Balloon (2018) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A passable film based on one extraordinary real-life story

Posted on August 16, 2020 by kaist455

I was quite interested in watching German film “Balloon” for a personal reason. It is based on an unbelievable real-life story which was also the basis of 1982 Disney film “Night Crossing” (1982), and that movie was incidentally one of numerous films I watched via TV during my childhood years. Although I must say that it is not a very good movie to say the least, I still remember well being thrilled by its several highlight moments, and I also came to love its dramatic score by Jerry Goldsmith, which is included in my vast collection of movie score albums.

From “Balloon”, I expected some improvement over “Night Crossing”, but it turns out to be another passable work on the whole. While it is a competent piece of work in technical aspects, the movie is unfortunately hampered by its pedestrian handling of story and characters just like its predecessor, and I must confess that I felt like merely watching a slightly modified revival during my viewing.

As many of you already know, the movie is about two East German families who successfully escaped their oppressive communist nation via their homemade hot-air balloon in 1979, and the first act of the movie focuses on the first escape attempt which was the mixed result of good and bad luck. Not long after attending a local community event, Peter Strelzyk (Friedrich Mücke) comes to see that the weather becomes quite ideal for the escape plan which he and his close friend Günter Wetzel (David Kross) have prepared for a long time along with their wives and Strelzyk’s adolescent older son. He immediately contacts Wetzel, but Wetzel backs from the plan in the last minute because he has been very uncertain about the plan for understandable reasons, so Strelzyk decides to escape only with his wife and two sons.

During the following night, Strelzyk and his family manage to leave their house with the balloon and other necessary things, while not drawing any suspicion from their neighbors including a secret police official who happens to live right across from their house. Once they arrive at a remote spot in the forest outside their town, Strelzyk and his older son quickly prepare for the take-off of their balloon, and everything seems to be going well as the balloon eventually leaves the ground, but, alas, the balloon goes down not long after that.

When they find that they fail to cross the border between East and West Germany, Strelzyk and his family certainly get scared, but they manage to return to where they left during the early morning without getting caught by the police or the border patrol. Once they are back in their house, they act very carefully for avoiding suspicion from others, but they are well aware of that the secret police will soon search for them, and Strelzyk comes to decide that they should try something else in East Berlin.

During its middle act which revolves around the Strelzyks’ rather clumsy attempt to escape in East Berlin, the movie loses some of its narrative momentum, and there are several contrived moments which do not work as well as intended, but it generates some suspension via a secret police officer named Seidel (Thomas Kretschmann), who slowly embarks on his investigation after the crashed balloon is discovered. Unfortunately, the Strelzyk left behind a few objects which can be traced back to them, and Seidel and his men have a considerable amount of resource for their investigation.

Meanwhile, Strelzyk and his family come to realize that they have no choice but to escape via making the second balloon, and he also persuades Günter and his family to rejoin the plan. This time, they need a bigger balloon, and they certainly have to be more careful in buying materials for building their balloon. Furthermore, they must build the balloon as soon as possible, because the secret police suddenly appear in front of their houses at any moment.

However, the screenplay by director/co-producer/co-writer Michael Bully Herbig and his two co-writers Kit Hopkins and Thilo Röscheisen fails to accumulate dramatic tension during its last act mainly due to its thin storytelling and characterization. For example, a subplot involved with the relationship between Strelzyk’s son and a certain neighborhood girl is rather artificial, and the last-minute chase sequence is quite predictable without much tension on the screen. Although the main cast members of the film are well-cast, they are mostly limited by their bland characters, and Thomas Kretschmann is particularly wasted as being stuck with a thankless job of constantly looking grim and sour throughout the movie.

At least, the technical qualities of the film shine especially during the expected climactic part. Cinematographer Torsten Breuer did a commendable job of bringing considerable verisimilitude to the flying scenes in the film, and the music by Marvin Miller and Ralf Wengenmayr swells along with that, though I still miss those more rousing moments in Goldsmith’s score for “Night Crossing”.

“Balloon” is not a total bore at all, but it is still a disappointment in my humble opinion, and many archival photographs shown during its end credits only remind us of how the real-life story of the Strelzyks and the Wetzels is still much more interesting than the movie itself. It does float, but it does not soar as much as I hoped, and I can only wish the third time to be a charm.

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Beanpole (2019) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Two women after the war

Posted on August 16, 2020 by kaist455

Russian film “Beanpole”, which was selected as Russia’s submission to Best International Film Oscar in last year, is a bleak and harrowing film about two women who are irrevocably damaged by their wartime experiences. While it is often quite difficult to watch their gloomy drama for many good reasons, the movie firmly grabs our attention with its achingly human moments nonetheless, and it powerfully shakes us in addition to providing a compelling female perspective to its familiar main subject.

The movie, which is set in Leningrad during late 1945, opens with the introduction of Iya Sergueeva (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), a young nurse who is sometimes called ‘Beanpole’ due to her very tall physical appearance. During the World War II, she served in an anti-aircraft gun crew but then got discharged due to a serious head injury, and the opening scene shows her suddenly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as her mind becomes numb and her body gets stiffened.

Anyway, the war is over now, and, just like everyone else in the city, Iya has tried to get back to a normal state of life while diligently working in a local hospital. Besides herself, she also has to support a young little boy who is supposedly her son, and we observe how she gets some help from others around her including a kind middle-aged doctor at her workplace.

