The Outlaws kmovie review

It has been a while since my last kmovie review. I stopped watching for a while because a bunch of critically acclaimed movies turned out to be very mediocre and I cbf in the end. There is something that kmovies can give me that jmovies can't and that is straight forward ass kicking.

In the outlaws, Ma Dong-seok is police detective Ma Suk-Do who has a heart of gold, looks like he can take people out and is not afraid to bend the rules and have fun at a hostess bar. There is a war between the Chinese-Korean gangs and the bad guy from China does really bad things and scary things so we are definitely rooting for detective Ma to dish out justice.

The world of the Outlaws is dark, violent and unforgiving and there are moments of light comedy like detective Ma's truth room or how he bullies other gangsters.

The action scenes are awesome and watching Ma Dong-seok kicking ass never gets old. The final fight scene in the washroom is awesome. I think the main thing I enjoy is the tone of the movie. I love the grittiness of the action. Watching The Outlaws I was thinking why doesn't Japan do this straightforward action?

I think the answer is besides chanbara/samurai movies, there doesn't seem to be a market for adult action movies. Japan does not do gritty, see Avalance. They prefer shows to have a sense of unreality. Maybe Japan doesn't have an action star besides Sakaguchi Tak and he is not a star.

Very watchable. The Outlaws is the first of 4 movies known as The Roundup. I have watched all four and they are all good fun. Very watchable kick-ass movies. 

Broker 2022 kmovie review

It has been a long time since I have watched a Korean movie but Broker is no ordinary Korean movie. It was directed by Koreeda Hirokazu one of Japan's greatest directors who did Shoplifters, Dare mo Shiranai etc. Shoplifters or Manbiki Kazoku is one of my favourite Japanese movies ever. I could rewatch it every year. 

While Shoplifters was about a family living in poverty trying to survive, Broker is about two friends, a laundry worker played by Song Kang-Ho and a part timer who works for a church that has a baby box for mothers to leave their unwanted babies.

Their gig is to erase the surveillance video when a baby is put in the box and sell the baby on the black market. On day a very young mother puts her baby in front of the box during a rainy day with a note saying that she will be back for the baby. A policewoman who has been tailing our brokers puts the baby in the box. The next day the young mother comes back asking for her baby back and the brokers are forced to let her into their plan to sell their baby.

I enjoyed Broker because it asks a lot of questions about people giving babies as it is not something we normally and whether its better to abort or give birth and give them out. Broker looks at orphans who cannot escape the feeling that they are discarded. 

There is this interesting dichotomy between the cops who want the baby to be sold so that they can catch the brokers in the act and the brokers who actually want to do what's right for the baby.

I don't think Koreeda intended to do this but he has recreated the Shoplifters and replaced shoplifting with selling babies. He has created another show about people on the fringe coming together as a family and the beats are so similar. I am not complaining because it is a great formula and I enjoy his movies because he explores characters who don't normally main characters in cinemas and doramas.

Broker is not as good as Shoplifters. The pacing is a bit slow and should have had more humour but it has heart and that is most important. Very watchable and available in the high seas.

Parasite Kmovie review

Its been a while since I've seen a Kmovie. When I heard that Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite had won the Palm d'Or which Shoplifters won last wear, I was very excited to watch it. I was disappointed with the overhyped Okja and I wanted to see the director who had done The Host, Snowpiercer and Mother back at the top of his powers.

Parasite is a movie about this poor, down on their luck family whose son becomes the tutor for the daughter of a very wealthy family. The son then gets his sister a tutoring job with the wealthy family and then his whole family is leeching of the wealthy one.

From the beginning, Parasite felt very off for me. The characters did not feel sympathetic at all. It wasn't like shoplifters where the family did not know any other way to survive. The Parasite family is smart and they did not feel downtrodden enough to be underdogs.

I'm guessing the director does not want empathy towards the Parasite family but I did not really care about anyone. I didn't find the antics funny or moving at all and there was not really anything to contrast the Parasite and rich families. Even the dark comedy parts after the reveal left me bored and can anyone tell me what was the point of the little boy doing the morse codes in the tent?

