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 PASCHA, from Ahn Sun-kyoung, takes on the controversial subject of not so much a May-December, but more of a February-November romance. Puppyish 17-year-old Joseph is in a relationship with 40-year-old woman Gaeul, and their apartment is filled with numerous cats as surrogate children. Her screenwriting career has stalled and they’re living on credit. She is a vegetarian, yet her mum tries to push beef on her, and get her to date a widower. But once the, er, cat is out of the bag about the age of Gaeul’s lover, her mother is appalled. He hasn’t even done his military service? Gaeul’s bullying father and brother try to take her away, and Joseph’s parents forbid him from seeing her again, so the now-pregnant Gaeul is forced to consider desperate action. When some filmmakers would be tempted to give us a glib, happy ending, there is no hint of that here. And it surely makes viewers confront their own position on such unions.
Woo Moon-gi’s sweet sports comedy, KING OF JOKGU (right), is filled with scenes of love and food, but mainly the curious sport of Jokgu, a hybrid of volleyball and football. Our hero, Hong, has done his military service and excelled at his favourite pastime. But on his return to college, he finds that the Jokgu court has been destroyed and his sport is now considered totally uncool. With a well-placed kick or two, he wins a sporting bet and everyone starts taking up his passion again, building up to a big tournament. Expect equal portions of tension, unrequited passion, comic action… and noodles. Directed by screenwriter Shim Sung-bo, produced by Bong Joon-ho (best known for The Host and Mother), and written by the two of them, HAEMOO is based on a true story of everyday fisherfolk. It’s 1998 and they’re having a hard time making an honest living, captain Kang’s boat is in urgent need of repairs – and back home his wife is carrying on behind his back. Extreme circumstances force Kang to accept a job smuggling Chinese-Korean immigrants across the ocean, and he bribes his conflicted crew with extra cash. Everything seems to be going well for the trafficking novices, despite the number of immigrants, until the boat is boarded by inspectors, and the immigrants are forced to hide down below in the unventilated fish hold. The plan falls apart and what happens next is horrific, grisly, bloody, and almost incredible, as Kang loses his mind, turns on the crew and seeks only to save his vessel. Can anyone survive? |
 Two films at the festival addressed modern issues of sexuality in very different ways. NIGHT FLIGHT is director Leesong Hee-il’s response to CCTV footage of a recent bullying victim who committed suicide. His narrative focuses on schoolboy Yong-gu, who has a crush on one of his schoolfriends, Gi-woong, who in return steals his bike to escape a gang of attackers. Yong-gu also has to defend his loyal, geeky friend Gi-taek from daily bullying, so when he is initially rebuffed by Gi-woong, and then betrayed and ‘outed’ by Gi-taek, and beaten to a pulp by the homophobic bullies, he feels pushed to the edge. For once, it’s good to feel that there is some chance of hope in the future for these boys.
Jang Jin’s MAN ON HIGH HEELS (right) provides a very daring role for Cha Seung-won as hard-as-nails cop Yoon, who secretly wants to be a woman, and is waiting for the operation. Transgender dramas are rare enough, but Jin gives us something even harder to find: a transgender action movie. In his personal life, Yoon may be a woman trapped in a man’s body. But in his work Yoon always comes out on top and nobody messes with him, notably in the opening sequence involving a nightclub dinner party with an expert and bloody cutlery skirmish. And there’s another stunning bit of choreography with an entire, rain-soaked fight, with all the participants’ umbrellas raised. But when two criminal brothers need him to return seized documents, they start to bring down everyone around him. Can Yoon flee to have his op – or will they lure him back? That Jin actually pulls off such a tonally tricky film is in no small measure due to Seung-won’s three-dimensional portrait of a conflicted character. |
 The festival’s closing film, REVIVRE, is not only greatest-living-Korean-director Im Kwontaek’s 102nd movie, but also has legendary star Anh Sungki as its leading man, and is based on an award-winning short story by Kim Hoon. The central narrative in this drama is an imminent death, as the wife of middle-aged businessman Oh Sang-moo (Sungki) gets progressively sicker from a second brain tumour. He sleeps at her hospital bedside by night, and continues to work at the top of the cosmetics industry by day. Meanwhile his head has been turned by a younger, attractive colleague in the shape of Kim Qyu-ri as Choo Eun-joo, and we begin to sense that his marriage wasn’t filled with passion, despite his outward devotion. At work Oh is distracted by his infatuation, and though his glances are not unwelcome, his disappointment can’t be disguised when the object of his desire announces that she’s betrothed to be married. Structurally it flips back and forth in time, and is loaded with dream sequences, so you’re not always on firm ground as to what’s real and what’s imagined. But you still know you’re in safe hands with Kwontaek, and both lead actors are superb in finely-tuned and complex roles, well supported by Kim Ho-jung as the dying wife.
If you haven’t already sampled The Korean Film Festival in London, then I encourage you to go next time. And in the meantime demand that your local arthouse cinema show some of the best releases, including KUNDO: AGE OF THE RAMPANT, A HARD DAY, THE TARGET, HAEMOO, REVIVRE and maybe even MAN ON HIGH HEELS. But you can also look out for DVDs, streaming services, and on-demand Korean films. So mark it in your diary: next year’s festival will take place in November 2015 – and you can keep up-to-date with these websites: http://london.korean-culture.org/ and http://koreanfilm.co.uk/ |