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.)

Handsome Guys, on Delta

They might not look like it, but Kang Jae-pil and Park Sang-goo have cousins in West Virginia. Their names are Tucker and Dale, who once fought evil. Kang and Park are in for a similar bout of misunderstandings, but they must also battle a genuine demonic force in Nam Dong-hyup’s Handsome Guys, a Korean remake of Eli Craig’s Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, which is currently available on Delta’s in-flight entertainment system.

Kang and Park are shy, luckless losers, who have bought a remote cabin to enjoy the “rustic life.” Unfortunately, their new home was the scene of a half-successful exorcism sixty-six years and six months ago—so, obviously it is getting to be about that time again.

Unbeknownst to hard-working Kim Mi-na, her not-really-friend Bo-ra invited her on a weekend getaway just so her pro-golfer pal Lee Jung-bin could take advantage of her. Naturally, Lee and his entitled friends look upon Kang and Park like the backwoods boys in Deliverance. Consequently, when the “Handsome Guys” save Kim from drowning, they assume she was kidnapped. Ordinarily, Lee wouldn’t care, but Kim accidentally walked off with his phone, which is loaded with highly incriminating photos and video.

As Bo-ra and the cads try to “rescue” Kim, they meet a series of unlikely but fatal Final Destination-style mishaps. However, in Nam’s remake, death isn’t the end for them. As sacrifices to Baphomet, they become his demonic vessels.

The supernatural elements are entirely new to Handsome Guys. Even though they add a dumpster truckload of additional lunacy, the new material really makes the concept work better. Having a hidden hand behind all the fatal misadventures gives a greater degree of “logic,” to use that word extremely loosely. Arguably, there it also invests the film with a greater sense of morality.

A Bloody Lucky Day, on Paramount+

Oh Taek has a hard ride ahead of him and the unfortunate cab driver does not even have one of those beaded seat-covers. His biggest problem will be his customer. The stranger is a talker and also a serial killer, who soon shows his violent side during their long drive to the port city of Mukpo in the ten-part A Bloody Lucky Day, which premieres today on Paramount+.

Oh is an amiable fellow, but mistakes in life left him deeply in debt. He felt “lucky” when he woke up, so he figures it must be coming true when Geum Hyuk-soo offer of one million won for a ride to the notorious smugglers’ port. Of course, there is a reason he is vastly overpaying for the long-haul ride. He needs to get out of town after his recent murder has been discovered. He conveniently happened to be a resident at the hospital where the barely surviving witness was taken, but he still left too much physical evidence behind this time.

At first, Oh assumes Geum’s grisly stories are very bad jokes, but he soon realizes he has a psychopath in his cab. His passenger’s macabre origin story might hold relevant clues for later, but Geum’s claim an accident left him unable to experience the sensation of pain makes him particularly scary, especially when he demonstrates with a sharp knife. However, Oh really starts worrying when Guem hints he knows more about the cabbie than he initially let on.

This is one heck of a dark Korean thriller, almost as grisly as I Saw the Devil. Frankly, bingeing it can take a toll on your soul. It is a visceral white-knuckle ride, but ten episodes is still pushing it. There are a lot of flashbacks, most of which are justified, revealing events and context at moments of maximum impact. Even with a little padding, Pil Gam-sung does a heck helming all ten episodes. Bloody Lucky Day is dark, but its darkly stylish.

Lee Sung-min, who has evolved from a schlubby everyman character actor to gritty middle-aged protagonist in Shadow Detective is perfectly cast as the sad-eyed, angsty Oh. Few thesps could handle the cabbie’s descent from naivety to a very angry place, so convincingly. (Bloody Lucky Day is the kind of show that lends itself to an overuse of the word “dark.”)

Speaking of dark, Yoo Yeon-seok is so creepy and menacing as Geum, each minute the psycho is still breathing will stir-up viewers’ bile. He is maybe the evilest human-monsters you will ever see in a TV/streaming series, including Hannibal. On the other hand, Lee Jung-eun is absolutely heart-wrenching as Hwang Soon-kyu, the grieving mother of one of Geum’s victims.

The Witness: A Korean Rear Window with Social Commentary

The investigation conducted by Kitty Genovese’s brother, chronicled in his own similarly titled documentary, reveals her Kew Garden neighbors were far more responsible and proactive than the New York Times reported. Nevertheless, the Genovese urban legend deeply informs this characteristically dark and moody Korean thriller. Han Sang-hoon will indeed look the other way when a woman is murdered in his courtyard, but karma will punish him severely for his moment of cowardice in Jo Kyu-jang’s The Witness (trailer here), which is now playing in New York.

Han has a bossy but loving wife, an adorable young daughter, and a not inconsiderable mortgage on their new flat, so he has a lot to lose. He is a schlubby salaryman, not a hero, so when he comes home from a late night of mandatory drinking with co-workers, he freezes when he spies a serial killer dispatching his latest victim. Unfortunately, Han gives himself away through his clumsiness. Thus, begins a game of cat and mouse. Han keeps hoping it will all go away. However, the stakes really start to escalate when another intimidated witness approaches him, hoping to come clean with the police together.

In addition to the Kitty Genovese myth, The Witness also riffs on Rear Window, but it still manages to be entirely its own beast. Jo devises some fresh twists and grows the tension organically out of Korea’s more rigid social norms. This is a story just about everyone can relate to, but it is particularly nightmarish for a Korean everyman like Han.

On paper, Han might not sound like a flashy role, but Lee Sung-min hits it out of the park anyway. This is a career year for him, following up his awards-worthy work in The Spy Gone North, but this is a starring turn that might just be his defining desperate-plugger role. It is also rewarding to see Kim Sang-ho make the most of his serious roles. He is terrific here as Jang Jae-jeop, the earnest, honest, and often embarrassed (by department incompetence) detective investigating the murder. Kwak Si-yang is creepy as all get out as the killer, while young Park Bom will make viewers want to jump into the film to protect her, as Han’s daughter Eun-ji.

The Witness dropped into theaters this weekend without much fanfare, but it is absolutely dynamite. This is exactly the sort of morally murky, one-gosh-darned-thing-after-another thriller Korean cinema seems to have a competitive advantage at producing. Jo shows he has mad chops when it comes to the serial killer genre, but also manages to drop some heavy social commentary in the process. Very highly recommended, The Witness is now playing in New York, at the AMC Empire.