99% of the reviews for Parasite praise it very well about its analogies to class divide but all I saw was an unfunny comedy wannabe where I could not figure the point of the story. Meh.

Okja review

I was really looking forward Bong Joon Ho, director of The Host and Snowpiercer's newest movie Okja that I paid for a netflix subcription. The host was a great satire movie about the ineffectiveness of government in dealing with emergencies wrapped up in a family monster movie and I loved it. The reviews for Okja were all glowing and I went into the movie with great expectations.

However, Okja had a huge problem for me because it felt like a satire movie about evil corporations, genetic modified foods and greenies that was way too self aware about itself. This self awareness manifests itself in things like the way certain characters talk, as if they are proclaiming 'Hey, I am here to make fun and parody this instead of being an actual character in a story'. This is made worse by the hanzawa Naoki level of overacting.

Parody movies like Robocop, Starship Troopers and The Host work because the satire is buried under a decent story and doesn't take it over. These movies don't try to constantly remind you of that they are making fun of current issues. Okja feels like a well intentioned movie wanting to deal with many issues but forgot that movies should be entertaining first before being educational.

If you want the best movie about a kid and an animal from 2017, I recommend you play The Last Guardian. Very meh from me and I don't get why people are so enamored with it.

The Handmaiden

Park Chan Wook is back! Its been a long while since I've seen a Korean movie besides train to Busan which was overhyped as hell.

The Handmaiden is exactly why I feel in love with his movies many years ago. Its erotic, twisted and depraved but while I could see the twists coming, its so beautifully shot I was just entranced.

Words cannot sufficiently describe how good Park Chan Wook is. I really felt like I was watching someone who was a master at his craft.

I could feel the confidence he had in every shot, in every close up of a facial twitch or look of sadness and longing as he took me on a tale about a swindler who poses as a handmaiden in order to rid this rich lady of her riches.

Absolutely must watch. This is Korean cinema at its finest. I've never been so turned on and so disgusted by a movie. :)

Snowpiercer

I have been waiting for this movie for so long. Its been a long time since Bong Joon-ho's Host and Mother, two of the best Korean movies I've seen. Snowpiercer came out in South Korea last year and there was the bruhaha about Harvey Weinstein wanting to cut the movie by 20 minutes. Bong Joon-ho managed to keep its cut but the movie is now having a limited release (not in Australia) but its finally found its way to the interwebs.

Snowpiercer is a sci-fi, post apocalyptic tale about a world that has basically gone back into the ice ages and the only remaining humans are on this self-sustaining train that travels all over the world. People on the train are divided based on class with the poorest people at the back. Hellboy's dad is the leader of the people at the end of the train and Captain America is his right arms who leads the people at the back in revolt against Tilda Swinston's evil Minister Mason. Song Kang-ho (JSA/Mr. Vengeance/The Host) is in this movie as a drug addicted security expert and since its a sci-fi, he gets to speak Korean throughout.

Elysium turned out to be a skin deep analogy for class warfare but Snowpiercer thankfully turns out to be a thinking man's sci-fi which presents interesting ideas to the viewer but doesn't provide the viewer with easy answers. Let's just say its not a simple story of haves versus the have-nots.

Like Park Chan-Wook's Stoker, its nice to see my favourite Korean filmakers put their sensibilities in English language movies. Bong Joon-ho isn't afraid to get into some nice twisted humour with the classroom scene. The only complaint I have is that the movie doesn't explain some of the rooms in the middle of the train and I kept looking for where all the higher class people were staying. Snowpiercer didn't blow my mind but it stayed in my mind long after watching. Must watch.

Kmovie review: Blind

Haven't done a kmovie review in a long while, not that I haven't been watching Kmovies but that they have been pretty meh. No one does black comedy like Koreans especially Park Chang Wook but what I have been watching usually has a lot of gore (usually involving serial killers and violence against women), slick production but ultimately not emotionally engaging. I avoid Korean rom-coms like the plague.

Blind is about this former police cadet Min Soo-Ah who gets involved in an accident with her foster brother where he dies and she loses her sight. Soo-Ah is expelled from the police academy and in the beginning of the show we have her wallowing in her guilt and we find out that she and her brother were actually from an orphanage.

