“Love and Other Disasters”, “World of Silence”, “200 Pounds of Beauty”

Moviehole Asia
Number 2

With Colin Moore

Another week in Korea and Jack Sparrow’s going to poke somebody’s eye out. The posters are still plastered about, though “Ocean’s 13” is currently on the throne. Along with “Shrek” and the webhead, Seoul seems to be just as three-quel heavy as any other city this summer. Although a flag-sized “Transformers” banner could easily signify a change of theme: summer of the action figure (What? You don’t have your Don Cheadle doll?). Korea’s own filmmakers are fighting back, but not in traditional summer movie ways. Adult fare is on the marquee this week, including Cannes best actress winner “Mil-yang” (Secret Sunshine) and “Geom Eun-Gip” (Black House; see next week’s review), a horror/thriller vying for top spot. Whether they’ll stand up to what Tinseltown has on deck is a tough call. John McClane’s been sited slapping faces to attention just by bus ads alone. Unless the domestic industry can bring a younger crowd in soon, America will entertain the under 30s here for another week. Still, it’s a good day for a movie. Korea’s wet season is ripping the sky a new rain-hole, perfect opportunity to rent or…not buy cheap high-quality bootlegs.

Recently on DVD

“Joyong-han Saesang” (World of Silence)

Entitled “Missing Girl” on DVD’s subtitles. An honest attempt at clevering itself into a Sixth Sense style thriller. The pacing is there, listless and unsettling. It lets you slowly sink into the lives of Kim, a scruffy cop without a razor (Park Yong-Woo; “My Scary Girl”) and Ryu, a lone wolf photographer (Kim Sang-Kyung; “Memories of Murder”) with a possible talent for reading people’s minds. The bad news: girls from the same orphanage are being abducted, drowned and left for discovery. The good: our heroes both become involved in the serial kidnapping case, Ryu via a potential future victim he’s caring for, and Kim as the detective assigned to the case. Already, it’s familiar enough territory for a thriller. A back-story involving the suicide of a former schoolmate of Ryu’s adds curiosity but not enough to make up for tired ideas. Find a recent Asian thriller that doesn’t have a schoolgirl doing herself in. Moody shots of black leather gloves and a creepy collage made from the photos of young girls should keep you groaning. In fact, the film works better as a party game entitled, Name The Film This Idea Was Lifted From than as any original work. The Silence of the Lambs nabs a couple that shouldn’t be hard to miss. But what film isn’t influenced by another? This is true…and that being said, Vanilla Ice sends his love. Still, the first half of the film provides enough mystery behind the Ryu character and how he’s integrated into the kidnapping story to keep you wondering, until you stop caring. The ending is as contrived as it is annoying. One two many gimmicks.

“Minyeo-neun Goerowo” (200 Pounds of Beauty)

A 2006 hit with a musical version in the works, “200 Pounds of Beauty” seems a fitting commentary from a part of the world growing more appearance-hungry . Any one-sheet featuring a babe, a double-chinned child of obesity, and a hunk between them is a 20th century fable the West knows well. The timing is right for an East Asian perspective.

Hanna (Kim, Ah-jung) is a behind-the-scenes kind of girl. She supports herself and her Alzheimer’s afflicted father with two sources of income: providing phone sex from her living room, and as the voice of the latest Korean pop powder puff, Ammy. Hanna is the talent, Ammy the superficial knockout. Hanna belts it out from a rickety platform under the stage. Ammy struts it on top. And Sang-jun (Ju Jin-mo) is the music producer they’re both sweet on. One evening, Hanna overhears Sang-jun admitting to Ammy his distaste for all those fat and ugly, though he says it with as much spite for Ammy, who refuses to pay any respect to the woman who is really making her a star.

Hanna’s heartbroken. She bribes a plastic surgeon to give her the makeover she feels she needs to live a normal life, and hopefully win the boy. Only beauty will get the beast. Sure, but an audience gorging on eight dollar snack combos needs to feel the human spirit can still triumph over eye-liner and perky breasts, so Hanna falters. As the renovated Jenny, she auditions for Sang-jun, now a producer without a product. Bingo. Job. Contact. Random stalkers and admirers of beauty. Life is wonderful as Jenny, until stardom and her new look get the better of her, and she forgets the qualities that truly made her special. A house-pet with any degree of TV exposure will know this story, though maybe not one more likeable. Yes, it’s likeable, strangely for reasons that make Korean dramas such as “Missing Girl” disappointing – mixing genres. In “Missing Girl” at least two minor characters play comic relief, one to the extent of grinning buffoon, to create lighter moments in between the serious ones. It comes off like Ace Ventura in The French Connection, an unnecessary distraction. “200 Pounds” does something similar by upping the film’s melancholic moments, but they’re done with far more authenticity than the usual romantic comedy camp. It’s surprisingly well-done with characters that could have easily gone over the top (see “Love and Other Disasters”….below. Don’t actually see it). Ammy is a bitch no question, but never goes far enough beyond the token hot diablo to warrant despising her. As much as she victimizes herself by her nastiness, we’re shown the world that victimizes her, Sang-jun included.

In the last decade, Asia has ballooned into something of a nip-tuck Disney World. Surgery clinics offer everything their international colleagues do, from rhinoplasty to sexflips, often at discounted prices. Apkujong, one of Seoul’s better known vanity districts, is said to boast up to 400 clinics alone. Both Asians and foreigners are biting. But they’re also shoveling it in. Even in Korea’s less active cities, it’s far from being the obesity parade trolling down Main Street U.S.A. but opinions differ on exactly the proper way to measure it (see Asian BMI theory for details). “200 Pounds” comments on both trends. However, it doesn’t exactly say that being overweight can be beautiful too, more “do what you have to do, just don’t let it go to your head.” Good enough for now.

“Love and Other Disasters”

Not an Asian film or even a DVD release here as yet, but seeing as it is currently playing in Korean theatres, a quick word. A second rate comedy layered on a fourth rate idea. Brittany Murphy does the “who needs love anyway” thing in a way you wouldn’t care about if it saved sea otters gargling in crude oil. She plays Jacks (Murphy), a Vogue fashion intern, with a style ripped straight out of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” who spends her days doing things I’d rather forget about. Throw in a gay flat-mate equally lovelorn and a half-dozen Three’s Company inspired mistaken-gender conundrums that go off like novocaine and you’re suddenly regretting the entire photographic process. Not worth explaining storylines.