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Rapidly becoming one of my favourite film festivals, The London Korean Film Festival 2013 easily lived up to the high standards set by its predecessors. And it could not have got off to a better start.
HIDE AND SEEK (right), directed by debutant Huh Jung, is simply the best thriller I’ve seen all year, and couldn’t have been a more exciting opening film. We all like the odd twist and turn in our thrillers, and the massive twists towards the end are as breathtaking and unexpected as the best that Hitchcock mustered. Indeed, the packed audience spent the entire film on a constant wave of screams, gasps and sudden releases of laughter.
It stars Sun Hyun-joo as a distracted father, Sung-soo, carrying considerable guilt about the way he treated his brother back when they were children. And as Sung-soo and his family are haunted by a violent, black-clad motorcycle courier, their paranoia rises. Strong on atmosphere, and featuring three fine child actors, this will keep you guessing and peeping through your fingers until the end. Huh Jung made this on a shoestring, and will surely prove himself one to watch when given a bigger budget.
Almost uncategorisable, but I’m going to call it a “rom-com-trag-dram”, MAI RAITIMA from Yoo Ji-tae, starts by focusing on Mai, brought across to Korea as an unwilling bride from Thailand and trapped in a loveless marriage. She is justifiably miserable, unpaid while working at her lecherous brother-in-law’s factory, and verbally assaulted by her mother-in-law. When Soo-young, a chancer, leaps in to help her out, she makes her own leap of faith and flees to Seoul with him. They’re an odd couple, foraging, clad in purple hues, but buoyed up by their passion. It all goes wrong though, when they fall in with some dodgy characters, the plot gets pitch-black, and it almost seems like two films in one.
CODE NAME: JACKAL (right) resembles nothing so much as those creaky old movie vehicles for Elvis and Cliff, by giving leading K-Pop star, Hero Jaejoong, a chance to pout and flex his muscles and puff out his chest while crazed, obsessive fans lust after him. The plot is wafer thin, with Hero playing a heart-throb celebrity with a merciless contract killer on his tail. But despite the best efforts of some reliable character actors and a vaguely Stockholm syndrome twist, this is flimsy, farcical fare, directed by Bae Hyoung-jun.
ROUGH PLAY is also rather underwhelming, featuring a slightly unhinged actor, Young, whose art and life are inseparable. When his career takes off and he becomes an arrogant star, you know those chickens are coming home to roost… eventually. Basically this is the plot of A Star Is Born, but with added violence and lacking any of its redeeming features.
Much more like it is the huge hit movie MIRACLE IN CELL NO 7, directed by Lee Hwan-kyung. Both heartwarming and tearjerking, it flashes back to a case of child abduction and murder from 1997 with the simple soul, Yong-gu as the fall guy. Flashing forward to the present, Yong-gu’s daughter, now a lawyer, seeks to overturn the guilty verdict imposed on her unworldly father. But that only tells a tiny part of the story, as it’s the action in the prison, with fellow felons of all backgrounds and crimes – and the prison warden – getting together to help father and daughter. Not a dry eye in the house. Guaranteed.
You’ll find insight in abundance in the remarkable documentary BHIKKHUNI, from Lee Chang-jae. This follows a group of young women who have decided to become Buddhist nuns in a remote temple, and the director has got the most amazing access into their world. It’s hard and emotional for these aspirants, giving up their worldly lives, family and friends. Sangwook wonders if she’s doing the right thing, as they chant, bow and fast as part of their commitment and sacrifice. But there are sudden flashes of wicked humour in the midst of their work and journeying, and as they progress within the monastery’s tight structure. You’re left to conclude that life is possibly even harder for those they’ve left behind, including Sangwook’s parents, who want their daughter back.
Falling within the same ‘Critic’s Choice’ section of the festival, SOUTH BOUND (right) is a sharp comedy-drama with a political message, from Yim Soon-rye. The back story is of a ‘subversive’ family with surveillance on their every move, who are meanwhile monitoring a rich family, but this soon evolves into a far more involving plot. Known as ‘Choi Guevara’, the ex-movie director and rabble-rouser is married to a woman who used to be known as Joan of Arc, and they are a constant embarrassment to all three of their kids. When they all up sticks and sail to an idyllic, isolated island, it seems they can make a fresh start. Until they’re tracked down, and a massive development on their ancestors’ land threatens to tear down everyone’s homes, handing Choi the chance to become a hero. It’s David versus Goliath. It’s stopping your paradise being paved for a parking lot. It’s standing up to The Man. And it’s very funny too.
Go to page 2 for more of The London Korean Film Festival 2013.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.