A Bittersweet Life

A Bittersweet Life – Dalkomhan insaeng – 2005

A Bittersweet Life is the movie that inspired me to open this blog. I tried to briefly explain it all in my first entry, and then for some reason, i just never got back to it. You know, they say things always happen for a reason, and so after stalling for so long waiting for the right moment  to share this with you, something (or should i say somebody?) happened and made me change my mind. And so here it goes:

A Bittersweet Life is a 2005 movie by Kim Ji-Woon. It tells the extremely intense story of Kim Sun-woo, an enforcer and hotel manager. His mobster boss, Mr.Kang, has to go out of town for some time and asks him to look after his little girlfriend Hee-soo, jealous and afraid she might be seeing younger men while he’s away. Hee-soo does in fact have a boyfriend, but when Sun-woo finds out, he surprisingly shows mercy on her. This results into an act of betrayal towards his boss, and that’s where everything starts going extremely wrong.. Mr Kang is determined to kill him. Sun-woo is determined to fight for his life. and so a big masterpieced path of revenge is set.

This movie is undeniably inspired by Oldboy. It’s about vengeance, about somebody who has to go thru a lot of violence to save his life, about tragedy and betrayal. The protagonist is Lee Byung-hun, that we have seen before in Cut and Joint Security Area (also from Park Chan-wook).

It is also about preciousness in a world that is cruel, and wrong, and those little special happy moments that make it worth it.  Sun-woo is alienated from society, and falls in love with the thought of a woman who he’s only met for one day. He never sees her again, but in order to preserve her beauty he is determined to fight everything he has ever known, and sacrifice himself. There’s so much violence and blood combined with a sense of distant poetic tragedy, and Kim Ji-woon does an immaculate job at showing it. All topics that deeply influence and touch me.

If i had to pick only one word to describe this movie, it would definitely be: INTENSE. Absolutely a must see. Especially if you have somebody in mind..

THIRST

omg omg omg. this morning i woke up to a message from my very dear friend Nicola Vinciguerra.

it was a link to the new Park Chan Wook movie trailer!! you know you’ve been waiting for this:

The movie is called Thirst, and it’s about vampires. Specifically, it’s about a devoted catholic priest who is turned into vampire against his will as a medical experiment went wrong, and falls in love with a woman (i see tons of dogmas being approached here, and i’m loving it)

The main actor is Song Kang-ho of Sympathy for Mr.Vengeance!! i love how he’s always using the same people in all his movies.. it makes the atmosphere familiar, and challenging, and just awesome. this is gonna be good. Park already teased us a little with how amazing he can be when it comes to vampires when he released Cut..

the movie will be in theaters in Korea April 30th. I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Cinderella

Cinderella – 2006

From Wikipedia: Cinderella is a 2006 film directed by Bong Man-dae. All of Hyeon-su’s friends want the perfect face. However their dreams turn to nightmares when they all get killed, and Hyeon-su must uncover her mother Yoon-hee’s sinister secrets.

I honestly don’t have a whole lot to say about this movie. It was just ok and extremely slow paced (aka boring!) but i’m posting it here for two major reasons: number one is that the poster for it just rules and deserves to be shown, and number two, most important of all, is that this film features a bunch of schoolgirls butchering themselves MPD Psycho style – some sort of entity makes them kill themselves.. the slow and gorey way!

When it comes to MPD Psycho, that’s where i get emotional, since it is my all time favorite manga.. i’m not gonna lie, that series is just absolute perfection, and anything that reminds me of it is going to be posted in here regardless if it’s good or not.

The Quiet Family

The Quiet Family – Joyonghan Gajok – 1998

The construction of an important road on the mountains renders the hotel business very attractive for a family that decides to run an inn. But the road construction is postponed and customers do not show up. When finally luck appears to be changing, for some reason the guests have difficulty surviving the night. Their first guest commits suicide and so does the couple arriving the next night. Afraid of ruin, the family reaches the conclusion that it is better to keep some shovels around, and start burying one body after the other.

This is the debut film of beloved director Kim Ji-Woon (see also: A Tale Of Two Sisters)  and falls into a category that i admire particularly: dark comedy. That is not only because i’ve been a really goth teenager in my past, but mostly since it has the power to combine two of the best things in the world, horror and laughter. Kim Ji-Woon‘s style is at an early stage and yet already amusing, the set design, use of rich colors, and innovative camera-work are spectacular and largely responsible for the eerie atmosphere. Also, the family uncle is the one and only Choi Min-Sik(the protagonist of Oldboy).. which is only a plus. His presence would make any movie interesting by default.

Many of you oriental movie lovers already saw this movie without even knowing it. It was in fact remade by Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer) as a stop animation/musical in 2001, under the name of The Happiness Of The Katakuris. This is one of the extremely rare times where i won’t bash a remake, and i have a very good reason to stop me. Just a few words about this remake: singing and dancing bloody zombies. Amazing!

All in all, The Quiet Family sets a peculiar balance between humor and suspense. It’s funny and tense all at the same time, from start to finish. Visually appealing, interesting characters, and lots of bloody corspes being buried at night.  What’s not to love?

Yummy Brains 2

well guess what, my attempt at soliciting your interest for something other than bloody ultra violence is done.

for now, i’m just gonna go back and write about what i like best: gruesome movies and funny looking zombie cupcakes.

hmm.. brains.