Review: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance at TKFF

Perhaps it's easy to compare director Park Chan-wook to Quentin Tarantino but this would be a mistake for several reasons. Park Chan-wook's film are known for their depictions of ultra -violence but they are done in such a poetic way that you almost forget that what you are watching is abhorrent. Ultimately the violence is part of the story and everything flows as one. Quentin Tarantino is a director but Park Chan-wook is an artist. The opening credits for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance are really beautiful (video clip above). It's little details like this that make a film truly memorable for me. It's not essential to have beautiful opening credits which makes having them really special. 

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, stars Lee Young-ae as Geum-ja, a beautiful young woman who is imprisoned at the age of nineteen for abducting and murdering a five year old boy. It is obvious from the beginning that Geum-ja has been framed for this crime. However, flashbacks to her arrest show her vigorously professing her guilt. The film begins with her release from prison as she sets out to enact a revenge plot that she has been planning for thirteen years. She begins by visiting each of her old cell mates and as she does so each of these women has their own flashback about Geum-ja's prison days. I enjoyed these flashbacks as I felt each once showed a different facet of the complex Geum-ja. In prsion Geum-ja has two nicknames, "Kind-hearted Geum-ja" and "The Witch". This may seem contradictory but essentially there are two side to Geum-ja and these two sides are split even further still. She is a complex woman, one that would give a kidney to her cell-mate like she was lending her a pair of shoes but also someone that has no qualms about killing.

Choi Min-sik is excellent as the bad guy, Mr. Baek. It's difficult to imagine how much more you could hate a child killer but Choi Min-sik manages to add that je ne sais quoi to make Mr. Baek especially detestable.

Although this is obviously meant to be quite a dark film, there were wonderful elements of whimsy that added a fairy-tale quality (not unlike the style of Jean Pierre Jeunet). These included Geum-ja's clothes (very Ann Sui), the use of narration, Geum-ja's amazing cakes and nearly every scene with Geum-ja's precocious daughter. 

 Italian poster artwork for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Korean poster artwork for Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Review: Failan at TKFF

Failan (Director, Song Hae-sung) is both an unconventional gangster film and romance rolled into one. It is about two people who have never met falling in love with each other. This might seem pretty normal given this digital age that we live in except that one of them is dead. Like two ships in the dark, they just seemed to have missed each other and yet if they had met at the right time both of their lives would have been drastically different. Choi Min-sik plays a low-level gangster named Kang-jae. He marries a Chinese woman named Failan (Cecilia Cheung) through a broker for money but never actually meets her in person. Failan receives only a red skill cravat scarf from Kang-jae and a small passport sized photo, both of which she treasures. As she goes about her daily life working for a laundress in a small seaside town she gradually begins to fall in love with Kang-jae and composes many heartfelt letters but never has the courage to send them. Though Failan's life is truly pitiful (she has no family, lives in squalid conditions and is gravely ill) she never seems to get too hung up on self-pity. Kang-jae receives Failan's letters after her death and although they can never be together he falls in love with her through her letters. Failan then becomes a source of hope that inspires him to change his life. 


Cecilia Cheung is excellent as Failan and it is heartbreaking to see her wait for a man who will never come as her health deteriorates further and further. Choi Min-sik makes Kang-jae's epiphany (upon reading Failan's letters) very believable. The final scenes where he is watching a video of Failan singing on the beach (he finds the tape by accident in his friend's money hiding spot) are both tragic and hauntingly beautiful.

Tonight is the last night of the Toronto Korean Film Festival 2012. Tonight's screenings will be Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (6pm) and Old Boy (9pm). You can purchase tickets at the door (Innis town Hall) for more info click here. 