And then something quite horrible happens. I do not dare to describe it in details, but I can tell you instead that Iya subsequently finds herself in a very difficult circumstance when her old friend/comrade Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina) returns on one day. As a matter fact, Masha is the biological mother of that little boy, and she has aspired to form a family along with him and Iya since the war was officially over.

Once she comes to discern what happened during her absence, Masha becomes quite determined to get what she needs right now, and that is where the movie becomes more uncomfortable and disturbing to watch. As a woman who managed to survive on the front line, Masha is ready to do anything for her ultimate goal, and Iya has no choice but to assist her friend mainly because of not only her guilt but also her longtime affection toward Masha.

As these two women gradually embark on their plan, the movie immerses us more into the stark urban environment surrounding them. While the citizens in the city seem hopeful about the restoration period after the war, things still do not look that good to many people, and food, electricity and other important daily commodities remain to be as precious as they were during the war. When Masha happens to get involved with a lad who is the son of some high-ranking local official, she does not hesitate to get closer to him just for getting some extra food from him, and Iya is not so pleased when Masha later becomes more serious about her relationship with this lad.

Dryly and steadily maintaining its gloomy ambiance around its two main characters, the movie also focuses on the despairing condition of one of many injured soldiers at the local hospital. Due to his severe spinal injury, this soldier is totally paralyzed below his head, and he makes a certain desperate request to the aforementioned doctor shortly after his wife comes to visit him. The doctor initially refuses, but he clearly understands his patient’s despairing status, and his eventual decision leads to a tender but sad moment between the soldier and his wife.

Meanwhile, Iya and Masha’s circumstance becomes more complicated than before. As pushed more by her friend, Iya goes through a very awkward and difficult moment along with her friend and a certain other person, but, alas, she does not get the result wanted by her friend, and she naturally becomes more desperate than before. Later in the story, Masha attempts to step forward to normal life, but then she is slapped with harsh reality, especially when she and her boyfriend meet his parents, who certainly do not welcome her at all because of whatever she did in the name of survival during the war.

Although it shows a little glimpse of hope and healing around the ending, the movie still sticks to its palpable sense of desolation and desperation even at that point. Using Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s acclaimed nonfiction book “War Does Not Have a Woman’s Face” as the main inspiration source for his screenplay, director/writer Kantemir Balagov, who deservedly won the Un Certain Regard Best Director Award and the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film in the Un Certain Regard section when the movie was shown at the Cannes Film Festival early in last year, presents a vivid and uncompromising presentation of barren human conditions caused by wartime, and the overall result is often starkly beautiful as firmly supported by the strong performances from Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina, who show total commitment throughout the film while never asking us for pity or sympathy on their respective characters.

In conclusion, “Beanpole” is indeed a tough stuff, but it is still worthwhile to watch for its superlative mood, storytelling, and performance, and its several powerful human moments will linger on you for a long time when it is over. In short, this is another memorable movie of this year, and I think you should check it out as soon as possible.

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In Fabric (2018) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A spooky cursed dress

Posted on August 16, 2020 by kaist455

Peter Strickland’s new film “In Fabric” is as odd and compelling as you can expect from the filmmaker who gave us “Berberian Studio Sound” (2012) and “The Duke of Burgundy” (2014). Like these two films, the movie is full of strange and sinister moments wrapped with a deliberate trashy style reminiscent of those cheap European exploitation films during the 1970s, and I found it pretty fascinating even though I have no idea on what and how these weird moments are exactly about.

Set in a period somewhere around the 1970-80s, the movie is divided into two separate stories interconnected with each other to some degree, and the first story mainly revolves around a middle-aged bank teller named Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). While she has struggled with some problem at workplace as well as her awkward relationship with her adolescent son after her recent divorce, an odd but strangely hypnotic TV commercial about a new department store happens to draw her attention, and she soon finds herself visiting that department store in question.

When Sheila looks around the boutique section of the department store, she is approached by its manager Miss Luckmoore (Fatma Mohamed, who previously appeared in “Berberian Studio Sound” and “The Duke of Burgundy”). While looking quite suspicious from the beginning with her odd mix of courteous manner and shady theatrical aura, Miss Luckmoore persuades Sheila to become her new customer, and Shiela comes to purchase a certain bright red dress, which she is going to wear for her latest blind date.

Of course, it does not take much time for Sheila to sense that there is something strange about the dress. For example, she finds it in her son’s room on one day, and she initially thinks that her son’s girlfriend tried to wear it, but her son denies that. When she subsequently puts the dress in her washing machine along with other clothes, that leads to quite a disturbing incident, and that makes her more nervous about it.

The movie does not hide from us at all that the dress is a very sinister entity. Sheila’s increasingly unnerving situation is often intercut with a series of bizarre rituals executed by Miss Luckmore and her associates including a certain creepy old man, and there is a truly bizarre moment involved with a mannequin which has the graphic imitation of a certain female body part. I was quite baffled by this and other strikingly weird moments to follow, but I was constantly intrigued and amused as appreciating their nightmarish qualities not so far from what I observed from David Lynch’s films.

And these odd and baffling moments are contrasted with the slightly offbeat moments in Sheila’s daily life. There is an amusingly uncomfortable moment between her and her two supervisors who are a little too fastidious about how she works, and then there is also a rather tense confrontation between her and her son’s girlfriend, who, as a girl taller than Sheila and her son, seems to intimidate Sheila as looking down at her. Gwendoline Christie, who is mainly known for her supporting role in HBO TV series “Game of Thrones”, certainly has a brief but juicy fun with her supporting character, and Strickland deliberately accentuates her height for emphasizing how much Sheila feels threatened by her son’s girlfriend.

