Tuesday, February 11, 2020

So... looking for more good Korean movies?

Sunday’s Oscar upset was not only an overdue recognition of Bong Joon Ho, who has been making superlative films ever since 2003’s Memories of Murder¸ but also of the South Korean movie industry as a whole, which has long been one of world cinema’s most reliable producers of compelling commercial cinema.

For those of you now on the hunt for other quality Korean films or recent vintage, I can of course offer the same list of relatively recent hits that any Asian cinema fan will give you: JSA; The Good, The Bad, and The Weird; Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance; Snowpiercer; Old Boy; A Bittersweet Life; The Handmaiden; I Saw the Devil; Siri, etc. But I can also offer you a sampling of classic Korean films that are marked by the same combination of casual violence, personal drama and mordant humor that would seem to be a kind of stylistic trademark of Korean cinema as a whole.

The Housemaid (Dir: Kim Ki-Young, 1960). Kim Ki-Young’s insane tale of a model nuclear family exploded by the intrusion of an unhinged young woman into their carefully managed domestic sphere. An oft-referenced classic of Korean cinema.


A Devilish Homicide, aka A Bloodthirsty Killer (Dir: Lee Yong-Min, 1965). A chilling noir nightmare that slides between family horror and crime drama.

Devil! Take the Train to Hell! (Dir: No-shik Park, 1977) A stylish, Japanese-set revenge drama from actor/director No-shik Park. Here Park plays a blind musician who roams the back streets of Tokyo in the wee hours, using his preternatural martial arts abilities to exact revenge against the four former Japanese soldiers who robbed him of his sight and murdered his wife. Bo-Yeong Ahn makes a colorful sidekick as a similarly empowered village girl out for revenge against the same men.

Iodo, aka Io Island (Dir: Kim Ki-Young, 1977) Housemaid director Kim Ki-Young once again explores the realms of the sexes as alien spheres, this time by placing a beleaguered male protagonist within an isolated community of women. It’s a story that owes a seeming debt to Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, though it’s injected with enough of Kim’s own labyrinthine weirdness to make it indelibly his own.

A Woman Chases the Butterfly of Death (Dir:Kim Ki-Young, 1978) Kim Ki-Young returns with this surreal rumination on death, possession and butterfly collecting.

The Hand of Fate (Dir: Han Hyeong-Mo, 1954) An interesting hybrid; part tragic romance, part political allegory, part spy thriller and part anti-communist propaganda. Made at a time when Korean cinema, along with Korean society as a whole, was struggling back toward recovery after the Korean War. It was, while not a commercial success, a technical step forward in terms of its crisp editing and challenging bifurcated structure. Not to mention that it featured Korea’s first onscreen kiss.

We cult cinema fanatics are nothing if not covetous, so I have to admit that, as one of many scribes who have been championing Korean popular cinema for years now, I have to admit to feeling a bit bereft now that Sunday’s Oscars has let the cat out of the bag. Sadly, Korean cinema is no longer the treasured little secret of myself and a few other like-minded film geeks—and that’s as it should be. Any commercial cinema as artful, technically accomplished, and bearing such a unique perspective as this deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.

4 comments:

Tony Brubaker said...

I actually once knew this crack-head slag who blew me regularly for dosh, i used to love pulling the birds knickers down and seeing her bum and twat. I played this game with the bint where-by as the slag was gobblin` my chopper i said to the bird "whats your favourite colour ?" and the dirty slut said "Purple!, whats yours", i said back "Brown, and i`ve always wanted to get my willy brown without paint, any ideas how i could do it ?", the bird finished guzzling down a massive wad of spunk that i`d just squirted out of the end of willy into her gob, and then said that she knew a hole where i could stick my knob that would get it covered and coated with lovely brown smelly stuff, then i (pretending not to know what the bird was talking about) asked her !!!!!!!!!! (arsed, get it !!!!!!!!!!) where i might find such a hole, and then the bird bent over and pulled her gorgeous arse-hole wide open (and her lovely twat was opening up as well from the pulling open of the arse cheeks) and told me very sweetly and innocently to shove my willy into it, so obviously i did and after about 10 minutes of hard-arse fucking i unloaded yet another massive wad of spunk up her amazing bum (whilst i reached around and rubbed her clit red raw and finger fucked her at the same time!). When i pulled my willy out the stink of shit was unbelievable (there was a lot of shit on the floor as well where it had squelched out past my knob from the thrusting of the dick in and out of her bum) and my knob was totally immersed in the birds shit too, the bird then turned around and said "you did want to get your willy brown, so i thought i`d provide you with the most pleasurable way to achieve your dream, so to speak", then as an incredible bonus the slag blew me again, this time licking and eating all her own shit off of my dick until i finally gave her a perfect 'spunk desert' to follow the poop by unloading yet another truly megalithic wad of jizz down her lushious throat. It was one of the greatest sexual experiences of my life, and with an ugly smelly 40 year-old crack-head slag as well, would you credit it!.

