Colin Moore on what’s hot in Korea!

MH-Asia

30/08/07
With Colin Moore

The past couple weeks have been a bit uninspiring at Central City, the mall complex here in Banpo-dong, Seoul that houses the closest movie theatre. “My Mother and Her Guest,” “D-War,” and the Gwang-ju massacre send-up “Hwa-ryo han Hyu-ga” (Splendid Vacation) are holding the top positions in Korea this week. “The Simpsons Movie,” also made its debut, playing on a couple hundred screens across the country. Here’s a surprise. After a two year delay, Canadian director David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence” has finally been let off the leash here in Korea, playing in one theatre. It made $309 last week, according to Box Office Mojo. Apparently not the kind of violence Korean audiences are looking for. There are other options.

DU SARAM IDA (2007)

A new horror film, “Du Saram Ida” (Someone Behind You), cracked the top ten in its first week of release. Is there is a good reason to see this film? No more than most teen based cut-em-ups, but we’ve all gone for the cake while the burgers were still stretching the stomach lining, so…indulge. In “Du Saram,” a high school student (“Oldboy”‘s Yoon Jin-seo) witnesses the tragic near death of her aunt/bride at a wedding hall. It’s the film’s first jolt, as she slams into the wedding hall lobby floor from a balcony above. It’s horrifying, but unexplained, and for the next hour, the only thing that seems clear is that decent ordinary folk are doing things that they wouldn’t normally do. The bride’s sister straddles her on the hospital bed and stabs her repeatedly to death. A classmate visits our heroine in the school infirmary and attacks her with scissors. The homeroom teacher later uses her head as a battering ram in the girls’ locker room before he’s stopped by another student, who attempts to kill her himself that evening. All confusing behavior, and enough to get her huffing and puffing but not enough to break her routine, that is until Mom has a go at her with a kitchen knife. A red flag goes up. They’re all temporary villains, but also victims overtaken by deadened pupils and an unstoppable urge to take this girl’s life. She’s an athlete however, and manages to somehow survive each attack, even dishing out a little socky socky of her own. But finally she realizes sticking around may not be the safest idea. She leaves her family and her boyfriend and goes on a road trip with a mysterious student who claims to have the answer, or at least the clue to one. Can she trust him?

“Du Saram” borrows the original “Scream” movie’s premise that there are two villains instead of one, but for some reason gives it away well ahead of time. Could the title be any less vague (the literal Korean to English translation is “There are two people”). The poster also features a shaken girl flanked by two bad boys with bad intentions, the boyfriend, and the mysterious student (one variation of the poster has a trickle of blood running down the side of her bleached white face. It’s been used and overused as both a Korean and Asian horror image, though no more than the American action film tag, “He’s a cop on the edge”). If the filmmakers didn’t have any reservations in giving away the culprits, then they must have at least put their faith in something else. They did. By giving us a hearty helping of characters capable of turning nutzo on a whim, it becomes harder to believe that anyone is really pulling the strings at all, anyone human anyway. With the supernatural angle the poster’s accuracy is called into question. Stay sharp. Attacks come quickly and without warning. Scissors, knives, and swords cut, slice, stab, and impale, bucking the notion that most Asian horror deaths come at the end of a rope (though there’s one of those too).

Death in “Du Saram” isn’t handed out as punishment for the sexually permissive. In fact, aside from the quite normal occurrence of school girls in school uniforms, the film ignores that side of popular American and European horror. The closeness of the bonds between family and friendships in Asian communities though is fair game for violence. It’s what gives many Korean horror films their nastiest edge. When our high schooler from “Du Saram” is fighting for her life, it’s unnerving but not necessarily disturbing. She’s innocent but at this point she’s also an individual. Bring in her family though and the stakes are raised, not only in terms of body count, but in threatening a sacred institution.

SILMIDO (2003)

Comparisons are likely, though what film beyond “Road House” wouldn’t this apply to. After 100 years of film, it’s difficult to for a film like “Silmido” to stand out altogether, especially given its neat packaging into the “misfits with a macho purpose” sub-genre of action films. The story is based on true events. In 1971, a group of men labeled as “communist agents” (though since admitted to be South Korean, albeit criminals) sent a minor ripple through Seoul after arming themselves on a mission to confront then president Park Chung-hee at Cheong Wae Dae, the Blue House. In dramatic “Gauntlet” form their route was cut off by a military barricade better equipped in arms and numbers. Out of options, the combatants took their own lives, dropping enough grenades to turn their bus into a metal coffin.

With “Silmido,” director Kang Woo-suk has taken pieces of the Korean history and hoo-rahh-rahhed them into a surprisingly watchable action film. It was the most successful Korean film, selling 10 million tickets, until the release of Taegukgi a year later in 2004. Even when it’s critical of the higher establishments of the Korean military and its politics, “Silmido” still succeeds as a tragic tale of brotherhood. You’ll recognize the scenario immediately. There be trash in the world. A government with unlimited resources but little forethought decides to take it out. The Korean CIA (KCIA) puts a job wanted ad out for the expendables of Korean society and Jae-hyun (Ahn Seong-gi) is their recruiter. A small group of criminals and deviants are recruited and taken to Silmido, an island off the coast of Inchon. More importantly, it’s within striking distance of the communist North by land or sea. Within minutes, we meet and come to know the personalities we’ll see get roughhoused into a disciplined combat unit known as the 684th: the quiet leader In-chan (Sol Kyung-gu), the clown, the bully Seung-pil (Chung Jae-young), the experienced hand, and others, as well as their trainers whose input have more consequence as the story moves on.

“Silmido” is far from a North Korean ideology basher. North Korea and its Great Leader are the undeniable motivation for the 684th’s creation – to destroy the Northern palace in Pyongyang before of after decapitating its master, Kim Il-sung. But the mission is cancelled just as the boats push off. In a development that would only be jeered at in film, the government has shifted its stance from one of covert extermination to something closer to sunshine policy. The boys are crushed, their dreams of prosperity and reinstatement into civilian life after returning are snuffed out. The rest of the story centers on the core’s lapse into idleness, then rebellion. They’re demoralized, and without a target they’re essentially excess baggage with mouths that need to be silenced. Liquidation is ordered by KCIA command. Jae-hyun is furious. He does what he can to save the men, by active engagement elsewhere or otherwise. In the end though, he’s as expendable as the rest, a play thing for policy and politicians.

The training sequences in “Simildo” unquestionably outmatch the brutality of military coming-of-age films like “Full Metal Jacket”. The standard 5 am run comes off like a sweet sixteen party compared to the daily beatings and abuse of the 684th. When one man falls to his death during a rope scaling drill, he’s burned on a funeral pyre and extolled as a lesson learned. There are enough of these moments to arouse suspicion of “Silmido” being anything close to realistic Korean military training, but they do serve the purpose of drawing the trainees closer together. Unfortunately, “Silmido” sacrifices the hard edge of a would be serious drama for periodic slapstick antics that don’t fit the subject or genre, and a too triumphant music score that plays somewhere between “Hogan’s Heroes” and “Conan the Barbarian.” Still, strong performances by the four leads are enough to create some genuine moments in “Silmido,” and pull it out of “Uncommon Valor” territory, though barely.

In past interviews, director Kang has admitted his interest in the Silmido story as an entertainment vehicle rather than as a political platform. Intended or not though, the 684th’s rebellion against their leaders and eventually their government is as much a condemnation against supposed good government as it is bad. Criminals or not, by the time they’ve become a dirty little secret to be sanitized, they’ve also become a symbol of the common man. More anti-establishment than anti-communist. More pro-humanitarian than pro-ideology.