As the situation becomes more ominous than before, Sheila tries to get away from the dress, but, not so surprisingly, we come to sense what will inevitably happen. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who drew our attention for the first time with her Oscar-nominated turn in Mike Leigh’s “Secrets and Lies” (1996), is convincing as a woman who becomes slowly unnerved more by her unfortunate purchase, and she is particularly terrific when her character reveals something more about herself during the next interview with her two supervisors.

In case of the second story of the movie, it introduces to us to Babs (Halely Squires) and Reg (Leo Bill), a young couple who is soon going to marry. When Reg happens to receive that red dress from one of his friends who acquired it from a second-hand shop, he gives it to Babs, and their daily life soon comes under a bad influence thanks to the dress, which, again, exerts its evil power over its latest target.

While some elements from the first story including Miss Luckmore appear again in the second story, the movie adds more amusement via Reg’s certain exceptional ability. As a repair service man for some washing machine company, he simply tells about washing machines at times, but his phlegmatic explanation somehow sounds, well, sexually stimulating to people listening to it, and we are all the more amused as observing how oblivious he is to his effects on others. Leo Bill keeps his acting straight as required during these moments, and Halely Squires, who was wonderful in Ken Loach’s “I, Daniel Blake” (2016), ably complements her co-star with a more extroverted attitude.

When the second story eventually arrives at its expected finale, the movie goes all the way for more weirdness, and Strickland and his crew members including cinematographer Ari Wegner did a commendable job of holding our attention even during this part. Yes, I am still not sure about how to interpret what I observed from the finale, but it somehow makes sense with the surreal overall mood of the movie at least.

In conclusion, “In Fabric” is another interesting work from Strickland, and I enjoyed it as much as his previous two films, but you have to keep in mind that this is an arthouse horror film which depends more on mood and style instead of shock and awe. If you liked “Berberian Studio Sound” and “The Duke of Burgundy” like I did, you will surely not be disappointed, and you may also think twice about buying new clothes.

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Yankinku Dragon (2018) ☆☆☆(3/4): Nowhere but here in Japan

Posted on August 15, 2020 by kaist455

Japanese film “Yankinku Drangon” is a corny but heartfelt drama mainly revolving around one colorful Korean Japanese family. While you can instantly discern that it tries to pull our heartstrings as hard as it can, the movie has a big heart in the right place at least, and we accordingly get several genuinely poignant moments which are more than enough to compensate for a number of contrived elements in the story.

Through the narration of a young mute boy named Tokio (Shinpei Ooe), we are introduced to his Korean Japanese family and several figures hovering around them in their slum neighborhood not so far from a big airport. It is 1969, and Japan has been going through lots of changes thanks to its rapid social/economic advancement, but Tokio’s neighborhood has not received much benefit from that, and Tokio’s father Yong-gil (Kim Sang-ho) and Yong-soon (Lee Jung-Eun) do not care much about that while running their little cow intestine barbecue restaurant as usual, which has been in business for more than 20 years.

To Yong-gil and Yong-soon, nothing is important than giving a chance of better life to their children, and that is why they sent their son to a rather expensive private school, but Tokio does not like to go to his school at all because he has been frequently bullied by other students for his ethnic background. As a matter of fact, he prefers to stay around his house, and his father tolerates that to some degree, though he still does not let his son skip his school days too often.

In case of Yong-gil and Yoon-soon’s three daughters, they are respectively beginning to step into adulthood with varying degrees of confidence. While Shizuka (Yoko Maki) chooses to focus on helping her parents due to her permanently injured leg, Rika (Mao Inuoe) recently gets married to a hot-tempered lad named Tetsuo (Yo Oizumi), and Mi-hwa (Nanami Sakuraba) has been in a serious relationship with a good-looking guy who, as told to us in advance, is actually married to someone in Mi-hwa’s current workplace.

Meanwhile, we also get to know several other characters who often frequent Yong-gil and Yoon-soon’s restaurant. Besides a South Korean dude who recently came in Japan as a worker, there are a trio of local bums who function as a constant source of humor while drinking a lot and paying not much, and there is also a young relative of Yong-gil, who later enters the picture as Rika suffers from her increasingly deteriorating relationship with Tetsuo.

It subsequently turns out that Testuo was once quite close to Shizuka. Both of them still seem to have some feeling toward each other despite that incident which caused her leg injury, but then, what do you know, Shizuka gets herself romantically involved with the aforementioned South Korean worker, who eventually becomes her fiancé later in the story.

Now this is surely your average soap opera story, but the screenplay by director/writer Wishing Chong, which is adapted from his 2008 hit stage play, thankfully does not let the story get too sappy, though it sometimes becomes too theatrical for my taste. As busily juggling its many different characters, the movie often swings its tone between comedy and melodrama a little too abruptly, and we become more aware of its numerous artificial aspects including its apparently stagy main background.

Nevertheless, the movie keeps rolling mainly thanks to the vivid personalities of its main characters, who may be quite broad but are lovingly depicted with warmth and humanity. While they are certainly your average mismatched couple, Yong-gil and Yong-soon deeply love and care about each other as two different people who have closely lived together for many years, and we can sense their strong relationship even when they conflict with each other. They surely want their children to have a better life someday, so they often fight with their children over a number of matters, but they and their children never forget that they are still a family despite that.