One night, Soo-Ah gets in a taxi which gets involved in a hit and run. Soo-Ah makes a police report but the police are reluctant to entertain her. They assign Detective Jo to interview Soo-Ah and she shows him that although she is blind, she is able to discern clues about the hit and run taxi driver through her other senses. What follows is the best part of the show, cop and blind former cadet trying to chase leads and find the taxi driver. Someone should make a tv series out of this concept because it is an interesting hook. How does one locate a person when all the clues are non visual?

We  are then introduced to the third main character, a young kid who claims to have seen the hit and run. I won't spoil any more but suffice to say, there is a very awesome chase sequence in the middle of the movie involving mobile phones that is so gripping. The writer really used the blindness of the main character to create great suspense like the villain being able to get close to Soo-Ah without her realising it.

What I don't like about Blind is that it is very uneven. There is the sentimental sob story about Soo-Ah, her brother and the kid. There is the fun investigation part leading up to serial killer suspense. Guess which part doesn't really fit? I'm not against the story of Soo-Ah's tragedy and the kid. My complaint is that its done in such a way that its like a completely different movie to the point of marginalising the character of Detective Jo.

The climax has this sort of flashback that tries so hard to tie it back to Soo-Ah's tragedy that it completely destroys the suspense. I understand that it is the give Soo-Ah a character arch but there are more subtle ways to go about it. Its like I'm watching two movies view for screen time; a suspense movie and a movie about grief. Problem is both get equal time and the script doesn't feel as tight as it should be.

Blind is not must watch but is certainly watchable. I mostly recommend Blind for the subway chase sequence which had such a awesome ending that it was obvious the final ending would never match it. Whoever thought the Koreans would do a movie about a blind girl that is not an overly sentimental love drama.

My Wife is a Gangster 3

The hallmark of a martial artist - having an invisible hair blowing machine.

The first movie was a classic, the second an incoherent mess and the third one, well it has Hsu Chi which should be reason enough to watch as long as its not as bad as your typical HK movie. The first movie worked because of humour. A typical everyman gets married to a female gangster and hilarity ensues. The writers clearly had no idea what to sequel and it was made just to cash in on the success of the 1st.


In the third movie, Hsu Chi plays Ah Ryoung, the daughter of a HK triad boss who runs to Korea after being framed for murder. Her father is friends with a Korean mafia boss who arranges a bumbling underling, Ki Chul to be her host. Hsu Chi spends the whole film speaking mandarin which is great for me but couldn't they have made her the daughter of a Taiwanese triad boss instead?


Anyway, this makes for great comedy in the form of a mandarin translator who is hired to help facilitate communication between Hsu Chi and Ki Chul. The translator at first starts off as a timid country girl who intentionally mistranslates in order to prevent any flare ups between the two. Its funny how as she gets bolder, she starts mistranslating to her own advantage.

Words cannot describe how hilarious the above scene is.

2nd best thing about the movie is the car-dry humping scene. I'm pretty sure the main actor had a hell of a time shooting. Car sex in movies will never be the same again. The biggest flaw of the movie is no closure for Ki Chul's two henchmen and the translator. After Hsu Chi leaves Korea, they are quickly forgotten. Those three practically saved the movie with the comedy for 1 1/2 hours and it makes the movie incomplete. They could have trimed the fight scenes a lot.

And chemistry is really lacking between Hsu Chi and Ki Chul. Plus the fact that they can't even converse makes their mutual attraction puzzling. I mean language is no barrier, for example my love for Matsuura Aya but FFS, they should have made her speak some basic Korean or something.

I love how her old fashion underwear always gets exposed, lol.

Speaking of fight scenes, theres a lot of cool imagery but everything just feels flat and not put together well. Someone needs to learn that less is better. Too much unconvincing wire-fu is not entertaining. Overall, the movie had me laughing and Hsu Chi is hot enough to distract me during the boring bits. Decent comedy.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Last year YC was pushing me to watch this Korean film called Old Boy. It made a lot of noise at the Cannes Film Festival and Quentin Tarantino was praising it in the papers. I gave it a shot and it was a shocking movie. The 1st reaction after finishing the movie was one of horror. It was a movie unlike what I've seen before. I took some time to digest the movie and watched it again. There was no doubt Park Chan Wook had made a masterpiece.

