Submitted by Korea: No Other Choice

Yoo Man-su might just become known as the most iconic paper industry executive in cinema history. Of course, there aren’t many movies about the paper industry. It also helps that Yoo is literally killing his competition. Amongst job-seekers, Yoo becomes unusually proactive in Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, Korea’s shortlisted International Oscar submission, which opens Christmas Day in New York.

Yoo worked his way up to become a highly paid executive at his paper company, only to be laid off when it is bought out by an American firm. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of this going around, so whenever a paper exec job comes up, he must compete with an army of applicants.

Although he sometimes takes demeaning temp work, Yoo is on the verge of losing his family’s home. The prospect is particularly painful to Yoo, because he grew up there as a child and worked diligently to renovate into his own private paradise. Plus, he suspects his dental hygienist wife’s boss might take advantage of his humiliation to seduce her.

However, Yoo refuses to take his situation laying down. Placing fake recruitment ads, Yoo determines which possible candidates for future openings would have the most competitive qualifications compared to himself. Then, he starts stalking and killing them. However, that is a decidedly messy undertaking for a middle-aged paper exec like Yoo.

Based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax, which was previously adapted for film by Costa-Gavras, Park’s No Other Choice, reflects the attitudes and underlying ideologies of recent Korean productions like Parasite and Squid Game. It makes similarly bitterly caustic points regarding economic uncertainty and social insecurity. However, those comparable works maintain a vice-like hold on viewers.

In contrast, Park and co-screenwriters Lee Kyoung-mi and Don McKellar too often allow the message to overwhelm the storytelling. For long stretches, Park belabors his takeaways, very definitely at the expense of tension and suspense. (Perhaps tellingly, the ideologically-charged Gavras family supported the production of Park’s adaptation as producers.)

Emergency Declaration: The Korean Airplane Outbreak

Technically, aviation writer John J. Nance already combined the viral-thriller with the airline disaster genre back in the mid-1990s, but maybe the novel Pandora's Clock and its subsequent TV-movie never made it to South Korea. Regardless, the Macguffin certainly has a whole lot more resonance now. Yet, pre-production started on the high-concept Korean thriller back in idyllic 2019. Weren’t those the days. As it turns out, this virus might have also escaped from a lab, with a little help from a psychotic in Han Jae-rim’s Emergency Declaration, which opens today in New York.

Sgt. Koo In-ho was supposed to join his beloved wife on vacation, but work forced him to cancel. As it happens, she is on the same Honolulu-bound flight with Ryu Jin-seok, a former virologist with a vicious mean-streak and a tenuous grasp on reality. He has decided to let loose a strain of secret virus he has been illegally refining and intensifying. Conveniently, there is also a spare pilot on-board, but like Robert Hays in Airplane! he carries much more baggage than the bags he checked. The disgraced Jae-hyuk is also traveling with his pre-teen daughter, to further ratchet up the stakes for him.

Due to some old-fashioned police work, Koo manages to sleuth out Ryu’s intentions before chaos totally erupts on the plane, but after the release of the viral agent. Naturally, the captain is one of the first to fall sick. It seems pretty clear co-pilot Hyun-soo will be needing Jae-hyuk eventually, but he still blames the former pilot for his wife’s death.

So, there is a lot to deal with here. Sook-hee, the transportation minister will generally be helpful, but Tae-su of the president’s crisis management team is obviously shifty. Altogether, Emergency Dec has everything an Airport movie could want, except George Kennedy. Han dexterously juggles all the subplots and keeps the tension tightly wound. Since this is a Korean film, the suspense is particularly high, because you never know, this really could all end in tears.

Ashfall: Don Lee Predicts Disaster

South Korea really shouldn’t send mixed messages to a psychopath like Kim Jong-un. After years of wishing his nuclear program would just go away, here comes a movie that suggests his nukes could be put to positive use. Admittedly, it also portrays the DPRK as basically a collapsed wasteland. The imploding North is giving up their nukes, but the South wants to commandeer them in a desperate bid to end a seismic and volcanic disaster in Lee Hae-jun & Kim Byung-seo’s Ashfall, which is now playing in New York.