Of course, their hard moments are further accentuated by their ethnical background. As “Zainichis”, they are not welcomed much in Japan as well as Korea, and there is a powerful moment when Yong-gil phlegmatically reminisces about how he kept working hard and hard for his family even while his chance to return to Korea got decreased year by year. Once he settled in his neighborhood, he promised to himself that he would never leave his neighborhood no matter what would happen, but there eventually comes a change beyond his control and determination, and he has no choice but to accept that.

Although the movie comes to lose its narrative pacing around its last act, it is still supported well by the solid ensemble performance from its main cast members. While Yoko Maki, Mao Inoue, and Nanami Sakuraba are engaging as three different sisters, Yo Oizumi, Ryohei Otani, Han Dong-Kyu, and Shinpei Ooe are also well-cast in their respective roles, and Kim Sang-ho and Lee Jung-Eun, who are two of the most dependable character performers in South Korea, fluidly move back and forth between Korean and Japanese dialogues as never making any misstep in their believable performance.

Overall, “Yankinku Dragon” feels overwrought from time to time while not entirely free from its stagy origin, but it mostly works thanks to its sincere storytelling and the commendable efforts from its main cast members. I still think it stays a little too long with its characters, but I came to like and care about them more than expected anyway, and I will not deny that I already missed them as watching them respectively moving onto whatever will come next.

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Tiny Light (2018) ☆☆☆(3/4): Memories of his family

Posted on August 15, 2020 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “Tiny Light” is simple and earnest in its tentative approach to story and characters. While it slowly reveals the growing concern of its ordinary hero on a certain serious matter of his, the movie thankfully does not resort to blatant melodrama while phlegmatically sticking to its austere attitude, and we are quietly touched as observing what he tries to capture from several people around him.

The movie begins with its hero’s unexpected visit to his mother’s shabby residence. When Jin-moo (Kwak Jin-moo) enters his mother’s house, his mother warmly greets him while naturally asking him about how he has been, and then there also come his older sister and his young nephew later. As they all are having a dinner together in the house, the mood is brightened a bit, but it is pretty evident to us that they are not particularly close to each other although there is no anger or resentment among them.

The private moments among them are occasionally presented to us via the video clips being shot by Jin-moo, who incidentally brings a video camera for a personal purpose. It turns out later that he is soon going to have a serious brain surgery, and, because he is warned that he may suffer memory loss after the surgery, he wants to record his life and family as much as possible with his video camera.

Although things Jin-moo observes and records are not that significant on the surface, the movie slowly lets us immersed into his environment through its realistic mood and details. For instance, we notice those moldy wallpapers in his mother’s house, and that certainly tells us a lot about how much she has spent most of her life there.

And then we see Jin-moo meeting several other family members of his. After quitting his job, he has a dinner with his older brother, but they only come to find that there is not much to talk about between them, and this moment reminds me of my rather distant relationship with my younger brother. Besides our personality difference, I and my younger brother do not have much in common between us, and our conversations are usually pretty awkward just like the one between Jin-moo and his older brother. Quite drunk in the end, Jin-moo and his older brother eventually come to have some moment of brotherhood during a small humorous moment involved with an abandoned piece of furniture, and that moment is followed by another funny moment when Jin-moo asks his older brother to dance a bit in front of his video camera.

In case of his older sister, who has raised her young son since she divorced some years ago, her private conversation with Jin-moo during his visit to her residence reveals a bit about her plain life. While she once aspired to be a writer a long time ago, she is now usually occupied with supporting herself and her dear son, and she has been mostly content with how her life has been despite some disappointments.

Along with his uncle, Jin-moo later goes to a remote spot in the forest where his dead father was buried. Although he does not remember his father much, Jin-moo is eager to get more memories of his father from his family members, but they do not have many things to tell him, though his mother turns out to have some conflicted feelings toward her dead husband.

Meanwhile, the date of Jin-moo’s is approaching, but the movie wisely avoids emphasizing that too much to us except one moment implying how much Jin-moo’s mother has been worrying about her son’s medical condition. Although Jin-moo does not hide his upcoming surgery from his family at all, it is still an inconvenient fact among his family members, and we come to feel more awkwardness as reflecting more on the conversation scenes between him and his family members.

Nevertheless, the screenplay by director Cho Min-jae and his co-writer/lead actor Kwak Jin-moo, which is inspired by Cho’s real-life experiences, does not lose its small sense of humor while maintaining its low-key tone as usual. I like an unexpected moment of poignancy involved with a broken fluorescent light in the residence of Jin-moo’s mother, and then I was amused a bit by a trouble which Jin-moo and his family happen to face when they are going to bury the body of Jin-moo’s dead father somewhere else.

Cho also draws the good natural performances from Kawk and the other few main cast members. While Kwak humbly takes the center as required, Shin Mun-sung, Byun Joong-hee, Kim Hyun, Yoon Sung-won and Kawk Seong-moo also have each own moment to shine, and Byun is particularly good when her character shows a little more of herself in front of Jin-moo’s camera later in the story.

Overall, “Tiny Light” looks rather modest and insignificant on the surface, and I must confess that I occasionally became impatient during my viewing due to its slow and dry storytelling approach, but its seemingly plain moments grow on me as I write about what I observed and felt from the movie. Although I am not as enthusiastic about it as other local critics, but the movie is certainly one of the notable debut works of this year in South Korea, and I am now interested in what Cho will give us next.

