited by his employer in more than one way.

Although it is occasionally amusing mainly thanks to Bardem’s solid lead performance, “The Good Boss” did not elicit enough chuckle from me while failing to develop its comic potential as fully as possible, and I walked out of the screening room with lingering dissatisfaction as reflecting on how it could be more effective and hilarious. I am certainly ready for any good satire on business and capitalism, but this is not a good one in my trivial opinion, and I am already ready to move onto whatever I am going to watch next.

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Death on the Nile (2022) ☆☆(2/4): Dirge on the Nile

Posted on February 10, 2022 by kaist455

Kenneth Branagh’s “Death on the Nile”, which is finally released after a rather long period of delay due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, is a bland and joyless product which did not refresh me much at last night. I happened to be pretty exhausted due to having quite a busy day at my workplace, and I was accordingly ready for any chance for fun, but I was only disappointed as being more aware of many artificial aspects of the movie.

As many of you know, the movie is based on the famous mystery novel of the same name by Agatha Christie, and it is mostly faithful to Christie’s novel, but it strikes a wrong chord right from its prologue scene set in a battlefield of the World War I. I will not go into details here, but I tell you instead that Branagh and his screenplay writer Michael Green attempt to bring more backstory into his detective hero Hercules Poirot, and the result is pretty awkward and distracting for several good reasons. While we get to know a bit more about what happened between Poirot and his lover in the past, we also get to learn of how the hell he came to have that big and ridiculous mustache, but, unfortunately, these elements do not enhance our brilliant detective character that much while only making the movie feel gloomy and ponderous.

Anyway, the main story starts from the point not long after the final scene of Branagh’s previous Poirot film “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017). Our detective hero has just returned to London after solving some difficult case in Egypt, and then he happens to spot an interesting triangle relationship when he is spending one evening at a local night club. At first, Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey) and Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) are a young couple clearly in passionate love, but then the situation is quickly changed when Jacqueline’s immensely wealthy friend Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) enters the scene later, and our detective hero instinctively senses a certain kind of trouble as observing what is going on among these three figures.

Several months later, Poirot is supposedly enjoying a holiday in Egypt, but then he encounters his young friend Bouc (Tom Bateman), who has also been spending some free time in Egypt along with his painter mother Euphemia (Annette Bening). When Bouc subsequently has Poirot meet Linnet again, Linnet is now married to Simon, and she and Simon are having their honeymoon trip in Egypt, but, of course, there is a big problem for them. They have been followed by Jacqueline since Simon left Jacqueline before marrying Linnet, and Jacqueline shows up again while looking quite vengeful as expected.

As Poirot gets himself more involved in this problematic circumstance, it turns out that Jacqueline is not the only one who does not like Linnet, and we get to know a number of other characters surrounding Linnet. For example, we see a nobleman doctor still struggling with his complicated personal feelings toward Linnet, and then we meet a shady cousin of Linnet who is also a lawyer managing Linnet’s assets, and then there is also a haughty old lady who does not hide her left-wing political belief at all in front of Linnet and others even though she is actually Linnet’s godmother.

Everyone except Jacqueline soon comes to a big ship sailing along the Nile, and then, as many of you have already expected, a murder occurs not long after Jacqueline gets on the ship somehow, so Poirot comes forward for solving the case. It is apparent that somebody on the ship committed that murder, but the most likely suspect happens to have an undeniable alibi, and he may have to focus on others on the ship, who all have each own motive for that murder.

Around that narrative point, we are supposed to be more intrigued and interested, but the movie only comes to slouch as flatly going through a series of blunt questioning scenes conducted by our detective hero, who looks glummer and more serious as the situation becomes more complicated along the story. As Poirot delves more into his suspects, Green’s screenplay tries some modern touches including the ones associated with racism and homophobia, but these story elements merely remain on the surface level, and we just simply wait more for the eventual scene where our detective hero is going to explain everything in front of his possible suspects.

As he did in “Murder on the Orient Express”, Branagh assembles a group of various performers here. While Branagh holds the center in a rather perfunctory fashion, his main cast members try as much as they can do with their broad archetype roles, and they mostly succeed to varying degrees. Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, who has become a disagreeable figure as much as Johnny Depp for being recently accused of sexual abuses, and Emma Mackey are believable in their characters’ unnerving triangle relationship, and the notable cast members including Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, and Letitia Wright are also well-cast on the whole, though they still look less impressive compared to the big stars of John Guillermin’s 1978 film which is also based on the same novel.

In conclusion, “Death on the Nile” is less enjoyable even compared to Branagh’s previous Poirot film, and I doubt whether he will make more Poirot movies in the future. Although his recent Oscar-nominated film “Belfast” (2021) has been criticized for being rather plain and simple, that little modest movie is much better than his two Poirot flicks in my humble opinion, so I sincerely recommend you check it out instead.

