Imagine a witty opening comment. I had one, I really did, but I completely forgot…
Cheonggyecheon Medley (??????)
South Korea 2010, Park Kelvin Kyung-Kun, 79?
Cheonggyecheon is a small stream and district in central Seoul. After the war, people salvaging scrap metal settled here and in the seventies the whole lifeless dirty stream was covered with an elevated freeway. A few years ago the freeway was torn down and the stream renaturalised, creating a new urban center with coffee shops, galleries and similar places, slowly driving out the small businesses. This documentary shows the daily life and people of a district that will soon completely vanish from the city center.
Machine porn! The beginning was quite slow, with lots of droning machines, a generous helping of digital effects and a voice-over about the director’s identity issues. Quite trippy actually, I know a certain person who would have covered her ears most of the time… From there, it slowly picked up, showing bits of the owners’ work, the generally warm bond between them, eating, drinking and worrying about the coming relocations together. There was also a part about one of the new residents of the area, an artist who needs various metal parts made for his installation, so he goes to the old shops seeking advice and meets competent and versatile shop owners who help him design the exact parts needed. Near the end, we witness the relocation of a shop owner from the old Cheonggyecheon to a new development that looks like a shopping center filled not with clothes or shoes, but the kind of craftsmen and small factories that inhabited old Cheonggyecheon.
Interestingly, while it was nostalgic there was no accusing political undertone, which kind of surprised me. Whether the surprise was positive or negative I have not been able to decide yet.
Bu-dang-geo-rae (????)
South Korea 2010, Ryoo Seung-Wan, 120?
A serial killer case puts the whole nation on edge to the point of the President intervening with police work. The main suspect gets shot which leaves the investigation in a dead end.
The police desperately needs a suspect, so Captain Choi, who’s efficient but less-than-delicate methods left him out of the promotion carousel, is told to produce one, whatever the cost. Unfortunately, prosecutor Joo learns of their plot and, while being even more corrupt than them, does everything to foil their plan as his benefactor and the police director’s benefactor are enemies. All this leads to more and more open and blatant violations of the law until everything spirals out of control.
“I know the comedy parts often rely on language, so for full enjoyment please look for a person in the audience who looks Korean and if they laugh, you can laugh too!” – The director, just before the screening…
This was the Gurren Lagann of live action films! Great, polished visuals, loud dramatic soundtrack, and an unprecedented level of badassness and incredibly typically Korean alpha male dickery. And because it was totally over the top, while pretending not to be ironic it was an incredibly fun ride. The director had the intention to show how power struggles in corrupt systems never play out without unexpected collateral damage and how much of a cancer this kind of dishonest behaviour is to society. To this end he had, quite realistically, the least experienced “players” receive the harshest punishment and there was not one clean character, everyone got their hands dirty with something at some point…
It is great to see how well the message came through in a movie with so much entertainment value.
On a side note: I have never, ever seen a movie that was not Polish but felt so much like one. Change the place, the names, the actors and you would’ve had one of the big Polish action thrillers of the 90s…