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The Journalist (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): A journalist against the power that be

Posted on August 15, 2020 by kaist455

Japanese film “The Journalist” steadily and diligently follows the lonely struggle of one determined female journalist and a government official who may help her more than he is willing to do. Although it is mostly fictional, the movie is still often alarming as showing how far a government and its people can go for securing their power and influence more, and its urgent social messages are certainly more relevant considering what has been going on in our world.

Everything begins with a highly sensitive document sent to a major newspaper company in Tokyo by somebody in the Japanese government. According to this document, there is something quite fishy about the government permission on a new medical university, and Erika Yoshioka (Shim Eun-kyung) promptly embarks on investigating the case while almost everyone else around her is skeptical about the contents of the document.

As Yoshioka continues her investigation, she becomes more convinced that the government is really hiding something, but the colleagues in her newspaper are already quite concerned about what may happen if she takes a wrong step at any point. As the daughter of a famous journalist who committed suicide after a disgracing incident, Yoshioka is certainly well aware of the risks she is facing now, but she is still driven by her determination on exposing the truth in public, and she keeps going as before despite the increasing pressure from the government.

Of course, a certain section of the government is already watching her, and we see many government officials working busily on gathering or spreading information in a big office where the sun never seems to shine in its oppressively dim environment. While some focus on gathering any information to be used against the public figures targeted by the government, the others are in the charge of spreading fake news and information via Twitter and other social media tools, and we cannot help but chilled by how easily they can tarnish their targets. One of these targets is a female freelance reporter who recently accused a prominent journalist of sexually assaulting her, and, just because that figure in question has supported and benefited the government a lot, her reputation swiftly gets smeared after she openly criticizes the unfair court decision on her case.

One of the government officials working in this section is a young man named Takumi Sugihara (Tori Matsuzaka). At first, he does not have much problem with doing whatever is ordered from his direct boss, but then he comes to have doubt on whether where he and others around him really serve the public, and this doubt of his is more increased after having a dinner with his former boss, who clearly has something to tell him but decides not to say much to him in the end.

Around the time when Takumi belatedly comes to realize what his government section has done to his former boss, his former boss unfortunately kills himself, and Takumi comes to have more doubt and guilt than before as being ordered to spared the fake information about his former boss’ suicide. He surely wants to quit especially after seeing the immense grief and sadness of his former boss’ wife and daughter, but he has a pregnant wife who will give birth to their child sooner or later, and his direct boss coldly points that out to him when he shows some defiance to his direct boss at one point.

In the meantime, as investigating the case more, Yoshioka comes to discern that Takumi’s former boss was involved with the case, so she subsequently approaches to Takumi, but Takumi, who has been already pressured and conflicted a lot, hesitates to tell her anything while warning to her that she must be really careful. While Yoshioka and her newspaper have been already targeted by his government section, Takumi has also become someone to watch at his workplace, and it is quite apparent to both of them that the Japanese government is really hiding something serious behind that medical university to be built.

While not hurrying itself at all, the screenplay by director Michihito Fujii and his co-writers Roba Shimori and Akihiko Takaishi, which is adapted from Isoko Mochizuki’s novel of the same name, slowly builds up the narrative momentum as constantly reminding us of what is being at stake for Yoshioka and Takumi. Although they are not directly threatened by their formidable opponent at all, they are kept being cornered by its subtle tactics, and the movie wisely does not lead to an easy resolution when they find themselves pushed into another very serious moment at the end of the story.

The main cast members of the film are well-cast on the whole. While South Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung ably carries the film along with her co-star Tori Matsuzaka, their earnest performances are supported well by various supporting performers including Tetsuji Tanaka, who gives an unnervingly unflappable performance as a cynical man always ready to do anything for the government he has served for a long time.

In conclusion, “The Journalist” is an engaging journalism drama which will probably take you back to many other similar films such as “All the President’s Men” (1976). To be frank with you, I cannot tell you how much it reflects the social/political situation of Japan at present, and I admire its competent handling of story, mood, and performance, and that is enough for recommendation in my trivial opinion.

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Vertigo (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): A woman on the edge

Posted on August 15, 2020 by kaist455

South Korean film “Vertigo” is a quietly harrowing melodrama about one woman on the edge. While this is not a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece, it is worthwhile to watch as a painful reflection on what many South Korean female office workers out there have to endure everyday due to the toxic male-dominant environment surrounding them, and it is also firmly anchored by the strong performance from one of the best actresses working in South Korea at present.

Chun Woo-hee, who has steadily advanced during last several years since we came to notice her via “Sunny” (2011) and “Han Gong-ju” (2013), plays Seo-yeong, a young graphic desinger who has worked in a company whose office is located on one of the upper floors of an urban skyscraper. Because the company will soon decide whether it will renew the employment contract of her and her colleagues, everyone including her has been quite nervous, and that is probably the reason why she suddenly comes to suffer an auditory problem, which sometimes puts her into dizziness as told by her doctor.

During the first act of the movie, we see how lonely and barren Seo-yeong’s life has been. At the office, there is no one to talk with except one younger colleague who usually cheers her up a bit, and she is not particularly close to her parents. Unless she asks for money from her daughter, Seo-yeong’s mother, who lives far from the city where Seo-yeong currently resides, usually complains about her miserable life with her second husband who is probably no better than her first one, and Seo-yeong’s father, who was quite abusive to both Seo-yeong and her mother, has been cut off from them for many years.

