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The Asian Cinema Trifecta and Inflatable Movie Screens
This Korean period piece feels like a Sherlock Holmes detective story that just happens to be set in another country with a couple of different players. Set in 1910, Jin-ho is a low-rent private eye who specializes in finding cheating wives. He’s trying to save up enough money to buy a cruise ticket to America, where he’s sure there must be tons of cheating spouses. Enter medical student Gwang Su, who has just been told he needs to start studying human bodies instead of animals. When he finds a dead body in the woods, he thinks it’s his lucky day. However, when the body turns out to be the missing son of a local gangster, he panics. Knowing that if he’s found with the body he’ll be killed, he decides to hire Jin-ho to try and find the real killer so he can clear his name.
Of course the pair fall into an enormous web of connected crimes. With a detective and a doctor teaming up, you get the Sherlock Holmes angle (despite being comedic at times, Jin-ho is also a very accomplished detective), and when you add Jin-ho’s love interest, who builds gadgets for him, it’s almost James Bondian. Private Eye is a film I highly recommend, and Jeong-min Hwang won Best Next Wave Actor for his portrayal of Jin-ho.
South Korea gives us this story about a common thug named Sang-Hoon Kim, who makes a living roughing up people who owe his boss money, while spewing forth a stream of obscenities. By the end of the flick, you’ll almost be cussing secondhand, just because you’ll be so used to it by that point. He’s not pleasant to anyone he meets, including high school student Yeon-hee Han. However, she shares his attitude and when they butt heads it eventually leads to an unlikely romance.
As the story unfolds, you find out that Sang-Hoon’s father accidentally stabbed and killed his daughter (Sang’s sister), and while Sang was rushing her to the hospital, his mother was run over by a car as she followed. His father has since served time, but Sang blames him for everything, and visits him from time to time to beat him up. As Sang-Hoon’s romance blossoms with Yeon-hee, he has no idea that her rebellious older brother is now working underneath him as a thug in training, and things eventually come to a head as one gangster struggles to make a name for himself, while the other looks back on his life of brutality and wants to get out. It’s extremely touching, and Yang Ik-June shines as the terrifically understatedSang-Hoon. Well worth finding and watching.
South Korea gives us this story about a common thug named Sang-Hoon Kim, who makes a living roughing up people who owe his boss money, while spewing forth a stream of obscenities. By the end of the flick, you’ll almost be cussing secondhand, just because you’ll be so used to it by that point. He’s not pleasant to anyone he meets, including high school student Yeon-hee Han. However, she shares his attitude and when they butt heads it eventually leads to an unlikely romance.
As the story unfolds, you find out that Sang-Hoon’s father accidentally stabbed and killed his daughter (Sang’s sister), and while Sang was rushing her to the hospital, his mother was run over by a car as she followed. His father has since served time, but Sang blames him for everything, and visits him from time to time to beat him up. As Sang-Hoon’s romance blossoms with Yeon-hee, he has no idea that her rebellious older brother is now working underneath him as a thug in training, and things eventually come to a head as one gangster struggles to make a name for himself, while the other looks back on his life of brutality and wants to get out. It’s extremely touching, and Yang Ik-June shines as the terrifically understated Sang-Hoon. Well worth finding and watching.