Lady Vengeance is the final film in Park Chan Wook's revenge trilogy. The first, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance was a dark humour film about the tragedy of vengeance. Old boy is a one of a kind movie that can never be surpassed with an even more tragic tale of vengeance.

Lady Vengeance is a tale of girl who ends up in prison and after 13 years years is released and is seeking vengeance. The 1st half of the film covers Lady Vengeance's back story and life in female prison. There's a lot of trademark Pack Chan Wook dark humour here including the most disgusting/funny orgasm scene ever.

The problem with the 1st act is that its more about the other inmates of the prison than Lady Vengeance herself. I find myself more interested in the backstory of her fellow convicts rather than Lady Vengeance and the sad thing is that they do not figure into the 2nd half of the movie which is about the revenge.

I won't spoil the 2nd half of the movie but the revelation and what Lady Vengeance did with the knowledge put a smile to my face. To put it cyptically, the 2nd half is like a Takashi Miike film but nowhere as scary as audition and less cheesy than Ichi.


However it must be said that this film is beautifully shot and scored. Korean films in terms of cinematography is so much better than HK and Japan. Korean films have the technical expertise to make great films. If only they'd do less melodrama movies.

Out of the four Park Chan Wook movies, I'd rate this one the lowest with Old Boy at no.1 and JSA second. Lady Vengeance is a well executed movie but I find the mix of themes of revenge and redemption are too jarring. However, I love the way the how Lady Vengeance gets both at the end.



Lady Vengeance is still a decent movie, just not as good as the other 3 that I've seen including JSA. Ultimately the problem with Lady Vengeance is threefold: Firstly the narrative of the film is weak. Its a film not really about Lady Vengeance but the film spends a lot of time on her with scenes that are not really entertaining nor move the plot forward.

Secondly, there's no climax at the end and the epilogue scene is way too long.

Thirdly, I just don't feel no sympathy for Lady Vengence, especially compared with the characters in the 1st two revenge films.

K movie review: Innocent Steps

Another Korean Dancing movie. Had a crappy IMDB rating. But then, it was starring Geun-Yeong Mun from My Little Bride, which was a watchable film. Plus the fact she has a lolita look unlike all other Kmovie actresses who all look the same with their long hair and model faces. (No, I'm not a lolicon. I just find her very kawaii and her acting really good)

She plays a Chinese dancer who's been paid to come to Korea to be the main dude's new dance partner. However, to stay in Korea she and the main dude have to get married. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, this movie sucks. There are parts that are pretty good but they don't come together well. This is a movie that can't decide whether it wants to be a cheesy romantic comedy, romance movie, serious drama or semi tragedy. Some of the comedic parts are funny, some are over-cheesy and the subplot of the fake marriage inspectors is done so half-assed. Its like the producers of the movie got decided that the best way to make money was to incorporate all the elements into one but had no idea how to mix it well.

As the result, the movie is super uneven and I ended up fast forwarding the last quarter. Sigh, this is going to be my last Korean movie for a while.

The only reason for my fellow sukebe's to get this movie is Geun-Yeong Mun. She's super kawaii and plays her character like a village girl who speaks archaic and super polite Korean, kinda reminds me of Cecelia Cheung's character from Failan. (now that was a good movie)

This is the cheesy romantic comedy part of the movie. For some reason they are playing some quiz about which book is about filial piety and she chooses Karmasutra. It would have been funny if she had pressed on asking wtf Karmasutra was about.


Another funny scene where she thinks she has to 'get it on' with the dude. Damn, she was hot in this scene.

Contrast all the cheesy comedy with Geun-Yeong Mun getting slapped around. Women getting beat around do not belong in a comedy. Not the mention the serious notion that she's basically trapped like a prostitute who has to dance to pay off the people who smuggled her in.

Another super cheesy scene of her lyp-synching Yue Lai Xiang (Fragrance of the moon).