As shown from the opening scene of the film, Seo-yeong has been in a close relationship with Jin-soo (Teo Yoo), one of the office managers at her workplace. While Seo-yeong understandably wants to get closer to Jin-soo, he remains cool and distant to her even when they have a little private time together, and he keeps hiding their relationship from others at their workplace. Many female employees accordingly often gossip about him being a newly eligible bachelor, and Seo-yeong has no choice but to keep herself quiet in front of them.

Meanwhile, Seo-yeong auditory problem gets worse day by day. Besides suffering more hearing loss, she often feels numb and dizzy, and her doctor later recommends a hearing aid, but that may make her look not so go in front of her office manager, an unpleasant prick who, not so surprisingly, has a record of causing troubles with female employees but has gotten away it because, well, he is a male who can wield power over his underlings.

During its middle part, the movie shifts its focus a bit to the viewpoint of Gwan-woo (Jung Jae-gwang), a lad who has recently been hired as one of the window cleaners of the building where Seo-yeong works. As he is working on many windows of the building, he comes to pay attention to Seo-yeong, and then he spots her again when she comes to a bookstore in the building, where he does another part-time job.

And we also get to know more about Gwan-woo’s personal life outside the building. He has been living with a senile grandfather and a pet dog which actually belonged to his old sister, who died early some time ago. Although the movie never delves into the cause of her death, it seems to be connected with her certain online activity, and Gwan-woo often looks at her video clips as still missing her a lot.

While Gwan-woo tentatively approaches closer to Seo-yeong’s life bit by bit, she finds herself in more agony and confusion via a series of happenings. It turns out that Jin-soo has not been totally honest about himself to her, and then the aforementioned younger colleague of hers turns out to be more insecure and fragile than she seems. As becoming more isolated and alienated, Seo-yeong feels far more miserable than before, and she is utterly helpless when something quite terrible happens to her later in the story.

Around that narrative point, the screenplay by Jeon Gye-soo pushes its heroine a little too hard for drawing emotional responses from us, but Chun keeps holding the movie together with her seemingly blank but undeniably expressive face. Even Seo-yeong does not say anything at all, we can clearly feel what has been churning behind her passive appearance, and we are not so surprised when she takes an alarming act of despair during the finale.

Although the movie is essentially Chun’s show, the other main cast members in the film did a good job of enabling her performance to shine more. While Teo Yoo is suitably aloof as required by his supporting role, Jung Jae-gwang brings some sincerity to his character although I must point out that the movie overlooks the rather creepy side of his character’s approach to Seo-yeong, and Hong Ji-suk, Park Ye-young, and Na Mi-hee are also well-cast in their respective parts.

On the whole, “Vertigo” is not entirely without weak points including its heroine’s frustrating passivity throughout the film, but I recommend it mainly for Chun’s acting. Yes, this is another gloomy South Korean movie presenting the dark and harsh aspects of the South Korean society, but Chun makes the movie a little more distinctive, and I appreciate that a lot.

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Okay Madam (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): A woman with a particular set of skills

Posted on August 13, 2020 by kaist455

South Korean comedy action film “Okay Madam” flies all the way for our entertainment, and I appreciate that even while recognizing how silly and preposterous it actually is in many aspects. Sure, it is often a bit too goofy for my taste, but it diligently delivers laughs and thrills at least, and it is also held together well by the game efforts from its engaging lead actress and various colorful performers surrounding her.

During the first act, the movie quickly establishes the loving marital relationship between Mi-yeong (Uhm Jung-hwa) and her husband Seok-hwan (Park Sung-woong). Although they have frequently struggled a lot with their rather poor financial situation during last several years, Mi-yeong has enthusiastically run her little fried dough shop at a local marketplace, and Seok-hwan has gladly supported her a lot while also running a modest computer repair shop for himself. Their daily income is still barely enough to support them and their little daughter, but Mi-yeong keeps her spirit high nonetheless, and Seok-hwan does not have any problem at all in accepting her feisty personality.

And then a little but significant change comes into their life on one day. When Mi-yeong casually opens one of the energy drink bottles belonging to her husband, she is surprised to find that she has just won the first prize of an lottery involved with that energy drink product, and the prize turns out to be a free family trip to Hawaii. At first, Mi-yeong is not so eager to go to Hawaii because she thinks she is too busy for that, but she eventually changes her mind after coming to realize how much her daughter has wished to travel outside, and she and her family are soon on the way to the airport while congratulated by their dear market neighbors.

Around the time when Mi-yeong and her family hurriedly arrive the airport, everything looks fine on the surface, but then we see a bunch of North Korean secret agents preparing to get on the same airplane where Mi-yeong and her family are about to go on board. These North Korean guys are ordered to capture a certain rogue agent who has been hiding from them for several years, and, yes, that agent in question is one of the passengers in the airplane.

However, their target turns out to be quite more elusive than expected, so they decide to take a drastic action earlier than planned, and they quickly take over the airplane with the guns and other weapons they somehow managed to take into the airplane. Seriously, I do not know how the hell that is possible, considering how strict airport security has been around the world since 9/11, but the movie is not a serious hijacking drama from the beginning, so I guess I should not wonder whether the premise is plausible or not.

What follows after this narrative point is a farcical cross between “Die Hard” (1988), “Executive Decision” (1996), and, yes, “Airport” (1970). While Mi-yeong and Seok-hwan turn to be the ones who may save the day in the end for good reasons, we also get to know several different folks including 1) an uptight chief flight attendant who is later revealed to be quite close to one of the crew members, 2) a bumbling flight attendant who becomes an unlikely ally to Mi-yeong and Seok-hwan, 3) a pregnant woman who is accompanied with her fastidious mother-in-law, 4) an avuncular middle-aged dude who is going to Hawaii for meeting his family, 5) an obnoxious congressman who unwisely tries to deal with the North Korean agents, and 6) an apparently suspicious woman who does not say much while wearing a mask on her face.

