Secret Reunion

 At the turn of the millennium, a group of three North Korean agents led by the brutal "Shadow" (Jeon Gook-hwan) made an assassination attempt on a defected cousin of Kim Jong-il. The South Korean National Intelligence Service had turned one, Son Tae-soon (Yun Hee-seok), so Agent Lee Han-kyu (Song Kang-ho) and his team are able to get to the scene. It's a bloodbath, and Han-kyu is fired in the wake of the debacle. The other spy, Song Ji-woon (Kang Dong-won) is disavowed, cut off from his pregnant wife in the north. Six years pass, and Han-kyu is now working as a sort of very low-rent private detective, retrieving foreign-born brides who walk out on their husbands. Relying on his pair of idiot assistants gets him poised for a beating on a construction site, when the fight is broken up by the foreman - Ji-woon, living incognito under the the name Park Ki-joon. They recognize each other immediately, though don't show it, and soon Han-kyu has recruited Ji-woon to work for him. Each thinks the other's low circumstances is a cover, and that learning what is really going on will get them rewarded by their old masters.
The opening sequence of Secret Reunion is as good as this sort of spy movie stuff gets, fusing slick tradecraft with over-the-top action in a way that manages to evoke both the realistic and fantasy modes of spy cinema, set Shadow up as a villain to be reckoned with, and establish Ji-woon as a decent man without painting him as disloyal. Jang is so assured in this tense, violent territory that it's a bit of a surprise when the movie goes in a different direction.
Which it does; although the plot six years later is still a game of spy-vs-spy, it becomes something of a comedy, from the basic misunderstanding each has of the other's place in the world to their odd-couple antics: Han-kyu has become a slob and a bit of a joke, often bumbling around in ways that suggest he would have made a really terrible field agent, while "Ki-joon" is serious and compassionate. The movie takes us from gritty spy drama to what is frequently broad slapstick, but also lets the characters learn about each other as people rather than enemy agents. Jang manipulates the tone like a master, bringing whimsy and gravitas forward at the appropriate moments to prevent the movie from ever going too far in the direction of silly comedy or overwrought melodrama.
Of course, a lot of this work is from the actors, and the two main guys are brilliant. Song Kang-ho, well, you expect this from; it's just another in a long run of good performances in good movies from him. His disheveled charm fits this material like a glove, but he's not just putting on a familiar role; there's a sense of loss to it because we see him as an intense, forceful guy in the opening act, and there's always intelligence, if combined with wasted potential, to him even in his more goofball moments. Kang Dong-won plays off him nicely as the straight man much of the time, but also does well in projecting a guy clearly torn in many directions: He's a good man who hates violence but is still loyal to his country, and affection for Han-kyu does a nice job of sneaking into his portrayal. The pair never slip into practiced buddy-cop banter, but certainly grow closer.
If Secret Reunion has a weakness, it's perhaps in the end, as the spy material eventually grows more serious. A few logical holes appear, and while the film had never been perfectly realistic, it stretches the bounds it had established for itself in multiple directions. Not to the breaking point, but enough to be noticeable, especially when compared to how smooth things had been before.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

If you've ever been poor if you ever had to work by a dirty machine for minimum wages just to be able to stay alive, you'll appreciate that director Chan-wook Park knows something about the pure desperation such conditions can bring about. And if you've ever lost somebody that you truly loved more than yourself, the most emotional scene in this film will probably make you cry.
Vengeance is one of humanity's more lamentable instincts, and one we'll have to overcome as a species one day. When one acts out of vengeance one seeks only to hurt, and when people start hurting each other because they're hurt themselves, everybody ends up hurting and nobody really gains anything. That's what happens when the main character's lack of one sense drives the film, both form and function wise. Occasionally, we lose one of the two ways in which we interact with the film (sound, sight). The loss of one sense adds value to the other. It makes the normally assumed other seem all the more there. Unlike most Hollywood takes on this particular sense absence, we get a bit of a glimpse into what the absence means to the character, and not just what it means to us looking at the character as third person. What results are some very nice moments that are film using itself as a medium to one of its potentials.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a very original and well-done film. It takes a very common theme(especially for Asian films...) - revenge - and turns it on it's head. Usually in a revenge-style film, there are clear-cut "good guys" and "bad guys". The good guy is wronged and seeks vengeance against the bad buy - end of film. But SYMPATHY is very different, as there are several people wronged in one way or another, and the only clear-cut "bad guys" may be the shady organ dealers (explained below), but are really just bit players in a much larger and more complex picture. SYMPATHY is really a sad film of desperation, and the lengths that individuals may go to for family.
This is the story of Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin). Ryu is both deaf and mute. He has a sister (Ji-Eun Lim) that needs a kidney transplant. Ryu lost his job, therefore he has no money to pay for a legal transplant. So he tries to buy a kidney from the black market, but he is fooled by the smugglers and loses his own kidney and the little amount of money he had. Then his girlfriend, Cha Yeong-mi (Donna Bae), gives Ryu the idea to kidnap his former boss', Park Dong- jin (Kang-ho Song), daughter, Yu-sun (Bo-bae Han). What follows then is a series of events, all evolving acts of revenge and violence. Being a part of the 'Vengeance Trilogy', you would expect that the script is about revenge, but the story Park and his crew created is truly amazing. I'm not gonna spoil it here, but the script takes a few terrific, mind-blowing turns. The characters make weird but real decisions, which provokes a chain of events that you won't believe. The dialogs are also quite well written, so is the rest of the movie. There is also quite a nice share of touching scenes, and also lots of violent and bloody ones. In my opinion, the screenplay is for sure the strongest point of 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance'.
The film is comfortably uncertain of its genre and impartial to the characters it follows on such a subjective journey as a mortal vendetta. Think of how contrived it would have to be though, in order to submit to more widely accessible conventions. Watching this film, we realize why it's difficult in some revenge tales to make one character sympathetic and the other rotten to the core. No matter what impression we get of them, there are still certain things that could happen to them that require a kind of justice society is not made to allow. If the film remained purely within the confines of a thriller, it could not have seize and squeeze all the dramatic, comic and voyeuristic possibilities of each scene. 