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MLK/FBI (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A close look into the FBI surveillance on MLK

Posted on February 6, 2022 by kaist455

Documentary film “MLK/FBI” is often compelling in its calm but sobering presentation of what happened between one great American figure and a very powerful government agency quite willing to suppress him by any means necessary. While it will not probably surprise you much if you are familiar with its main subjects, the documentary did a fine job of illuminating not only his complex human sides but also one of the most shameful moments in the history of that government agency, and you may be more curious about what may be revealed via the declassification of certain old classified government documents in 2027.

At the beginning, the documentary follows how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rose to a prominent social position around the late 1950s. After the considerable success of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, he drew more public attention to the ongoing Civil Rights Movement as the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and then there came a historical moment as he delivered that famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28th, 1963. As a result, the Civil Rights Movement came to gain much more momentum, but it also came to draw a lot more attention from the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover, who had virtually ruled over the agency since he founded it in 1924.

To Hoover, Dr. King was a subversive who could be a big menace to the US government as well as the status quo of the American society, and he and his FBI guys tried to dig up anything suspicious about Dr. King. For example, Dr. King happened to be closely associated with a civil rights attorney named Stanley Levinson, and the FBI paid lots of attention to whatever was going between Dr. King and Levinson mainly because Levinson had a very unpleasant past with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) in the 1950s for his old association with communists.

After Hoover reported that to President John F. Kennedy and his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy, who was the US Attorney General at that time, President Kennedy warned Dr. King about that in private, but Dr. King ignored his warning. That eventually led to the permission from Robert F. Kennedy on the following surveillance on Dr. King, and Hoover and the FBI were certainly eager to dig up more information on whatever Dr. King was doing behind his back.

To their disappointment, the FBI could not find any incriminating evidence to show Dr. King being influenced by Levinson’s left-wing political view, but they found something else to be used against Dr. King. As some of you already know, Dr. King was not so staunchly monogamous in his private life, and it did not take much time for the FBI to gather lots of salacious pieces of information from Dr. King and a number of women who happened to have some intimate private time with him.

Hoover and the FBI attempted to use this undeniable fact to expose Dr. King as a big hypocrite, but, to their bafflement, they failed every time. They actually sent their dirty information to a number of newspaper reporters and church pastors, but that did not lead to any scandal at all, and the public image of Dr. King was heightened further in the meantime when it was announced that he was chosen as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Not long after Hoover called Dr. King a liar in public, they had a private meeting at Hoover’s office, and, regardless of whatever happened between them at that time, Hoover and the FBI went further for bringing down Dr. King to the bottom. Besides sending Dr. King’s wife a tape recording of one of King’s recent extramarital affairs, they also sent vicious anonymous blackmail letters intended to drive him to suicide, and several interviewees in the documentary tell us how much Dr. King emotionally struggled behind his back during that time.

At least, Dr. King was supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and their joint efforts led to several monumental political successes including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but there was one problem: the Vietnam War. Although he was mostly silent on this issue at first because of having President Johnson as one of his main political allies, Dr. King eventually decided to become quite outspoken about his negative opinion on the Vietnam War, and that certainly resulted in a big conflict between him and President Johnson.

While knowing well that the FBI was watching on him more than ever as a result, Dr. King did not hesitate to go further, but then, unfortunately, he was assassinated on April 4th, 1968. Regardless of how much they actually knew about what would happen on that tragic day, Hoover immediately ordered a quick and intensive investigation on this incident because, well, he did not want any more trouble. Nevertheless, as recently depicted in Oscar-winning film “Judas and Black Messiah” (2021), he and the FBI continued to suppress any possibility of another “Black Messiah” after Dr. King during next several years.

In conclusion, “MLK/FBI” is a splendid documentary which shows and tells us a lot about some inconvenient facts about both Dr. King and the FBI, and I appreciate how director Sam Pollard, who has been mainly known for his editing works in Spike Lee’s several films including “Mo’ Better Blues” (1990) and “Jungle Fever” (1991), deftly juxtaposes various archival footage clips with his several interview recordings. In short, this is another interesting documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950-60s, and it will certainly make you reflect more on its main subjects after it is over.

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Nightmare Alley (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): A fatalistic neo-noir film by Guillermo del Toro

Posted on February 4, 2022 by kaist455

Guillermo’s del Toro’s latest film “Nightmare Alley” is an admirable genre piece whose strength mainly lies in mood and details rather than the story itself. There are several weak parts in the story which could be improved more in my inconsequential opinion, and I am still wondering whether del Toro is a bit too softy and sensitive for the deeply cynical and pessimistic heart of darkness inside the story, but the movie itself is still a visual pleasure wonderful enough to forgive a number of small but notable shortcomings.