Now some of you have already guessed where the story is heading, but the movie constantly entertains us as swinging back and forth between comedy and action. Although many of supporting characters in the film are broad stereotypes, they are efficiently utilized for unexpected moments to amuse or surprise us, and I particularly enjoyed a running gag involved with a certain passenger quite oblivious to the ongoing emergency due to his overdosed status.

During the expected climactic part, the screenplay by Shin Hyun-sung becomes a little too shaky as briskly going through several plot turns, but the movie is still kept floated in the air thanks to director Lee Cheol-ha’s competent direction and the spirited performance from Um Jung-hwa, who is surely having a ball here as an irrepressible woman with a particular set of skills. While looking convincing in several key physical action scenes, Um skillfully handles a number of nice comic moments, and I also like how she and Park Sung-woong bring some sincerity and gravitas to their likable characters. In case of the other main cast members including Bae Jung-nam, Lee Sang-woon, and Lee Sun-bin, they are suitably cast in their respective supporting roles, and the special mention goes to young performer Jung Soo-bin, who holds her own small place well as a girl who clearly resembles her mother more than one aspect.

Overall, “Okay Madam” is more hilarious and exciting than I thought at first, and I must confess that it considerably energized me shortly after I endured another recent South Korean film “Deliver Us From Evil” (2019). Unlike that bland and lifeless action thriller film, “Okay Madam” is brimming with spirit and personality, and I assure you that you will walk out of the screening as joyously remembering its many funny moments.

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Deliver Us From Evil (2019) ☆☆(2/4): Deliver Me From Mediocrity

Posted on August 13, 2020 by kaist455

South Korean film “Deliver Us From Evil” brings almost nothing to its genre territory without enough sense of fun or entertainment. Despite lots of efforts put into the screen, the overall result is so flat and pedestrian that I quickly got bored without much care or attention during its first half hour, and I was also offended by several tasteless elements later in the film.

The movie opens with a time-honored genre cliché for its tough guy hero played by Hwang Jung-min, who merely looks dour or sour throughout the film because, well, that is what tough guys in South Korean movies are expected to look like. Several years ago, In-nam was a secret agent working for the national security agency, but then he had to leave South Korea when he was ordered to be eliminated along with his covert unit, and he has worked as a professional killer since he escaped to Japan. When he is eventually about to consider retirement as getting sick of his dirty business, there comes one big request from his main handler, and the handler promises to In-nam that this will be his last job, but, needless to say, it turns out to be quite more problematic than expected.

Meanwhile, we are also introduced to a woman named Yeong-joo (Choi Hee-seo), who has lived along with her little daughter in Bangkok. Before going to a very important business meeting of hers, she takes her daughter to a local international school, and she tells her daughter that a babysitter will later come instead of her, but we instantly sense a trouble on the horizon right from when Yeong-joo has a little tender meaningful moment with her daughter before leaving for her impending business meeting.

Of course, her daughter is vanished along with that babysitter in question, and Yeong-joo is understandably thrown into panic while fearing for the worst, but it looks like there is no one to help her in this increasingly despairing situation. The local police are not particularly interested because there is no demand for ransom yet, so Yeong-joo desperately tries to seek help from someone in her past, and that person in question is none other than In-nam.

When he hears that Yeong-joo is looking for him, In-nam is not so willing to talk to her, mainly because of how their relationship came to the end in a very unpleasant way. A few days later, he is notified that Yeong-joo’s dead body was discovered and then sent from Bangkok to South Korea, and that is when he belatedly comes to learn about her daughter, who is apparently his biological daughter and still missing at present.

Understandably ridden with the guilt on Yeong-joo and his daughter, In-nam soon goes to Bangkok for finding his daughter before it is too late. It turns out that she was kidnapped by a big and powerful local criminal organization which has done an atrocious human trafficking business in addition to drug business, and we accordingly get a disturbing moment which shows her being incarcerated with other poor kidnapped kids for an unspeakable purpose.

In the meantime, someone else is looking for In-nam. The man he killed for his supposedly last job, who was incidentally a powerful yakuza figure, has an estranged brother known well for his sheer brutality and ruthlessness, and that brother is already determined to track down and then kill not only In-nam but also anyone associated with In-nam. It does not take much time for him to learn of In-nam’s whereabouts, and these two lethal dudes’ inevitable clash in Bangkok results in lots of headaches for not only the aforementioned criminal organization but also the local police.

Although it throws lots of physical actions into the screen as required during its second half, the movie fails to engage us due to the apparent lack of personality. The action scenes in the film are well-made on the surface, but they are somehow devoid of style and energy on the whole, and we are simply served with lots of bangs and crashes without much dramatic impact.

Moreover, the characters in the film are more or less than cardboard figures we do not care much about. While In-nam and his main opponent are nothing more than gloomy male killing machines, a few female characters in the film are merely plot elements without much humanity, and you may be also quite uncomfortable with a number of very unpleasant moments involved with Yeong-joo’s little daughter. At one point later in the film, this poor girl is locked inside a suitcase while lots of actions happen around her, and this tasteless moment summarizes well how often the movie objectifies her throughout the story.