Review: Leafie, A Hen into the Wild at TKFF

I am not ashamed to say that Leafie, A Hen into the Wild (Director, Oh sung-yun) made me cry not 
once but twice! I'm not sure if any of the children in attendance cried but I know there was at least one other adult woman crying too. This is not only a cute, funny and entertaing animated film for children, it also has many difficult and important lessons to teach them. This is admirable when you consider that Disney films literally teach children nothing except how to occupy rigid gender roles. The film starts off with Leafie in who is a battery hen gazing longingly at the animals who live in the yard. This is were i cried the first time. I was impressed that a children's film would depict the true living conditions of battery hens when the world seems more then happy to gloss over this fact (despite the ready availability and affordability of free range eggs). I think it's good for children to understand modern farming practices and ultimately where their food is coming from. Leafie is even shown with a bald neck and emaciated frame (typical of battery hens). She starves herself for three days to play dead which is the only way that she can get out of the battery and into the yard. Here again the film does not shy away from reality, The farmer is shown making his nightly rounds collecting all of the dead hens (a lot!) and heaping them into a wheelbarrow for disposal in a pit outside. From the pit Leafie narrowly escapes being eaten by a weasel, thanks to the help of a handsome guard duck named Wanderer. Leafie then finds a nice briar patch to live in with the help of the local real-estate agent, Otter. When her friend Wanderer and his wife are killed by the weasel Leafie is left to care for their egg. She hatches the egg and names the duckling Greenie. Unfortunately because of their difference in species the other animals are hesitant to accept them as mother and son. However, Leafie and Greenie must remain strong and ultimately they prove to the other animals that love transcends such differences which are ultimately trivial. 


Spoiler Alert In the end Greenie joins a flock of ducks and there are lots of sad moments between Leafie and Greenie struggling to say goodbye. During this time leafie accidentally discovers the weasel's burrow whilst looking for a warm place during the first snow. There she discovers the weasel's litter and is instantly taken by the cute babies. It is only when the weasel returns that Leafie realises that the babies she has been cuddling and keeping warm are the weasel's babies. She is shocked that things so innocent and beautiful could come from the weasel that killed and ate her friends. The weasel has caught a duck but Greenie rescues the duck and says goodbye to Leafie one last time. However, because Greenie rescued that duck from the weasel she now has no food which means that she can't nurse her litter. 


At the end when leafie watches Greenie fly away with his new flock for the winter, the weasel approcahes her from behind. Leafie takes a deep breath and says, 'Yes. You can eat me so that you're babies do not starve'. The weasel is obviously shocked by this but does as Leafie says. At this point I lost it and was crying like child. Leafie of course has realised that the weasel is not a monster, just another animal trying to survive in the wild in the only way that it knows how. Again, I was really impressed that such a concept was presented in a children's film. The majority of adults fail to comprehend/accept this basic fact of life and instead vilify predators like weasels who are merely trying to survive, just as we all are.


For more information on the Toronto Korean Film Festival 2012 and to purchase tickets please click here.

Review: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring is definitely one of the most stunning films that I have ever seen. It grabs your heart right from the beginning and refuses to let go. The star of the film is of course the beautiful Mt. Juwangsan National Park where it was filmed. The film is set on a tiny monastery which floats in the Jusanji reservoir. An elderly monk with seemingly mystic powers (they are subtle so watch closely) raises a young boy as his apprentice. In the opening scenes we are introduced to the jaw droppingly beatiful monastery and its natural surroundings. They live a simple life together according to the seasons and the Master does his best to teach his young apprentice well. Despite this however, the apprentice even as a young child seems to be predisposed to violent outbursts. Eventually a beautiful young woman comes to the monastery to convalesce and she and the apprentice fall in love. The apprentice can't live without her and follows her to 'the world of men' where he disobeys the most basic teachings of his wise and patient master. This is a sad film but it is also brimming with hope and this is expressed by the season of Spring. The themes of love, lust, murder, death, rebirth and redemption are strong throughout the film and these are in turn reflected in the changing seasons.

Starring, O yeong-su, Kim Ki-duk, Kim Young-min and Seo Jae-Kyeong. Directed by Kim Ki-duk.

Please visit the Toronto Korean Film Festival website for info on upcoming screenings.

Korean Indie Shorts at the Toronto Korean Film Festival

The Toronto Korean Film Festival and Reel Asian International Film Festival co-presented Korean indie shorts on Wednesday. The shorts are eligible for a prize and the awards ceremony will take place on the final day of the festival July 1st.

As with the first evening of shorts on Tuesday (Korean-Canadian shorts) I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these films considering that I usually stick to feature length films. It made me consider that in a lot of ways making a short film is more difficult than making a feature film. A story that might be told in 90 mins has to be condensed into just 10 or 30 mins and yet still convey the same emotional impact.