The movie is based on the novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, which was already made into a movie starring Tyrone Power in 1947. Although it was considerably limited by the production code of its era, that rather overlooked classic noir film, which was thankfully released on DVD and Blu-ray by Criterion in last summer, is still compelling to watch for many reasons including one of the best performances in Power’s career, and its darkly ironic tale of human wickedness and weakness remains fresh and timeless because, well, our human nature still are as flawed and indecent as ever.

Like the 1947 version, the movie, which is also set in US around the early 1940s, begins with how its opportunistic hero finds his calling in a wandering carnival troupe. Not long after arriving at some place by a bus, Stanton “Stan” Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) just takes a look into one of the main attractions of the troupe along with many others, but then he finds himself getting hired as a temporary worker when the troupe folds everything and then is ready to move to somewhere else, and he gets to know and learn more about its seedy business mainly from its unscrupulous manager Clement “Clem” Hoately (Willem Dafoe), who does not flinch at all from any opportunity to earn a bit more.

Meanwhile, Stan also comes to befriend a number of various colorful figures in the troupe. Zeena Krumbein (Toni Collette), who works as a clairvoyant with some assistance from her alcoholic husband Pete (David Strathairn), lets Stan participate in her main act, and the movie has some fun with how Zeena and Pete deftly fool their audiences. As a matter of fact, Pete was once a fairly excellent master of “cold reading” thanks to a complex system of codes concocted by him and his wife, and, as a lad who has always been eager to get more, Stan is quite willing to listen and learn whatever Pete will generously impart to him.

And there is also Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara), a sweet and charming young woman who has enjoyed a fair share of success via her electricity show. As she and Stan get to know each other bit by bit, they become more attracted to each other, and then Stan, who becomes more confident as learning more and more from Pete, promises her a bigger success for both of them. They come to dream more of leaving together someday, and Bruno (Ron Perlman), an aging strongman who has been a father figure for Molly for years, is not amused by that at all.

Although the adapted screenplay by del Toro and his co-writer Kim Morgan spends a bit too much time during its first half, del Toro does not miss any chance of filling the screen with heaps of baroque details to amuse or disturb us. Mainly thanks to its top-notch production design by Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau, the first half of the movie effortlessly immerses us into a shabby and seedy world inhabited by Stan and several other main characters surrounding him, and there are plenty of grotesque elements including a menagerie of gruesome oddities in glass jars – and a pitifully desperate figure who has been at the bottom of the hierarchy inside the troupe.

During its second half, the movie switches onto a different kind of darkness with more slickness in terms of mood and style. Not long after they eventually left the troupe, Stan and Molly become a fairly successful duo for his own clairvoyant act, but Stan still wants more nonetheless, and then he finds himself seduced by an opportunity presented by a slick and confident female psychiatrist named Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett). Although their first encounter is not exactly pleasant, Lilith later offers a supposedly lucrative partnership between them, and Stan grabs this chance without any hesitation despite the sincere concern from Molly and Zeena, who tactfully warns him of what may happen to him according to the fortunetelling from her tarot cards.

The climatic part mainly revolves around Stan’s attempt to deceive a certain rich and powerful man who promises him lots of money for getting what he has yearned for many years, but the movie somehow does not generate much suspense. Instead of getting accelerated with more heat and tension, it merely trudges toward its fatefully inevitable arriving point, and it also feels rather mild in case of handling the human passion and obsession inside the story, though the finale is accompanied with enough emotional gut-punch tinged with stark irony.

Anyway, the movie is still a splendid visual experience supported well by a bunch of talented performers. While Bradley Cooper, who has been steadily matured during last several years since his first Oscar-nominated turn in “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012), intensely holds the ground with another fine performance to be added to his advancing career, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who incidentally once appeared together in Todd Haynes’ great lesbian romance film “Carol” (2015), make an effective contrast to each other as the good girl and the bad lady in the story, and Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Mary Steenburgen, Clifton Collins Jr., and Tim Blake Nelson dutifully come and go while ably bringing considerable life and personality to their respective archetype supporting roles.

In conclusion, “Nightmare Alley” is one or two steps down from del Toro’s previous work “The Shape of Water” (2017), but it is still another distinctive and interesting work from del Toro, who has never let me down since his first feature film “Cronos” (1993). I am not wholly enthusiastic about the overall result, but I admire the film enough despite my reservation, and I am willing to revisit it someday just for appreciating its commendable technical aspects more.

