Korea, Mon Amour

A casual glance at my blogs showed no entries for a whole calendar year. That will not do. A new year came and along with it a new resolution – Watch more movies and write about them. We may be living in the golden age of television, but movies came first for me. 

2016 was the year of Korean cinema, or so the critics said. I decided to go for the most famous four. This is how I fared.


Train to Busan (Director: Sang-ho Yeon)

Zombies are everywhere. At least, in the cinemas. Train to Busan actually showed how mainstream it had become by becoming one of South Korea’s biggest mainstream hits.

A father (Yoo Gong – who had a fabulous 2016) and his daughter take a train from Seoul to Busan to meet her mother. In the few hours that it took for the train to reach its destination zombies took over almost the entire country including most of the train. Do they get to their destination? Is there a destination?

Train to Busan was what Walking Dead started out as – a study of the few surviving humans when the living dead have taken over.  The cast are regular clichés, father and daughter, pregnant lady with a lovable ape for a husband, the sensitive sports jock and his may-be or may-not-be girlfriend, the villainous corporate type, the steadfast public servant, none of the characters are new. Nor do they do anything unexpected. Yet, in almost two hours of running time director Sang-ho Yeon manages to bring real emotion and pathos. He connects with the audience on a level that has to be envied. No sequence overstays its welcome. No character is paper-thin. 

With just enough gore, endearing performances, and a fine pace, Yeon crafts a fine commercial film out of a subject that should be ideally be not so popular with the mainstream. 


The Wailing (Director: Hong-jin Na)

Full disclosure: I used to watch the Hammer House of Horror series as a child. But it was not for the horror bits! 

Korean horror occupies an important place among genre lovers. The lack of interest in frights meant I avoided these just like I avoided the Korean romances.  But I saw The Wailing popping up on a lot of conversations and no one was pigeon-holing it as just horror. 

A small Korean village started seeing a lot of strange happenings after a Japanese man set up house in a valley. People started going mad and killing others. An overweight beat cop (Do-won Kwak) wants nothing to do with it, but when his only daughter starts exhibiting signs of being possessed he has to do everything he can to protect her.

The Wailing is unpredictable, to say the least. It lulls you with genre stereotypes and then turns them upside down. Nothing is what it seems. There is good and evil. Or is there? For most of its run-length it is evil that can be seen. The movie has exquisite photography with some of the best rain cinematography to be seen. It proceeds just like a thriller and whenever it becomes something else, the viewer is stunned. It is not much of a spoiler to say that everything is not clear at the end. I read up on it and found many explanations from many people. Which goes to say the movie was extremely successful at what it set out to do.


The Age of Innocence (Director: Jee-woon Kim)

Period movies are tricky. The common man thinks they are boring and have to be avoided, the serious viewer has a sneaking suspicion it is a gimmick, the ones with no jobs spent hours poking holes in the production design, I think that most of them are those are because their plots that don’t stand up to the question “Why didn’t they just use the mobile?”

Once in a while comes a historical movie that doesn’t seem to be one. One that pulls you to the period and doesn’t let go. Where mobiles have no business and you couldn’t care. If you have read till now, you would have guessed that The Age of Shadows is one of them. It is set in the 1920s when Korea was under Japanese rule and the underground resistance was fighting for independence. A few Resistance members have cooked up an ambitious plan to up the ante in their assault on the Japanese and the authorities are trying to stop them. The action happens in Seoul, Shanghai and in a train. What is with Koreans and trains! 

The Age of Shadows is beautifully shot. There aren’t too many tacky shots of shadows, but the entire movie gives the viewer a sense that he is watching what unfolds secretly, from behind shadows. The acting is all restraint from the Korean side and all histrionics from the Japanese side, the only grouch I could find. Yoo Gong (Train to Busan), as the senior lieutenant in the Resistance and Kang-ho Song (Snowpiercer) as a Korean captain of Police working with the Japanese have the plum roles and they excel in them. The action is minimalistic, but the build-ups are quite impressive. The Age of Shadows is a breathless thriller disguised as a patriotic film. Highly recommended.


The Handmaiden (Director: Chan-wook Park)

This is true inspiration. A Victorian Era crime novel written at the turn of this millennium inspiring a Korean director, of some of the most violent movies made this century, to make a breathtakingly beautiful fraudster drama set in a time when Korea was under Japanese rule. All the while making eloquent statements on the class system, the influence of pornography and how love is always an unpredictable variable in every well-thought out plan.

A master conman calling himself Count Fujiwara hires Sook-Hee from a family of crooks. Her task: to pose as a handmaiden to Lady Hideko, a wealthy Japanese heiress and slowly convince her to marry the Count. The lady lives with her uncle, who himself has designs on her. The uncle has a large library of ancient books and conducts readings, after which he auctions the books. The plan moves along as intended, except that Sook-Hee develops feelings for her mistress.

To dismiss The Handmaiden as the pretty-looking Korean lesbian drama is the worst disservice you can do, not to the movie, but to yourself as a viewer. The Handmaiden effortlessly steps straddles genres without allowing itself to remain beholden to even one. A conman tale, a love story, a social statement, a revenge drama, it is all there and never feels forced. 

The movie unfolds in three parts. The first from Sook-Hee’s point of view, the second from Lady Hideko’s and the last the finale as seen by the viewer. The love story is poignant, while the twists are unexpected. Despite being rather high-brow for the average viewer, the ending is one of the most fulfilling in a long time. The lead performances are perfect while the supporting players never appear to be supporting. The cinematography is pristine with every shot demonstrating balance and beauty, even to the amateur viewer. 

The Handmaiden is a gorgeous movie experience that will stay with you for a long time. The moment you finish watching it you want to go back and see it again. I do want to see it again, but with someone who has not seen it before. Their reaction will be equally fulfilling. 

Having seen the best movie of 2016 at the start of 2017, I fear it might be all downhill from now. Sigh. But then, I can always go and watch The Handmaiden again.