Nan Jian Wan Zi
Bom spends the morning of her birthday meticulously making a special Chinese dish (Nan Jian Wan Zi) for her crush but at the last minute he phones her to say that his band practice is more important and he won't be coming for the meal. Seconds later someone is pounding on her door and it is one of her crush's bandmates (Bom's least favourite). He has come by to use her bathroom and upon seeing the delicious food that she has prepared decided to stay and eat it. Things continue to go wrong for Bom but she ultimately discovers that love can come from the most unexpected places. Directed by Moon Choi who also stars as Bom.


Ari 
A slow dance on the beach, time seems to stop as she performs. Each movement an expression of the inner peace and feeling of freedom felt by the dancer as she does what she loves to do. The film begins indoors and moves to a remote beach the sand of which comes right up to her doorstep. Directed by Baek Ki-hwan.


Etude Solo 

A man is sent to a school to tune a piano in preparation for an outdoor concert being given by the students. there he unexpectedly finds his first love is a teacher. He flashes back to their piano lessons together and of their separtion when she leaves to study abroad. In lieu of payment from the school he asks to be allowed to play piano at the children's concert. His performance expresses all of the bitter-sweet memories of his first love and the pain of those years lost between them. Directed by Yoo Dae-eol.

The Ordinary People

A disgruntled office worker is plagued by nightmares in which he is chased and beaten in the subway station. During the day he experiences strong feelings of Déjà vu and his perception of reality bleeds into memories of his recurring nightmare. Is he having a nervous breakdown or are the pharmaceuticals he takes each morning to blame? Either way you will never look at penguins in quite the same way again. Directed by Go tae-min.

Mark’s Festival 

An Englishman named Mark visit's his Girlfriend Jenny's hometown in rural Korea. I would say that he suffers from culture shock but in reality the character is just suffering from being a chronic asshole. Yes Jenny's hometown is remote and the food and culture might be strange and new to him but he is unnecessarily rude and even racist towards not only Jenny but to her hospitable parents and her childhood friends. You find out as the film progresses that they have been dating for 3 years and yet Mark knows next to nothing about Korean culture and when asked if he will marry Jenny always replies with, 'We're still getting to know each other'. Most upsetting for me was a scene where Mark is  on a bus and reminiscing about his relationship with Jenny. What should be something heartfelt is actually him admitting that he only started dating her because he has a fetish for Asian women and if this wasn't bad enough he goes on to elaborate saying that he likes that they are supposed to be submissive. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. This was made all the more upsetting for me by the fact that Jenny is not only beautiful but also very intelligent and naturally kind and anything but submissive. You can't help but wonder why the hell she is with Mark. In the end -SPOILER ALERT- they get back together and have a traditional Korean wedding in Jenny's hometown. I was disappointed that she got back together with this man who so clearly did not deserver her or her wonderful family. 

Just to end on a more positive note, I loved the depictions of Jenny's hometown and the wedding scene with the beautiful traditional bride and groom's outfits and decorations. Directed by Jang Yujin.

Sera

In this dark comedy by Lim Woo-seong, a woman and her lover have come to a slump in their relationship. they sit in a bar drinking and the woman recalls how things were different at the start of their relationship. The man asks her if she wants to 'start over' and moments later he receives a mysterious text message that reveals something very unexpected about the woman. 

Metamorphoses

A hilarious and  unconventional vampire story. just for the record Garlic has no effect on Korean vampires and neither do crucifixes (provided that they are Buddhist). A comic book artist goes to the park to get inspiration for his work and also to try to talk to a jogger that he has a crush on. He eventually gets the inspiration that he was looking for but there is an unexpected cost. Directed by Oh In-Chun.

Review: Korean-Canadian Shorts at TKFF

Numbers by Robert Hloz on Vimeo.

The Toronto Korean Film Festival and Reel Asian International Film Festival co-presented shorts made by Korean-Canadians. The shorts are eligible for a prize and the awards ceremony will take place on the final day of the festival July 1st. As a voter it was really tough to make a decision since I really enjoyed all of the shorts that were screened. I also enjoyed having the directors in attendance and found the post-screening Q&A to be fascinating since I know very little about the logistics of filmmaking.

Like many people I'm not as receptive to shorts as I am to feature films, however, I would like to say that these wonderful films changed my mind!