The Quiet Family

 Remade as The Happiness of the Katakuris by Takashi Miike, The Quiet Family may lack that film’s zombies, claymation sequences and The Sound of Music parodies, but has much which Miike held on to. Essentially, the plotlines are the same – a family buys a mountain lodge; a number of guests are killed off either by themselves or by others; the family attempt to cover them up – whilst Kim Ji-Woon’s original is a similarly odd concoction. After all, it features one of the more eclectic soundtracks to feature in a Korean movie, from the mariachi-flavoured hip-hop of Tres Delinquents, which accompanies the opening credits, to the likes of the Partridge Family, the Stray Cats and long forgotten eighties goth band Love and Rockets elsewhere. Indeed, The Quiet Family may best be regarded as an acquired taste.
That said, this is a film which is likely to travel well. The cast members’ subsequent credits include the likes of Joint Security Area, OldBoy and Shiri, which is likely to attract interest, whilst director Kim went on to make A Tale of Two Sisters. Moreover, The Quiet Family possess a fine, mordant wit; it’s not so much a black comedy as bleak comedy. Certainly, anyone expecting something a little more madcap owing to its subject matter may very well come away disappointed. Rather the humour is decidedly deadpan, a situation which serves the film to a better degree. There are no noisy attempts at winning the audience over, simply an acceptance that those with a taste for such comedies – and The Quiet Family is primarily a comedy – will find the film on their own terms.
Yet in being so low key, Kim does have a problem in sustaining momentum. The bodies may pile up soon enough, yet it’s questionable as to whether he has anywhere to go. From the opening scenes we get nods towards the horror genre (ominous crane shots and aural rumbles à la The Evil Dead), yet these are never truly latched onto. Likewise the thriller elements – courtesy of the arrival of a gangland hitman as well as a police officer in the latter stages – are never developed as fully as they could be. As an aside consider Shallow Grave or Les Diaboliques which both gained more mileage from a single corpse – perhaps Kim has simply bitten off more than he can chew?
Indeed, The Quiet Family has a ragged quality which is perhaps unsurprising for a debut feature. It succeeds in the quieter moments (many of the film’s delights come through the petty family antagonisms as opposed to the bigger set pieces) and more than gets by on them, but there is a continual feeling that in order to be more than just a good film it needs something a little extra – most likely a dash of suspense or a greater sense of direction. Certainly, the latter element can be detected during The Quiet Family’s conclusion as rather than build to a finale, it simply peters out.

Milyang (Secret Sunshine)