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Kingmaker (2022) ☆☆(2/4): A strategist behind one candidate

Posted on February 4, 2022 by kaist455

South Korean film “Kingmaker” fails to enlighten or surprise or excite me as a fictional tale loosely inspired by the real-life story of a number of South Korean political figures in the 1960-70s. I guess the movie changes their names probably for more fictional freedom, but I and many other South Korean audiences can easily recognize them from their fictional counterparts in the film nonetheless, and it is really a shame that the movie simply uses their fascinating real-life political drama as the mere ground for another indistinctive local flick mostly obsessed with male bonding among men in black suit (Well, how can possibly current South Korean cinema live without them?).

At the beginning, we are introduced to Seo Chang-dae (Lee Sun-kyun), and the opening part of the film shows us how this seemingly plain but smart dude becomes the unofficial campaign strategist of a prominent politician named Kim Woon-beom (Sol Kyung-gu), who is basically the fictional version of Kim Dae-jung. Having observed Kim’s rising political career for a while, Seo comes to believe that Kim is the one who can really bring more changes into South Korea, so he writes a personal letter to Kim, but it turns out that he needs to do a bit more for drawing Kim’s attention. When he later comes to Kim’s office for himself, nobody pays any particular attention to him, but his earnest efforts come to draw Kim’s attention, and Seo soon begins to show his considerable brilliance as a campaign strategist.

Seo’s wily tactics turn out to be exactly what Kim needs right now. After his military coup in 1961, the incumbent president of South Korea, who is indubitably the fictional version of President Park Chung-hee, and his party are certainly quite willing to maintain their power as long as possible, and they are already ready to suppress Kim and his opposing party more. For preventing Kim’s another victory in the upcoming congress election, the President’s party and his government do not hesitate to use a number of dirty and nasty tactics, and Seo is fully prepared to do some counterattacks which are also questionable to say the least but effective nonetheless. During one amusing sequence, Seo and his campaigners cunningly utilize their opponent’s bribery tactic for their own benefit, and Kim does not interfere much with that and Seo’s many other shady tactics, though there comes a point where Kim also has to go a bit further for boldly defending his campaign in public.

While Kim keeps advancing with more political prominence thanks to him, Seo comes to yearn for more attention and recognition, but both Seo and Kim know too well that is not that good for them for now. As a guy who was born in North Korea before the Korean War just like his wife, Seo can be easily labeled as a communist or a North Korean sympathizer by the President and his governing party, and that can surely lead to a considerable damage to what he and Kim have accomplished during last several years.

In the meantime, things become more complicated when the next presidential election is approaching. Although nearly everyone in South Korea expects that the current leader of Kim’s party is going to compete with the incumbent president just because of his longtime status as one of the prominent elders in the party, but Kim and certain two other equally prominent congressmen (One of them is clearly based on Kim Young-sam, by the way) have some other idea. Although they are relatively younger members of their party as being just fortyish, they all are eager to come forward for becoming the candidate instead of their leader, and their youthful and energetic public images can be a major asset for all of them.

What follows next is a series of political maneuvers which keep everyone in the party on edge. Lots of congressmen, who incidentally all wear black suits and consequently often look like the extras of South Korean gangster flicks, often sway back and forth in groups, and Seo is certainly ready to play more than one side for Kim’s victory. As usual, he does not flinch at all from manipulating several different factions in the party, and he does come to deliver a success to Kim as usual, but then he and Kim come to clash more with each other when they are about to move onto the presidential election. While Seo thinks victory must be achieved by any means necessary, Kim has a very different opinion, and the situation becomes more strained after one certain serious incident.

Around that narrative point, we are supposed to care more about these two main characters’ increasingly problematic relationship, but the screenplay by director Byun Sung-hyun and his co-writer Kim Min-soo does not have much substance in terms of story and characters. While their respective character arcs are utterly flat and predictable as inherently limited by the course of the modern South Korean history, Seo and Kim are clichéd archetypes filled only with ideas and attitudes instead of real human depth and insight, and this aspect is further exacerbated by how cartoonish many of other characters in the film are. For example, one certain character simply seems to exist only for objecting to whatever Seo suggests, and I also cannot help but notice how a few female characters in the story are usually more or less than background details unless they are allowed to function as the obligatory voice of common sense a few times. After recently watching two South Korean documentaries “Sewing Sisters” (2020) and “The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin” (2019), I was reminded more of why many female narratives hidden inside the modern South Korean history should be illuminated more than before, and “Kingmaker” looks incorrigibly regressive to me in comparison.

The two lead performers do try as much as possible, but they are mostly on autopilot mode in my trivial opinion. Sol Kyung-gu, who previously collaborated with Byun in “The Merciless” (2017), has several big moments to chew, and Lee Sun-kyun, who has been known more to audiences outside South Korea thanks to Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film “Parasite” (2019), looks believable as the smartest person in the room, but the movie somehow fails to generate much chemistry between their characters while also failing to inject real human feelings into their characters’ relationship. In case of the other main cast members including Kim Young-ho and Park In-hwan, they do not have much to do except filling their respective spots as demanded, and most of them are regrettably wasted due to their mediocre caricature roles.