John F. Kennedy said...

I performed literally every imaginable, conceivable and possible sex-act in the known universe with Marilyn Monroe on numerous occasions circa 1960, but i have to admit that as incredible and memorable as those sex-sessions with Marilyn were i would still have gladly missed out on them completely in exchange for somehow being able to magically travel forward in time by 25 years to 1985 so that i could`ve spent the rest of my life having my knob squashed and squeezed between the truly astounding 17 year-old Pauline Hickeys mind-bogglingly perfect tits (and unloading literally half-a-pint of spunk all over them at regular 10-minute intervals preferably forever ! ! !, without her aging of course, otherwise after 70 years i`d have been tit-fucking an ugly old slag of 87 ! ! !). Now you must understand that as incredible as Marilyn Monroe was she was still as nothing when compared to the literal living breathing vision of mega-titted loveliness that was the truly amazing 17 year-old Pauline Hickey from 1985. That stunning bird was unlike anything i`ve ever seen before or since and tit-fucking the bird for the next 10,000 years non-stop 24 hours-a-day uninterrupted would`ve been a million times better than getting taken out by a snipers bullet in Deeley Plaza on November 22nd 1963 ! ! !. Now people say i was shot by a geezer who was jealous of me because he knew i`d been fucking, buggering, sodomizing, 69-ing and spunking all over Marilyn (and literally hundreds of other gorgeous sexy 18 year-old Hollywood starlets from the mid-1950`s) on a regular basis for years, but completely irrespective of that i still know that tit-fucking the unbelievable 17 year-old Pauline Hickey forever would`ve been infinitely more exciting that any political bull-shit like the so-called Cuban missile crisis ! ! !. Pauline was a true Sex-Goddess for all eternity, and that scum J. Edgar Hoover can go fuck himself, the dirty queer bastard.

The Pauline Hickey Obsessed Looney said...

Its interesting of course that George Best is still thought of as one of the greatest players of all time (which he was, no question about it) but he still quite understandably says that THE greatest and most legendary thing he ever achieved was when he traveled to the Scottish Highlands in 1985 to a cozy and secluded cottage that he`d rented for the week-end for a secret rendezvous with...er...can you guess who he was meeting there...! ?...thats right...you guessed it...first time...the truly astonishing 17 year-old Pauline Hickey, he always said it was THE most astonishing week-end of lust and sexual ecstacy he`d ever experienced in his life as he proceeded to perform literally every imaginable, conceivable and possible sex-act in the known universe with her for the entire 72 hours, although, surprise surprise, he also always emphasized that the absolute highlight of the week-end was on the Sunday when he spent no less than 10 hours non-stop bombay-rolling (tit-fucking) the bird senseless (and unloading literally half-a-pint of spunk all those astoundingly perfect tits at regular 10 minute intervals during the entire 10 hour period, there-by also giving her quite a few pearl necklaces in the process as well, obviously). BTW, another profound and true thing he always said about that incredible 10 hour bombay-roll was that having his knob squashed and squeezed between arguably THE most mind-bogglingly unbelievable and perfect tits of all-time was the equivalent of winning the World Cup 20 times in a row ! ! !, just to put into perspective how mind-blowing the amazing 17 year-old Pauline Hickeys tits were 35 years ago ! ! !.

Todd said...

You must be joking geezer, this is one of the most laughably transparent scams and cons of all-time, now get back to your pictures of Pauline Hickey like a good little wanker.