Currently browsing the "Korean" category.

Review: Okja

In his audacious new film, Bong Joon Ho (Mother, Snowpiercer) pits a little Korean girl and her beloved super-pig against a corporate food mogul (Tilda Swinton). Okja is the name of a giant pig hybrid that little Mija (Seo-hyeon Ahn) has brought up for ten years high in the mountains of South Korea. That Okja is a GMO experiment makes no difference to her. He’s just her enormously fun pet. And in the opening scenes of the film, they do have big fun. But when the owner of the pig sends an envoy to give Mija’s grandpa a prize for best pig and decides to take Okja back to the US, Mija isn’t having it. She’s out to save her best friend. It’s wacky and the second half doesn’t entirely work, but at its heart it’s a sweet story of a girl and her super-pig.

The Handmaiden

Korean director Chan-wook Park’s (Oldboy) latest film The Handmaiden is an amazing adult thriller. It is twisty and erotic and romantic and funny and utterly surprising. And very hard to review because the many plot twists that make it so fun to watch have to be kept secret. No spoilers here. It is reminiscent of The Grifters or Sleuth with people trying to con one another from start to finish, and the audience’s assumptions proved wrong again and again. At its center is the story of a con artist The Count (Ha Jung-woo) who finds a job for one of his minions, pretty young Sookee (Tae-ri Kim), as the handmaid to a very rich and very attractive young Japanese woman Lady Hidekowith (Min-hee Kim) with the aim of his seducing and marrying her for her fortune. But needless to say, it doesn’t go exactly as planned.

Mother (Madeo)

Let me start by saying, I really liked this film. In this wonderful Korean thriller, the central character is a single Mother (never named) played with infinite layers by the amazing Hye-ja Kim. Mother works in an herb store and gives illegal acupuncture treatments on the side. As the film begins she is in her shop keeping watch on her 27-year-old son, Do-joon who is hanging out across the street with his much hipper friend Jin-tae. Do-joon is not right in the head; he is forgetful, possibly retarded, and seems to spend most of his time running around getting into trouble. In this first scene, he steps into the street and is grazed by a car, causing his friend to vow revenge on the rich guys who did it and this one moment spins out of control coloring the rest of the film.