Although it is a fairly competent product, “Kingmaker” is dissatisfying in many aspects including story and characters, and its failure to entertain and motivate me is all the more disappointing because of how lousy, pathetic, and, above all, pernicious most of the candidates for the upcoming South Korean presidential election have been. The movie lazily looks back at the past through another banal and tiresome case of bromance without anything new to tell for our present, and I doubt whether the movie can lead to any change in the eventual outcome of the upcoming election in next month.

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Cliff Walkers (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Agents on the cliff

Posted on February 3, 2022 by kaist455

Zhang Yimou’s latest film “Cliff Walkers” is a taut and melancholic period drama thriller which is a bit better than I expected. Although it is familiar to the core in terms of story and characters, the movie is still a solid genre piece to be enjoyed and admired for a substantial amount of mood and tension on the screen, and you may come to overlook a few redundant things around the end of the story.

At the beginning, the movie gives a succinct explanation of its historical background. In the early 1930s, the Manchuria region of China was turned into the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo right after the invasion of the Japanese Army, and that naturally drove many Chinese patriots into the underground resistance against the Japanese Army and its collaborating local authorities, who were pretty harsh and ruthless in their pursuit of those Chinese resistance members as shown from the opening part of the film.

We are introduced to four Chinese Communist Party agents who have just parachuted on a remote spot somewhere in Manchuria on one cold winter day. It gradually turns out that they are risking their life for some very important mission to be accomplished in Harbin, and now they must arrive in Harbin as soon as possible without getting noticed by their opponents.

For avoiding any possible suspicion, these four agents get on a train to Harbin in two separate groups as planned in advance, but there is one big problem which they fortunately detected right from the beginning. As already shown to us during the opening part, a key member of their organization came to betray the organization after being arrested and tortured by the local police led by a guy named Gao Bin (Ni Dahong), and their worst fear turns out to be true during a tense sequence unfolded inside the train.

Although he and his men succeed in identifying one of the two groups, Gao bin decides to monitor this group for a while because he is going to catch all of the four agents. Disguised as several members of the organization, several officers under his command have this group stay in their ‘safe house’, and they carefully try to extract any possible clue to where the other group is at present – and what is exactly the four agents planning to do in Harbin.

It goes without saying that their mission is more or less than a MacGuffin to hold our interest, and the movie comes to focus more on the constantly precarious situation of its four agent characters. While it seems on the surface that they are safe for now, Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) and Wang Yu (Qin Hailu) are still watchful and careful as before, and we get several moments of subtle suspense as they and their disguised opponents indirectly pull and push each other with uttermost discretion. In case of Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), who is incidentally Wang’s husband, and Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun), who happens to be Chu’s lover, they must be more careful as evading their opponent second by second, and they become more desperate as Gao and his men seem to be getting closer and closer to catching them all.

As the cat-and-mouse game between the four agents and their opponent is continued, the movie steadily accumulates more tension and mood on the screen in addition to doling out several plot turns I will not reveal here. The screen is frequently packed with nice period details to be appreciated (I was particularly amused by some cosmopolitan elements of Harbin during the 1930s, for example), and Zhang and his cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding, who previous collaborated with Zhang in “Coming Home” (2014) and “Shadow” (2018), did a commendable job of establishing a moody sense of melancholy and desperation in the snowy winter background of the film. Not so surprisingly, the overall result often takes us back to that indelible grey ambiance of Jean-Pierre Melville’s great film “Army of Shadows” (1969), and we get more emotionally absorbed in the despairingly uncertain circumstance surrounding the main characters of the film, though we also naturally observe their story from the distance due to knowing too well what would eventually happen in 1945.

Although it comes to focus more on action than suspense during its last act, the movie still holds our attention as before. Several action scenes in the film are well-executed on the whole with enough gritty qualities, and we are more aware of what is being at stake for everyone in the story. The movie becomes a bit too sentimental around the end of the story in my humble opinion, but it does earn this rather unnecessary moment at least, and then it slaps us hard via the following moment of hard-boiled violence.

The main cast members of the movie are believable in their respective archetype roles. As Zhang Yi, Qin Hailu, Zhu Yawen, and Liu Haocun dutifully hold the center together as required, Ni Dahong and several other substantial performers surrounding him are also effective on the opposing side, and Ni is particularly good when his character comes to suspect a certain figure under his command later in the story.