For years, Korean-American scientist Robert Kang Bong-rae warned the government of a potential catastrophe, but they ignored him until it is now almost too late. He still has a plan, but it only has slightly over 3% chance of success. The beleaguered president and his first secretary Jeon Yoo-kyung still believe that is better than nothing, so they dispatch two commando teams to take possession of the DPRK nukes, while Kang runs simulations to increase the odds.

Fortunately, the warheads will be easy to collect, because the North just packaged them up for collection as part of their de-nuclearization agreement with the U.S. Yes, things have gotten that bad in the Workers’ Paradise. Jo In-chang was supposed to retire today, but instead he must lead the B-team backing-up the primary squad. Tragically, they must take the lead when the A-team’s plane crashes. Ironically, the North Koreans are almost passive spectators in all this, but China was deeply unhappy about peace breaking out on the Korean Peninsula, so they recruit Lee Joon-Pyeong, a North Korean double- or triple- or quadruple-agent to redirect the Nukes across the Chinese border.

Frankly, Ashfall is probably must notable for starring Don Lee/Ma Dong-seok in a non-action role, in an action movie. He is actually quite convincing as Kang, talking science instead of trash. His screen charisma still comes through. In fact, it shines brighter than Ha Jung-woo as Jo, the weirdly nebbish commando.

On the other hand, Lee Byung-hun goes convincingly dark and brooding as the profoundly disillusioned Lee. It is hard to believe Ha’s Jo can keep up with him. They just seem so mismatched, in every way. Most of the rest of the strike force are just stock characters (at best), but Jeon Hye-jin’s portrayal of Jeon, the political fixer, is intriguingly subtle. To her credit, former K-pop star Bae Su-zy brings more to the table than you might expect as Jo’s mega-pregnant wife, Ji-young.

The Fortress: The Winter of Joseon’s Discontent

It was a lot like a Korean Valley Forge when King Injo retreated to the Namhansanseong mountain fortress during the winter of 1636, but it did not end so well for the Joseon Kingdom. They were indeed times that tried men souls, but they were made exponentially worse by the corruption and arrogant sense of entitlement held by senior members of the royal court. At least that is the revisionist perspective offered by Hwang Dong-hyuk’s The Fortress (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

History has not been kind to King Injo, for good reason. Even during the early days of the encampment, Kim Sang-hun finds himself cleaning up resentments caused by the court’s stingy, high-handed behavior. Morale will only continue to plummet as hunger and record low temperatures take its toll on the beleaguered troops.

Strategically, Kim is diametrically opposed to the peace overtures reluctantly advocated by Choi Myung-kil, a senior official who has few friends at court, yet still enjoys the King’s confidence. Nevertheless, the two foes often find themselves allied together, arguing for better conditions for the King’s soldiers, over their colleagues’ petty objections.  Having seen the enemy camp, Choi knows they are badly outnumbered. News of the impending arrival of Nurhaci, the Qing Khan himself further raises the stakes. However, Kim’s desperate plan to save the kingdom has a puncher’s chance of working, but he will only trust Seo Nal-soi, a common-born blacksmith pressed into army service, as his messenger.

It is hard to believe this gritty, downbeat adaptation of Kim Hoon’s historical novel came from Hwang, the man who brought the world the Miss Granny franchise.  This is a cynically class-conscious film that explicitly argues the dithering king and his nonproductive court of leeches only have themselves to blame for their spectacular humiliation. Yet, apparently, there is a robust domestic market for such sentiments, because The Fortress set new attendance records for the Chuseok (“Korean Thanksgiving”) holiday.