D.C. al Fine
Lee Bansuk directed and starred in this short as well as acting in the TKFF promotional video and in Open Invitation (also part of this competition).
The film is about Mr.Ji who at first seems like a typical thug. He works as a loan shark for a local Korean gang and has no qualms about removing the fingers of those who fail to payback their loans on time. However, we soon discover an entirely different side to Mr. Ji, a passionate musician who misses his girlfriend still in Korea. His dream is to bring her to Canada so that they can open a music shop together. Unfortunately these two separate lives are bound to collide and when they do the results are inevitably tragic.
 During the Q&A director Lee Bansuk explained that he made the severed fingers featured in the film (they were very convincing). He also works at the festival and the other night was even doing traditional Korean calligraphy. Guests had their names written on beautiful rice paper for free. It was a nice souvenir of TKFF. He has also done a great interview with Planet of Snail director Yi Seung Jun. You can watch the interview here.


A Drummer's Passion
Kwon Soon Keun leads a low profile life in Toronto but 50 years ago he was the drummer of ADD-4 a rock band often referred to as the 'Korean Beatles'. When a YouTube video of one of his recent performance goes viral it attracts millions of viewers including director Kim Mingu who tracked him down to make this documentary short. Even if you have never heard of ADD-4 or have no interest in retro Korean rock music you will still be carried away by the passion and infectious energy of Kwon Soon Keun. It is hard to believe that he is 71, his love for the drums obviously keeps him young. This film shows that no matter where you are or whether or not you even have an audience, doing what you love to do is important. Kwon Soon Keun may not have the glamorous life he once had as part of  ADD-4 but he has his drum kit and that's all that really matters.


In Retrospect
Directed by Chris K.Kim, this is a beautifully animated short using the rotoscoping aimation technique. This film is only 3 mins long but captures perfectly the degeneration of a romantic relationship including the radically different perspective of events leading to the break-up. The man sees the relationship with rose coloured glasses whereas the woman remembers the exact same events but without the man's insensitive behaviour omitted. They meet by chance in the street which triggers this series of flashbacks.


Numbers (video above)
This short directed by Robert Hloz, manages to capture such a huge story in just 10 minutes. This could easily be expanded into a feature film but is perhaps just as well perfect in it's conciseness. A man and woman meet in Hyang Univeristy (presumably Seoul campus). The man can see random numbers above peoples heads but has no idea what they mean. Suddenly he is drawn to a mysterious woman who seems to see these same numbers. What can she tell him about this bizarre ability and does he really want to know? I loved the concept for this film and the beautiful saturated greys and blues of the crowded streets where this is set. Simple things in the film like steam rising from a bowl of hot ramen were very beautifully shot. Also the world-weariness of the woman is captured perfectly without being melodramatic. The way she knocks back soju seems to say everything about her sadness and the mysterious numbers.


My Granpa
Director Zong eui-yong's moving tribute to his late grandfather. In just 11 mins the life of a man, the impact he has had on different family members and the bond between grandfather and grandson is captured perfectly. There were elements of this film that reminded me of my own family. I was especially moved by Zong eui-yong description of being bullied as a child and taking comfort in the VHS tapes his grandfather would mail to him from Korea. He says in the film that while he was indoors as a result of this bullying these Korean dramas and films sent by his grandfather were his only connection with the outside world.


Open Invitation
Loosely based on the experiences of director Park Jaewoo, Open Invitation is about a Korean international student (Doo-young) in Toronto who is called for his mandatory 2 year military service and will do absolutely anything to avoid it. Compounding all of this is the fact that his room mate is from a well-off family and has permanent residency thus avoiding the military service. There is one scene where Doo-young watches his room mate stay up all night playing video games and he wonders to himself, did he really come all the way to Canada just to do this? 
Doo-young tries a variety of things to avoid the military service including trying to pull out his teeth, trying to injure his shoulders and knees doing Judo, trying to find a Korean girl with permanent residency to marry him and even impersonating his room mate (the results of which are hilarious).


This previously screened as part of the TIFF Student Showcase.


Death Buy Lemonade (video below)
A hilarious and cute dark comedy about lemonade and death. Death encounters a stubborn little-girl at her lemonade stand and the results are unexpected and comic genius. The animation style of this is beautiful and reminded me of sketches done in coloured chalk or conte. Director Lee Kyubum also did the Taste Kimchi Cinema promotional video for TKFF (the one that plays prior to every screening and is brilliant!) and is currently working on the show Sidekick for YTV.