In conclusion, “Cliff Walkers”, which was incidentally the Chinese submission to Best International Film Oscar in last year, is not exactly on par with Zhang’s better works such as “Raise the Red Lantern” (1991), but it is entertaining enough for recommendation at least. Although he may have passed his prime period, the movie demonstrates that Zhang is still a skillful filmmaking master despite some recent disappointments (Remember “The Great Wall” (2016)?), and that is enough for me for now.

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The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin (2019) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A haunting invocation between documentary and fiction

Posted on February 2, 2022 by kaist455

It is not so easy to categorize South Korean documentary film “The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin”, which was finally released in South Korean theaters in last week despite having its local premiere in 2019. At first, it simply seems to be a plain conventional documentary on the surface, but then it freely goes back and forth between documentary and fiction especially during its second half, and its haunting poetic moments will linger on your mind for a while in addition to making you more interested and enlightened on its rather obscure social/historical issues.

In the beginning, we are introduced to an old lady named Park In-soon, who has a long and tragic life story hidden behind her shabby mundane daily life in Uijeongbu, one of those satellite cities surrounding Seoul. She did not remember much where she exactly was born and grew up before abandoned by her biological father in Seoul around the early 1960s, and what subsequently happened to her during next several decades has been rather vague memories to her at present, but these memories also quite painful ones to her for understandable reasons. Not long after being abandoned by her biological father, she was taken by a woman who turned out to be working as a pimp near the US military base in Uijeongbu, and In-soon soon found herself thrown into the harsh world of prostitution and exploitation just like thousands of unfortunate young women who had fallen into the same gloomy fate around that time.

Most of these ill-fated women were dead and then have been forgotten for many years, but In-soon has managed to survive and persist nonetheless. Her real identity was completely erased as she was forced to be someone else, and she even went to US after marrying an American soldier who later turned out to be quite abusive. It actually took several years before she eventually returned to Uijeongbu, but she kept working as a sex worker until she was too old for that later, and we come to gather that she witnessed lots of terrible things including how her fellow sex workers’ bodies were casually buried at a nearby gravesite after their tragic deaths.

Nevertheless, In-soon is not ashamed of her past at all while keeping going as before, and the documentary phlegmatically observes how she goes through one day after another. After waking up at her small and modest residence in the morning, she goes outside for collecting junks to be sold for her living, and she is determined to stay in her old slum neighborhood as long as she lives, even though many parts of the neighborhood are soon going to be redeveloped and then gentrified.

After giving us a slice of In-soon’s daily life, the documentary slowly slips into the areas of fiction as changing its viewpoint. We are introduced to a young female college student preparing for some art exhibition of hers which is associated with the hidden social history of In-soon’s neighborhood, and we subsequently see her approaching to In-soon and her neighborhood via a movie school professor and a documentary filmmaker who has been trying to make a documentary about In-soon and her neighborhood. When the young student interviews In-soon on her life story, In-soon tries to remember as much as she can, but In-soon’s past still feels vague and distant with the considerable inconsistency in her storytelling, and we come to sense more of how much In-soon’s life narrative has been blurred and tarnished as having been disregarded and forgotten for years.

The documentary goes further into its realm of fiction as the young student walks around here and there for capturing the local ambience of In-soon’s neighborhood. We often see abandoned bars and nightclubs which were once populated with American soldiers and local sex workers, and the mood becomes a bit spooky as the young student later goes inside one of these abandoned places, which is still full of bits of old seedy memories from the past.

Around that narrative point, a certain mysterious female figure appears on the screen without being noticed by the young student, and that is where the mood of the documentary becomes considerably surreal. This figure gradually turns out to be a ghost who can be regarded as the sad emblem of those numerous local sex workers in the past, and her presence hovering around the neighborhood happens to draw the attention of a trio of death messengers in black, who are initially ready to eliminate the ghost away from the world of the living but then come across one big problem. This ghost does not have its own life narrative from the beginning as embodying so many unknown tragic life stories hidden inside the neighborhood, and that accordingly leads to a long conversation among these three death messengers in black at one of those abandoned places.

As they try to concoct a whole and complete narrative from a number of hearsays in the neighborhood, In-soon comes forward to the center of the documentary as defying against their condescending attempt, and we are served with a series of symbolic moments which show her empowered by being in the full charge of her life narrative. I will not go into details here, but I assure you that you will come to respect her more as a human figure with her own story to tell, and directors/producers Kim Dong-ryung and Park Kyong-tae, who also handled the editing and cinematography of their documentary, did an admirable job for that while never resorting to cheap pity or sentimentality.

Overall, “The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin” will require some patience from you due to its unorthodox narrative approach, but its initially baffling but undeniably powerful mix of fiction and documentary is certainly something to behold for giving us what great German filmmaker Werner Herzog once called as “ecstatic truth”. In short, this is another impressive South Korean documentary of this year after “Sewing Sisters” (2020), and I sincerely urge you to check it out as soon as possible.