It is also a bit surprising to find international action superstar Lee Byung-hun playing the peacenik Choi. However, he is certainly an intriguing character, who is resigned to his anticipated infamy, if it secures the King’s survival. Lee projects the necessary graveness and gravity, but he still can’t compete with the steely gravitas of Kim Yoon-seok’s Kim Sang-hun, looking at least ten years older than the thesp really is—and they are a hard ten years.

Hwang stages some impressive battle scenes that viewers have to admire, even though he telegraphs the bitter end from the earliest stages. As result, Fortress has the vibe of high classical tragedy, with every short-sighted decision bringing King Injo closer to his downfall. The atmosphere of stately woe is further enhanced by the score penned by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto (The Revenant, The Last Emperor, etc.). It is an impressive film in nearly every respect, but the maddening inevitability of it all will have viewer pulling out their hair, which is probably exactly what Hwang was going for. Recommended for fans of historical epics, The Fortress opens this Friday (10/20) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

NYAFF ’17: A Single Rider

We should all know this by now, but the terms “low-risk” and “high-yield” just do not go together. We they are associated, you should be suspicious. A broker like Kang Jae-hoon should have known better, but he let greed and arrogance crowd out his better judgment. As an inevitable result, he personally paid a stiff financial price, along with his friends and extended family. Fortunately, his wife and young son have been largely untouched by the scandal while living in Australia, but the time apart will make it even more difficult for Kang to reconnect in Lee Joo-young’s A Single Rider (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.

After humbling himself before his investors and getting the “bugger off” treatment from the firm’s management, Kang books a one-way ticket to Sydney. Yet, shame and instinct prevent him from immediately knocking on his wife’s suburban door. Instead, he furtively observes Soo-jin in a technically chaste but undeniably affectionate moment with her good natured, blokey neighbor Kris. Kang quickly deduces their son and his daughter are friends at school—and one thing is very close to leading to another.

Over the course of days, Kang snoops through the house and shadows both Soo-jin and Kris. During the course of his wanderings, he meets Yoo Jin-ah (or Geena to Australians), who has just lost her entire work-abroad nest-egg to a group of fellow Korean expats. Kang tries to help her as best he can, but his own recent experiences make him grimly skeptical of justice.

Although Rider is a quietly observational film with a game-changer rug-pull that everyone will say they saw coming. Yet, if put under sodium pentothal, nine out ten will probably have to admit they just explained away all the tell-tale signs rather than following them to their logical conclusion. In fact, it is better that way, because it allows for a moment of massive grace.

This is Lee Byung-hun as most of his American fans have never seen him. As Kang he gives a quiet performance of careful shadings and deep power. He never resorts to cheap, Streepian histrionics, but you can see the pain in his eyes and slumped shoulders. Likewise, Kong Hyo-jin is tough, sensitive, and soulful as the semi-estranged Soo-jin. Yet, it is former K-pop star [Ahn] So-hee who is utterly heart-breaking as the naïve Geena Yoo.

Rider is the sort of smart, high quality tearjerker that South Korean cinema has always has a comparative advantage producing for an appreciative local market. It is also the sort of film Hollywood will buy remake rights for, but absolutely butcher the Westernized version (hello Lake House). You should always see the original article. “Original” is indeed a surprisingly apt description of this deceptively restrained and meditative family drama. Highly recommended for fans of Korean cinema and K-dramas, A Single Rider screens this Saturday (7/1) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Master: Ponzi Schemes Get Deadly

This will probably be the closest we ever get to seeing Lee Byung-hun playing Bernie Madoff. He is even sporty a wavy silver mane. To be fair, Jin Pyun-gil is also considerably more violent than the former Chuck Schumer donor. Jin is one ruthless cat, but his felonious house of cards could come crashing down when his systems guy turns state’s evidence, assuming the slippery rogue stays turned in Cho Ui-seok’s Master (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Jin is natural financial Elmer Gantry, who almost convinces himself with his empowerment spiel. Of course, Park Jang-gun and “Mama” Kim Eom-ma know better. Technically, he is Jin’s systems director and she is head of PR, but all three have been in on the con for the start. The stakes really increase when Jin’s One Network announces its bid to buy a major savings bank. With the central bank chairman in Jin’s pocket, only Capt. Kim Jae-myung, an elite financial crimes investigator stands in their way, but he has leverage over the likably sleazy Park.

