City of Violence (Jjakpae): a rather confusing mishmash of genres spanning the cheesy 80's coming-of-age, kung-fu action and detective-buddy flick. There was always a wink to the audience as five childhood friends are wracked by the sudden and violent murder of one of the group. Two of them (one of them a cop from Seoul) track down the murderer -- who turns out to be one of their gang. It was hard to know whether to laugh or cry (we mostly laughed) but the fight sequences, including battles against break-dancing hipsters, baseball teams, a hundred Korean BBQ chefs armed with machetes, and four taikwando fighters dressed all in white were pretty thrilling and cringe-inducing.
Dynamite Warrior (Kon Fai Bin) from the producers and stunt coordinator of the famed Ong Bak, promised to be a goofy, over-the-top action comedy, and it did not disappoint. An entirely ridiculous padthai western set in the age of the industrial revolution, a wealthy greedy nincompoop lord with a scarred upper lip is trying to sell outrageously priced tractors to the farmers of Siam. This is of course facilitated by his secret band of thieves (led by a very hungry brute who stoops to cannibalism) who terrorize the land, stealing cattle from unsuspecting herders. Jone Bang Fai, the fireball bandit, also terrorizes the cattle herders with crazy huge phallic rockets, but his two-fold mission is to return the cattle to the farmers, and to hunt down the powerful wizard and cattle herder Sing who he believes to have murdered his parents. The story twists and turns from there -- there's an evil boil-ridden Black Wizard whose virgin daughter's menstrual blood is the key to disarm Sing, there are relentless fight sequences where Jone Bang Fai twirls in the air kneeing his opponents in every possible variation you can imagine and then some, there are murders, fires, monks, spirit possessions, sacrifice, and young love. Totally fun and unabashedly cheesy.
Saturday, we almost didn't make it out alive from the evening's Korean double-bill. I'm a Cyborg but that's OK which turned out to be one of the most charming, sweet, palatable love stories in recent cinema history. Featuring the mega-popstar Rain, the story is set in a sanatorium chock-full of endearing psychos and mentally disturbed patients. Our protagonist is a girl who discovers in late adolescence that she is actually a man-killing cyborg whose mission is to kill the hospital staff in order to escape and return her grandmother's dentures to her (who had also been carted away years ago, for believing herself to be a mouse and only eating radishes). Rain is a fellow-patient hospitalized for kleptomania (triggered by having been abandoned by his mother as a child) who falls in love with our adorable killer-cyborg and musters all his creative powers in order to save her from starvation (cyborgs do not eat human food). Though the story meandered at times, and should have ended soon after the reunion with Grandma and successful rice-megatron implant, the polished aesthetic and unbearable cuteness of the film never veered into the nose-bleed saccharine. I'd highly recommend this movie for all urban hipsters-couple/dates.
And finally: Ryo had convinced me that I had to see Aachi & Ssipak, an animated film 8 years in the making, set in the future when the earth has exhausted all of its natural resources, and had turned to human feces as an energy source. She knows me well -- indeed, on paper, this sounded right up my (scatalogically obsessed) alley. The government rewards its most prolific poopers with addictive Juicybars, which have caused a mutant race of orphaned Juicybar-addicts to emerge. Against this landscape, this entirely ridiculous film follows the story of two brainless hoodlums and one hoochie-mama and how they make it big with shit. Kind of. Honestly, story mattered very little in this non-stop action movie -- the violence was so over the top and incessant, it hardly gave pause for anything to land. A blatant satire of contemporary culture and neck-deep in references to American movies (Robocop, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, Armageddon, Easy Rider) and American idiocy (Paris Hilton), this exhausting movie couldn't quite maintain its levity despite the inane subject matter and extreme velocity. Tmonkey & I fell asleep periodically throughout the movie, and felt totally spent afterwards.Still it was a fun week for the movie addict in me. Props to the Subway guys esp Grady who introduces each film with such joyful effervescence you can't help but get excited. You rock the fuchsia suit!
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