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Belle (2021) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): The Dragon and the Freckled Princess

Posted on February 1, 2022 by kaist455

Isn’t it pretty and beautiful to watch? That is what I grudgingly said to myself more than once with growing dissatisfaction while I watched Japanese animation filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda’s latest work “Belle”. On the surface, there is nothing particularly bad in terms of mood, style, detail, and music, but the story, which is incidentally based on Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s famous French fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast”, is often hampered by weak narrative and flat characterization, and my mind only came to observe it from the distance even though my eyes were frequently dazzled by those numerous lovely visual moments in the film.

If you have already watched Hosoda’s previous work “Summer Wars” (2009), the story stetting of “Belle” will feel pretty familiar to you to the core. Again, the film often goes back and forth between the real world and the realm of online virtual reality, and the colorfully detailed presentation of its digital world certainly grabs our attention right from the beginning. In this brave new world, which is simply called “U”, one can be considerably empowered by an anonymous avatar custom-made from his/her/their original appearance and personality, and we observe how millions of users around the world freely enjoy or express themselves in this heavenly world, which, in my humble opinion, looks too naïve and idealistic compared to what is frequently happening here and there in our messy real-life digital world everyday.

The heroine of the story is a female high schooler named Suzu Naito (voiced by Kaho Nakamura), and the early part of the story observes how she becomes “Belle” in the world of U. Besides being your average introverted adolescent girl, Suzu has been haunted by the tragic death of her dear mother during her childhood year, and she is not exactly on good terms with her caring father, but she is often urged to express herself more – especially when she discovers her romantic feeling toward a certain male student in her school.

When she later comes across the world of U, Suzu naturally hesitates at first, but she eventually decides to give it a try. Although singing in front of others is the last thing she wants to do right now, she finds herself becoming a lot more uninhibited once she enters the world of U as Belle, and then she just sings one of the songs written by her in private. Her first performance in the world of U initially does not draw much attention from other users, but, what do you know, that soon becomes a huge online sensation around the world because, well, she sincerely sang straight from her heart.

As watching her digital avatar’s popularity exponentially growing day by day, Suzu is excited a bit, but she is also scared about the possibility of getting herself exposed to those countless users out there in the world of U. Fortunately, nobody around her except her best friend, who happens to be your typical computer nerd, does not know anything about the connection between her and Belle, and it seems that all she will have to do is singing more of her songs for millions of her fans at least for a while.

However, there comes an unexpected matter when Suzu/Belle is readying herself for another digital performance. Right before she sings, the big fight between a bunch of online guards and a mysterious dragon figure occurs, and Suzu/Belle becomes more curious after coming to learn more about this mysterious dragon figure, who is completely anonymous without any particular clue to the real identity behind its aggressive appearance.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that our heroine eventually finds herself in a big and ominous castle where “the Beast” is usually hiding, and we surely get several notable elements which will instantly remind you of the highlights of Disney animation “Beauty and the Beast” (1991). The castle is taken care of by a number of small and cute artificial intelligence figures which can be compared to those living furniture characters in the Disney animation, and we are even served with a supposedly romantic ballroom scene later in the story.

However, Hosoda’s screenplay falters more than once as trying to juggle many other story elements besides the intrigue surrounding the strained online relationship between Suzu/Belle and the Beast. While there is a subplot involved with the aforementioned male student and one of the most popular girls in the school, there is also a small part associated with several older women willing to share their singing experience with Suzu, and then the movie suddenly takes a jarringly dark left turn once Suzu and several other main characters around her come to confront the dark truth behind the real identity of the Beast.

For holding all these and other things in the story well together, the movie certainly needs a strong emotional anchor, but, alas, it seriously lacks that as often feeling too thin and incoherent in terms of story and characters, and I must point out that many of its main characters including Suzu are not that strong enough to hold our attention during its 2-hour running time. In addition, the movie often blatantly pushes us into sappy histrionic and tearful melodrama especially during its last act, and that only made me more distracted during my viewing.

In conclusion, “Belle”, whose Japanese original title is incidentally “The Dragon and the Freckled Princess”, is another disappointment from Mamoru after “Mirai” (2018), which somehow got Oscar-nominated despite being two or three steps down from “Summer Wars” and Hosoda’s other better works. Yes, it is indeed a visual pleasure in technical aspects, but it still left me rather cold and distant nonetheless, so I will let you decide for yourself whether you will watch it or not. If you simply just want an eye candy, you will not be disappointed, but please do not expect much.