Master is the sort of capery con film, where each double-cross leads to a triple or even quadruple. Park is a cad and Kim is a cold fish, but Jin is a seriously flamboyant villain (who knew Lee Byung-hun had it in him?), so it is just good clean fun to watch the two heart-throbs conspiring against the international superstar.

It is also a pleasant surprise to watch Gang Dong-on (The Priests, Vanishing Time) knock it out of the park as the awkwardly cerebral Capt. Kim, arguably sharing a kinship with Columbo and “L.” from the Death Note franchise. Lee Byung-hun clearly enjoys chewing the scenery, while Kim Woo-bin similarly has a blast playing up Park’s picaresque ethical flexibility. Yet, Jin Kyung frequently upstages everyone as “Mama” Kim, the glamorous grifter. Plus, Oh Dal-su does his thing as an oily public interest attorney secretly doing Jin Pyun-gil’s bidding.

Although Master is sort of part of the cynical zeitgeist manifested in recent Korean public corruption thrillers like Inside Men and A Violent Prosecutor, it does not have a similarly exaggerated sense of itself (with its two hour, twenty-minute running time being pretty standard by Korean standards). Regardless, it is devilishly entertaining to watch the all-star cast scheme and play each other. Cho keeps the shoes dropping at a brisk gallop, nicely showcasing his ridiculously photogenic ensemble. Highly recommended for fans of ziggy-zaggy crime thrillers, Master opens tomorrow (1/6) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

NYAFF ’16: Inside Men

It is the same old story. Government is colluding with big business and big media. At least, journalistic hypocrisy gets a good going over this time around. The man who links them all together is naturally a gangster. Crossing him is a bad idea but they do it anyway in Woo Min-ho’s Inside Men (trailer here), starring Star Asia Award Recipient Lee Byung-hung, which screens during the 2016 New York Asian Film Festival.

Not only is Lee an award recipient at this year’s festival, he has also just been invited to join the Academy, along with cinematic luminaries, such as White Chicks co-star Marlon Wayans and Melrose Place mainstay Daphne Zuniga. At least Lee makes big movies and An Sang-goo is the sort of role he can finally sink his teeth into. An built his criminal syndicate doing the dirty work of the longtime majority party. He was recruited by Lee Gang-hee, the editor of a national newspaper of selective-record.

Lately, An has been busier than ever cleaning up the messes made by Congressman Jang Pil-woo, the party’s consensus favorite to be their next presidential candidate. When called to dispose of evidence of a slash fund secretly funding Jang’s campaign, An keeps a copy for himself. Unfortunately, he lets Lee in on his game, assuming the duplicitous journalist has his back. This is a terrible mistake that will cost An a hand (literally severed old school Yakuza-style), but it will take time for the disgraced gangster to realize and accept the truth regarding his mentor.

In the meantime, An will launch a revenge plot with the remnants of his gang that will inadvertently compliment the investigation of Woo Jang-hoon, perhaps the last honest prosecutor in Korea. He has a passion for justice, but without family connections or powerful patrons, he will need to score some game-changing convictions to advance. Jang and the automotive company funding him would perfectly suit the bill.

Frankly, this is the Lee Byung-hun film we have been waiting for. Unlike the Western productions that never fully utilize his talents, Inside Men shows off his action chops as well as the seething intensity probably last fully seen in Kim Jee-woon’s bracing I Saw the Devil. Yet, An is also a flamboyant character, who lives large, which makes him fun to watch.

