The Only thing I could get myself to do this Sunday morning, with slight hangovers, was to write about some movies. I have already written about some Chinese and some Japanese movies, so I might as well complete the Asian circle with some Korean movies, in this “3 of a kind” category. You can roughly say that the Japanese are good at bizarre/horror movies, The Chinese at action movies and the Koreans at romantic comedies. For the diversity of it I have once again chosen some very different movies for this one.
Bichunmoo (2000) is a very long, but very cool movie which takes place in the 14 century Korea. Sullie is the Daughter of a mongol General who wants her to get married to some important nobleman. Her previous love affair jin-ha, is then of course killed by her father, to ease the transformation to married life for her. The only problem is that jin-ha don’t die. He get his hands on the secrets to the most powerful martial art, the bichun arts of Korea. He also get a very cool black rice hat by the way, but that is not explained further in the movie, because it is mainly just a prop. Its very cool though, even though I realize that cool and rice hat is two words that are mentally hard to fit together. With this hat and these secrets he is prepared to take revenge and get his girl back. A lot of serious kick-ass is involved.
My sassy girl (2001) is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Everyone I know that have seen the movies agrees with me (not many though). Please watch this one. If you have any prejudgment of Asian humor or comedies, watch this one before you rant or whatever. I think a lot of lame Japanese TV shows have given Asian comedy a bad reputation, but My Sassy girl is not like that at all (even though the visual representation above might indicate otherwise). When the movie came out it stormed most of Asia, and still now it has its effect. The phrase from the movie “Do you wanna die?” became very popular among girls all over the continent and still is to some extend. Well the movie is a romantic comedy, so actually classic Korean. Although I think the genre first seriously went popular after this one. A guy (Kyung-woo) is so unfortunate to meet a very rude and noisy drunk girl in the train one night, and helps clean of her puke of an old mans head… with his sweater. He takes the almost unconscious girl to a hotel, and stay there to watch out for her. It quickly appears that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he gets wrapped around the finger of this strange manipulative girl. She has massive mood swings and forces Kyung-woo to do various humiliating things. He also lands in jail a couple of times. The movie is based on true events, blogged by the unfortunate soul Kim Ho-sik. Now the movie also gets a US remake, which should be out next year. I really don’t see the meaning in this, because I have trouble imagining how this movie could be made any better. Just watch it if you haven’t already. It is really great. It is also the only movie not directed by a guy with the name Kim.
Spring, summer, fall, winter, spring (2003) is a very quiet low pace movies, which also reflects in the beautiful scenery and the changing seasons effect on it. The movie almost only takes place in and around a floating temple, in a lake. In this temple lives an old monk with his apprentice, and they help to give spiritual advice to visitors. It is a challenge to convert the movie to words. Every line and every scene is executed in a minimalistic way, to sort out meaningless chit chat and info, and bring only the essential touching bits of information that makes your brain settle at ease. Some ignorant people may find this movie boring, however evolutionary progressive people will enjoy this movie and reflect on the important things in life afterwards. Watch this movie alone, to make sure you don’t have any of the first categories of persons near you at the time.