Death Buy Lemonade from Cartoon Brew on Vimeo.

Review: Epitaph

Screening as part  of the Toronto Korean Film Festival, Epitah (Directors Jeong Beom-sik, Jeong Beom-sik) takes place in a Korean hospital during the 1940s. Dr. Jung-nam finds an old photo album from his days as a medical intern and the film flashes from 1979 to 1942. Jung Nam the adopted son of  the hospital director and at the beginning of the film is arranged to marry her daughter whom he vaguely remembers from childhood. He is a gentle soul and would much rather be indulging in his passion for drawing than doing morgue duty. Even his decision to become a doctor was more an obligation to his adopted mother, the hospital director. Once in the morgue he is physically ill at the site of mutilated corpses being brought in due to an apparent serial killer on the loose. Then suddenly the body of a beautiful young girl is brought in, having been perfectly preserved by the frozen river that she was found in. Jung-nam is drawn to her for some reason and spends most of his morgue duty talking to her or sketching her face. Elsewhere in the hospital a young girl named Asako is brought in, the soul survivor of a car accident that has killed her mother and stepfather. She is plagued by vivid nightmares and it soon becomes obvious that this is due to her guilt which is not just mere survivors guilt. 

The plot is at times difficult to follow but viewers will be rewarded by stunning cinematography and stand out performances from actors Jin-goo (Dr.Jung Nam) and Ju Yeon-koo (Asako).

An unexpectedly beautiful and poetic horror film proving that this genre can and should be pushed to it's limits. It masterfully balances moments of gore with moments of sublime beauty.

Review: Cosmopolis

David Cronenberg's latest film, Cosmopolis follows a sociopathic man-child in his space-age (laughably so) limousine as he travels across town through traffic jams caused by a visit from the President and anti-capitalism demonstrations, so that he can visit his childhood barber shop. His chief of security tries and tries to dissuade him pointing out the numerous nearby salons but he is insistent that it is a particular haircutting experience that he desires, one that can only be delivered by his childhood barber. The film is the 24-hour journey across Manhattan (actually Toronto) to get a haircut, however it is more than a  seemingly pointless limousine ride and actually a slow meditation on the dehumanising effects of unbridled power and capitalism.

Based on the novel by Don DeLillo, Robert Pattinson plays Eric Packer, a 28 year old asset manager billionaire who constantly craves stimuli, sex, pain, violence and yet who is also an unashamed hypochondriac (in one scene he conducts a business discussion whilst having his prostrate examined in his limo). Bad currency speculation causes Eric to lose billions as he rides his limousine to his barbershop destination. Throughout the film there is talk of rat currency (from a poem Eric read) and rat protesters crop up throughout the film dangling rats ominously, throwing them at diners in one scene or throwing a giant  Papier-mâché  model onto Eric's Limousine. 

The film is at once ridiculous and poetic, K'Naan plays the sufi rap star Brutha Fez and his ostentatious funeral procession is a hilarious reminder of the ridiculousness of our cult of celebrity. In fact the only time Eric weeps or shows any emotion at all for that that matter is for the deceased rapper. He has Brutha Fez's music playing in one of two elevators in his home which to him makes Brutha Fez godlike.

I admit that I am not a Cronenberg fan and I certainly am not a Pattinson fan either. My sole reason for seeing this film was that it was shot in Toronto. There is a scene in my beloved Lakeview Diner and partial glimpses of the CN Tower lit up at night. Having said that, however, I did enjoy the film. I think Pattinson was well suited to the role and is really convincing as a man without a soul bouncing from one desire to the next like a bored dictator. It is almost as though his increasing self-destruction and violence towards others is meant as a kind of cleansing fire from which he can emerge as an entirely different person. One gets the sense that he is just as repulsed by himself as others are. Juliette Binoche is of course brilliant as Eric's art dealer, as is Samantha Morton who plays his philosophizing chief advisor, and Paul Giamatti as a lunatic former employee determined to kill him. My one criticism as far as acting goes, would be that Sarah Gadon, who plays Erics wife comes across as being a caricature of a spoilt rich girl turned misunderstood poet. I just wonder if there wasn't a less obvious way of playing this character, a way in which we may have actually felt something towards her? 

For Toronto showtimes please click here.