Hwang valiantly tries to carry the film as much as he can, but I must point out that he played more interesting tough guy characters before. On the opposite, Lee Jung-jae surely looks as scary and intense as demanded by his psychopathic role, but that is all he can do here. In case of Choi Hee-seo, who was incidentally quite wonderful in “Our Body” (2018), she is thoroughly wasted without generating any significant emotion between her and Hwang, and Park Jung-min is unfortunately stuck with a thankless job of playing a broad stereotype role, which reminds me again of how South Korean films have often been insensitive in the portrayal of sexual minority characters.

On the whole, “Deliver Us From Evil” is two or three steps down from director Hong Won-chan’s previous film “Office” (2014), a small but effective horror thriller film which was incidentally one of the better South Korean films of 2015 in my trivial opinion. While that film engaged and entertained me more than I expected, “Deliver Us From Evil” only left me with hollow impressions, and I really think you should watch “Office” instead of watching this joyless piece of work.

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True History of the Kelly Gang (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): An unconventional bushranger film

Posted on August 11, 2020 by kaist455

Justin Kurzel’s new film “True History of the Kelly Gang” is an unconventional bushranger film which tries some different things in its decidedly fictional account of the life of Ned Kelly, one of the most notorious Australian bushrangers in the late 19th century. Although I am not that sure about whether it succeeds as much as intended, the movie is still an interesting genre exercise on the whole, and it is also supported well by several strong performances in addition to its distinctive post-modern approach.

After boldly announcing to us that what we are going to see is not exactly the true story of Kelly and his infamous gangs, the movie, which is occasionally accompanied with the narration of Kelly around the end of his life, begins with his early years in a remote rural area of Australia in the 1860s. While his father is a useless bum with a criminal record and a certain sexual secret, his mother, presented by the sassy and fierce performance from Essie Davis, has supported her family via prostitution, and her most frequent client is Sergeant O’Neill (Charlie Hunnam), a local police officer who often regards her and her family with contempt and malice.

In the absence of any father figure to lean on, young Ned (Orlando Schwerdt) soon gets to learn how to be the man of his house, while his father keeps doing nothing for his family. At one point, he kills a cow belonging to someone else and then delivered a big chunk of meat to his family, and his mother is certainly glad to see how much her dear son is willing to do anything for her and his siblings. In case of his father, he is not so pleased to see his wife showing more affection to her son, but then he chooses to be punished instead of his son when Sergeant O’Neill inevitably comes for arresting whoever is responsible for butchering that cow.

Ned’s father dies not long after he is sent to a prison, and Ned’s mother soon comes to consider having another man in her life. That man in question is Harry Power (Russell Crowe), a real-life bushranger who was quite notorious during that time. While spending some time with Ned and his family, Power comes to befriend Ned, and his mother subsequently has her son accompany Power for making him into a man, though she does not tell her that she actually sold her son to Power in exchange of 15 pound.

Although Power does not enslave Ned at all while treating him fairly well on the whole, he soon shows Ned how brutal and ruthless his world is. At one point, he has Ned assist him during his latest criminal deed, and he also later coerces Ned to confront Sergeant O’Neill when Sergeant O’Neill happens to be in the middle of, uh, some private business. While Russell Crowe and Charlie Hunnam do not hesitate from their respective characters’ unpleasant sides, young actor Orlando Schwerdt does more than holding his own place well between Crowe and Hunnam, and we can clearly sense how young Ned is shaped further by the violent and heartless environment surrounding him and others.

After the first act, which is titled “Boy”, the movie moves onto Ned’s adulthood period during the second act, which is titled “Man”. Now played by George MacKay from this narrative point, Ned has earned some money via bare-knuckle boxing match for a while, but then he is gradually thrown again into the life of a criminal shortly after returning to his family home, and he naturally comes to clash with Constable Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult), who seems to be fascinated with Ned in more than one aspect but then becomes quite hostile to him and his family due to a complicated private matter involved with a young local prostitute named Mary (Thomasin McKenzie).

Once he finds himself pursued along with his brothers by the police, Ned goes further as increasing his notoriety around Australia, and the mood surrounding him and his criminal associates accordingly becomes quite gritty and brooding while mixed with some unconventional stylish touches from time to time. For example, cinematography by Ari Wegner provides a number of visually jarring moments such as a certain phantasmagorical scene drenched in strobe lights, and the soundtrack of the movie contains a couple of sudden bursts of punk rock music, which makes a weird contrast with Jed Kurzel’s gloomy score. In addition, the movie generates some amusement from the rather ambiguous sexuality of Ned and some other supporting characters, and you may be amused a lot to see Ned’s gangs wearing dresses mainly just for their naughty fun from transgression.

Like many other movies about outlaws, the movie fatefully enters the last act showing the end of Ned and his gangs, which is titled “Monitor”. While we get an intense sequence ultimately leading to Ned getting arrested and then imprisoned before being eventually hanged in 1880, the movie becomes less compelling around this narrative point, and even the committed performance from George MacKay, who became more prominent thanks to his solid performance in “1917” (2019), does not compensate for that weak aspect much.

Overall, “True History of the Kelly Gang”, which is adapted from Peter Carey’s novel of the same name by Shaun Grant, is entirely successful in its unorthodox handling of its familiar story and characters, but it is still as fascinating as Kurzel’s previous work “Macbeth” (2015), which was an unconventional interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. I only admire it rather than liking it a lot, but it is still a curious attempt worthwhile to watch in my inconsequential opinion, so I recommend you to give it a chance someday.

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