Any Korean film that has Kang Ho-Song in it is worth every minute you spend watching it. This Korean bumble-bee makes the most of whatever his job requires him to do. And the kinds of roles he chooses can baffle even the most determined critic. They are anything from an obscure henchman (The Chaser) to a mad, blood-thirsty vampire (Thirst), a misfit dad (The Host) to a vengeful one (Mr. Vengeance), not to forget the North Korean border guard (Joint Security Area) and “the weird” in The Good, The Bad and The Weird; at present, he is one of the best known faces outside his country. He doesn’t bother about how much screen time his roles garner, yet his skill (despite the fact that he’s never been formally trained) is a cocktail of versatility. Which is why I blindly believed in this 2007 Golden Palm nominee that promised a LOT of tearful moments, with Ho-Song playing second-fiddle to one of the most harrowing female characters that 2007 ever saw. True, Do-yeon Jeon won a lot of accolades for her awesome acting, but let it be known that I wouldn’t have watched Secret Sunshine, if not for Ho-Song.
Any movie that begins with a scene showing the protagonist arriving at an unfamiliar place usually ends up with the place itself, town or city, big or small, getting heavily intertwined with his/her life. And so, the apprehension is already underway when we see Shin-ae (Do-yeon) arriving at the small town of Miryang (translated as Secret Sunshine in Chinese) with her son, having decided to come and live in her husband’s birthplace after he dies in a car accident, leaving behind a successful music career in Seoul, evidently out of mental depression, and having effectively renounced any faith in God. Her appearance is perpetually bleached and harried; almost ready to burst into a dam of tears at any given moment, yet she is composed and stoic when it comes to being social. Somehow, she finds a foothold here pretty quickly, stimulating the interest of the local mechanic (Ho-Song), whom she befriends quickly. Starting with piano-tutoring, she quickly manages to secure a deal to buy a new piece of land and start a music school. Life seems to open up a consoling, encouraging vista as she rapidly comes out of her depression, until tragedy strikes and takes away her little son. Shattered and uncertain with her future, she finally accepts God into her life, seeking emotional solace. Little does she know that the very faith that brings her peace holds a different kind of surprise, one that is both cruel and demeaning to her, pulling her deep into an abyss of confusion, grief and madness. The cumulative effect of all her pent-up anger against the world results in her taking a totally destructive, enraged path of action in order to satiate it, one that could only be described as a prelude to Charlotte Gainsbourgh’s character in Antichrist.
Right from the beginning, the town itself seems to hide a lot within the psyche of its residents. An evangelic, born-again pharmacist who seems too involved in other’s affairs, a shopkeeper who takes offence upon Shin-ae’s recommendation to re-decorate, an amorous mechanic suddenly turning into a man of faith, an adolescent girl who loves her abusive boyfriend, the girl’s father who maintains a blatant disgust for her and a creepy interest in Shin-ae, her perpetually mute son suddenly giving a beautiful speech in school, the very same women who seem openly affectionate towards her while all the time indulging in crass gossip behind her back…we just don’t seem to find answers to what lies behind all these social anomalies. The director lays out all of them on a platter at face value, from the point-of-view of Shin-ae, and proceeds with the narrative from there.
The lives of all the people mentioned above shall come to change, as Shin-ae’s life takes cruel and horrible twists and turns, through the realms of retribution and repentance, culminating into a shattering effect towards the end. We see all the aforesaid characters considerably changed, for better.. The shopkeeper looks happier after business improves, as a result of following up with Shin-ae’s recommendation, the pharmacist’s household ends up riddled with guilt, the young adolescent girl finally decides to take a stand on her life, taking up a hair-dressing job, and the mechanic finds himself evolved into a refined and supportive man with no illicit feelings towards our protagonist… At the same time, we find that as Shin-ae’s life takes a toll into intense grief, she inadvertently has an effect on everyone else in the town, directly or indirectly. Her suffering tips the emotional scale of the entire town in turn, while affecting others, rendering her simply as an object of total pity.
Though Milyang might seem like an experiment in grief, it is very obviously and conspicuously scripted in such a way so as to make the film more appealing as a thesis on the society in general, unwritten norms that distance you from others if you refuse to comply: an over-enthusiastic mother gets looked down when she wildly applauds her son’s speech in school, a hysterical, grieving grandmother reviles the mother for not following suit and remaining distanced during her son’s funeral, the almost child-like, unconventional chemistry between mother and child, while in private, the juvenile approach she takes to a threat of ransom in return for her child, the stark difference between others’ release of emotions in a prayer hall, and the mother’s livid grief, Shin-ae looking upwards dramatically changing in meaning, before and after she renounces God, a relatively gentle man turning into a monster of rage against someone who stood him up on a formal date. There’s even a heavy criticism (even mockery) of the delusional, evangelical methods of Catholicism which, when considered along with Shin-ae’s state of mind, could be entirely pardonable. Chang-dong Lee has always been a critic of the general culture in Korea, ever since his first film, Green Fish (also starring Ho-Song). In fact, he even found it bittersweet to have been appointed after his tremendous success as a filmmaker, as Minister for Culture and Tourism by the Korean republic, having originally started out as an acclaimed novelist. He resigned after a year, to return to making films.
The stark, simple, sunlit cinematography far away from the chaos of the cities acts as a source of comfort and an aid for consolation. There is a perpetual, documentary feel throughout the film, with long tracking shots mostly behind the protagonist, very unorthodox camera angles and also extended shots of her while she’s grieving alone, even the whole narrative is solely based from Shin-ae’s POV. In fact, I am led to recall watching Kim Ki-Duk’s Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring, thinking of the woman who comes to find peace, as a post-Milyang Shin-ae with acute mental depression.
Yes, there have been several referrals to the movies of Von Trier, and aptly so too with the perpetually traumatized woman being a vacuum pump for your tear-glands and no possible hope in sight. But what Chang-dong Lee actually tries here is to establish a (biblical?) connection between one individual’s suffering and the happiness of some half-a-dozen others while putting forward the question of whether it is really worth it. And if I’m correct in interpreting the abrupt ending (Chang-dong Lee opens his movie with a shot of the sky and closes it with a visual of an ugly patch of earth) as her emotions coming to a full circle, I guess she’ll cope with it on her own terms, unable to ever forget what’s happened, well who can?

By Fazil (at PassionForCinema.com)
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