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Sewing Sisters (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): When they were young and defiant laborers

Posted on January 30, 2022 by kaist455

South Korean documentary “Sewing Sisters” illuminates real-life stories which deserve to be told more and more as the hidden parts of the South Korean labor union history. As simply listening to the seemingly ordinary heroines of these real-life tales, the documentary gradually takes us to their hard and difficult past, and we come to sense more of how much they struggled for their labor rights during that gloomy time.

At first, the documentary introduces to us three plain middle-aged ladies. As these ladies walk together in some place, they talk with each other a bit, and then they come across three sewing machines waiting for them. They soon work on these three sewing machines respectively, and that surely makes them more open about their shared past in the 1970s.

They and several other middle-aged women gladly tell us about how things were not so good for them when they started to work in Pyeonghwa Market of Seoul during the early 1970s, which was one of the main centers of South Korean clothing industry during that period. Although many of them and other female workers were quite young, they had no choice from the beginning as they had to earn the living for themselves and their families, and their labor condition in Pyeonghwa Market during that time was pretty bad to say the least. For example, they were usually pushed to work more than 12 hours per day, and they were not even paid properly for their frequent overtime work.

However, there came an incident which made them and many other laborers open their eyes to their labor rights and welfare. On November 13th, 1970, a young male laborer/labor right activist named Chun Tae-il died not long after committing an act of self-immolation in public, and this horrible happening consequently led to a public uproar over the poor work environment of millions of laborers in South Korea.

As the South Korean government eventually promised to pay more attention to labor rights and work environment than before, many young female laborers of Pyeonghwa Market subsequently came to have considerable enlightenment, especially when the space for labor classes for them was set on the top of Pyeonghwa Market building. Whenever their working hour was over, they could go their labor classes, and many of the interviewees in the documentary still remember well many valuable things they learned during that time. Besides getting more knowledge on the Labor Standards Act, they also learned other useful things including how to make a bank account, and they certainly felt empowered by what they learned for the first time.

However, that good time did not last that long, because they and many other laborers who subsequently formed the Cheonggye Clothes Union along with them were regarded as pesky obstacles by the power that be. When they heard that the place for their labor classes would be soon removed, they were certainly ready to defend their precious place by any means necessary, but they also had to be very careful for not getting their union leaders involved into their trouble. After all, those people with power and money were eager to label the union leaders as communists or North Korean spies, and the South Korean police had no problem with squeezing a false confession from anyone who happened to be marked.

On September 9th, 1977, a bunch of laborers of Pyeonghwa Market, many of whom were incidentally young female workers, began the demonstration at the place for their labor classes, and several interviewees still remember well how urgent and desperate the situation was on that unforgettable day. Once they began their demonstration and then expressed their several demands, their spot was soon surrounded by a bunch of policemen ready to strike them down at any point, but they were not daunted much mainly because of their youthful defiance. Yes, it was apparent to everyone that there was not much chance of winning from the very beginning, but they were ready to fight to the end, and they did fight hard against their opponents although there eventually came a point where they had no choice but to surrender themselves to the police.

However, the situation was not over for them at all even at that point, and what followed next was pretty grueling for them to say the least. Besides brutally suppressed by those policemen at the spot, they were frequently harassed and mistreated by the detectives in charge of questioning them, and some of the interviewees in the documentary still vividly remember that horrible time. For example, they were incarcerated for more than 10 days in a police station while not allowed to have a meeting with their family members, and they were not even allowed to change their clothes or underwears.

Nonetheless, they tried to maintain some dignity even when they were unjustly sentenced to a few years of imprisonment, and one interviewee remembers well when she had unexpected moments of empathy and understanding toward the cops and the judge handling her case. When she made a brief but clear argument on her innocence in front of the judge, she instantly sensed how reluctant the judge was to punish her and her female laborers, and she still has no bad feeling at all toward the judge or those cops who, like the judge, simply did whatever they were ordered to do despite their growing reluctance.

As the documentary continues to listen to her and other female interviewees, their stories become more vivid in our mind, and we also observe how these ladies are still full of life even after more than 40 years. They are still proud of how much they fought for their rights, and the documentary later gives us a haunting scene where some of them walk and look around where they once worked. As remembering again who they were once, they show sincere gratitude to their younger selves, and then there comes an emotionally elevating moment you will have to see for yourself.

In conclusion, “Sewing Sisters”, directed by Kim Jung-young and Lee Hyuk-rae, is a modest but powerful documentary about the unsung efforts of South Korean female laborers in the 1970s, and it will surely make a good double feature show with “Factory Complex” (2014), another excellent South Korean documentary about the hidden female narratives of the South Korean labor union history. In short, it is one of the better South Korean documentaries I have watched during last several years, and I assure you that you will have many moments of enlightenment besides being moved by those remarkable women in the documentary.

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