Lee owns the film, but Cho Seung-woo holds up his end as the violently uptight prosecutor. Lee Kyoung-young chews the scenery with abandon as Congressman Jang, but he is so conspicuously sleazy, it is hard to fathom anyone ever voting for him (unless he ran against Clinton and Trump, in which case he would be the clear lesser of evils). As the sanctimonious Lee Gang-hee, Baek Yoon-sik is more understated, but equally loathable. It is too bad Lee El does not have more screen time, because she stands out as An’s loyally accomplice, Joo Eun-hye, while Bae Sung-woo also adds heft as An’s not so loyal henchman, Park Jong-pal.

But wait, there is even more to this story. Woo has added another fifty minutes for his theatrically re-released director’s cut. It is a little surprising NYAFF did not screen the big enchilada, but the one hundred and thirty-minute version never feels incomplete or rushed. It is all totally slick and cynical, but it purrs along quite smoothly thanks in great measure to Lee Byung-hun. Recommended for fans of Lee and gangster-political thrillers, Inside Men screens this Tuesday (7/5) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

Misconduct: The Whole Film is Out of Order

Two profoundly unpopular professions are about to be pitted against each other. It will be arrogant Big Pharma exec versus corner-cutting ambulance chaser. They should also throw in some biased journalists and crooked politicians. Do gold-diggers and assassins count? In any case, there will be scandal and litigation aplenty in Shintaro Shimosawa’s Misconduct (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Arthur Denning is fabulous rich, but he has his hands full. In addition to managing the fallout from a disaster experimental drug trial, his trophy lover Emily Hynes has been kidnapped for ransom. Denning genuinely seems to be interested in getting her back, so he hires a pair of hostage recovery specialists. However, there is something funny about Hynes’ abduction, as we learn when the film rewinds a month or so.

Don’t you just love jumbled in media res openings? In this case, it is especially confused, because it sends decidedly mixed signals with respect to Denning’s character. Apparently, the real protagonist is Ben Cahill, a blow-dried mouthpiece, who has thrown himself into his work instead of properly dealing with his wife’s miscarriage. Cahill will file a class action suit against Denning based on information illegally obtained from his old flame, Emily Hynes. Yes, she is definitely up to something. We soon learn Hynes is planning to fake her own abduction. It is a convoluted scheme that somehow involves a mysterious Korean assassin-enforcer known as “The Account,” which has to be the saddest criminal nickname ever.

Misconduct is an absolute narrative mess, which is too bad, because there are a few workable bits and pieces in there. If Shimosawa had openly invited viewers to sympathize with Denning, much like Freddy Heineken in Kidnapping Mr. Heineken or Kingo Gondo in High and Low, the film might have gotten some place. Julia Stiles’ foul mouthed kidnapping specialist also has potential, but she disappears for most of the film. Instead, we largely have to watch the pseudo-triangle of Josh Duhamel, Alice Eve, and Malin Akerman, three actors who seem to work a lot, but nobody really understands why. At least Akerman helps her case with a wonderfully vampy femme fatale turn as Hynes.

Sir Anthony Hopkins shows flashes of the old brilliance as Denning, but there is only so much he can do with the underwritten, contradictory role. Sadly, Al Pacino continues his slow decline, going down shouting as Cahill’s sleazy senior partner, Charles Abams. International superstar Lee Byung-hun looks utterly bored in his scenes as The Accountant, for good reason. To his credit, Glen Powell brings more dignity than the film deserves as Cahill’s unheeded voice-of-reason office mate, Doug Fields, whereas Duhamel and Eve are so dull and plastic-looking, they sort of make a fitting couple as the Cahills.

Misconduct could have just been a cheesy B-movie. There is plenty of room in the world for another, especially since Akerman gives it some kick. However, screenwriters Simon Boyes & Adam Mason rip-off (and water-down) the twist ending that really launched the legal thriller craze in 1987, pre-Grisham. That’s just lame. Not recommended, Misconduct opens tomorrow (2/5) in New York, at the AMC Empire.