Archive for the 'Review' Category

Today, while I was preparing a post for the next monster on the Obscure Monster Halloween Countdown when a friend looked over my shoulder and said excitedly, “You should write about Baby Dinosaur Zzu-Zzu!”  “You mean Young-gu and Dinosaur Zzu-Zzu?” I asked. That was a movie I had briefly considered and dismissed. “Yeah!” he replied, “I saw it when I was about nine or ten years old. It was a lot of fun. You have to write about it.”  Well, since I have to write about it, I will.

What really made me agree to write about the movie was the image pictured right. Warning!  Do NOT look directly at this still photo! The absolute hideousness could possibly cause blindness. You all know what I’m talking about. Not the strange reptile creature holding hands with Young-gu.  It’s that horrible collection of verticle and horizontal stripes. And the shorts with suspenders combo. I don’t think I have ever seen anything so terrible in my life. And it appears throughout the movie.. Young-gu never once changes what he’s wearing except for a brief scene that is even worse when he takes off his shirt. Yes, it is true. After my friend told me I had to write about the movie, I felt I first should actually see it.  I was a little reluctant to do so being familar with early Shim Hyeong-rae films and his character Young-gu. As an adult, his films are hard to watch. He has often been blamed for making childish films and his detractors would have a point except for the fact that they Shim’s films were made for children.  In nearly all of his films, Hyeong-rae portrays himself as an adult-sized child, whether he is in the Uleme series, the Young-gu movies (Young-gu and Ddaengchili, Young-gu and Dracula..), or the direct-to-video Hyeong-rae series (Hyeong-rae and the Hulk, Masked Hyeong-rae and the Goblins…).  By playing the child, no matter how unconvincing he is to the mature eye, he provides children with an identification figure.. a character or friend with whom they can imagine sharing impossible adventures or whom they replace in their imaginations with themselves.

The plot of the movie follows the British movie Gorgo (1961) and the 1967 Japanese film Monster from a Prehistoric Planet starring Gappa (a monster that should be on somebody’s obscure creature list)  In all of these films, somebody finds a giant egg or a baby, unknown beast and decides to take it home and then are shocked with the parent or parents of the hatchling come searching for it. In Young-gu and Dinosaur Zzu-Zzu (1993), (NOT “Princess Zzu-Zzu as the KMDb calls it— somebody there mixed up the words Gongryong with Gongju. They are not interchangable), Young-gu finds a giant egg in a cave.  The egg then chases him (?) and nearly crushes Young-gu before coming to a hault and hatching.

At first terrified by the little dinosaur that bears more than a passing resemblence to the original Yonggary from Yonggary, Monster from the Deep (1967), Young-gu soon finds himself coming to its rescue when a gang of children attack the beast out of fear.  The police get involved as well, so Young-gu hides to monster in his room with his stuffed toys like in E.T. He might have evaded the police but Young-gu and the little dinosaur run afoul of three thieves who having seen the dinosaur, want to capture and sell it to the highest bidder. After several misadventures, the thieves finally succeed and take the little dinosaur and the kidnapped Young-gu to Seoul.

It turns out that they left the village just in time.  The real threat to humanity shows up– Zzu-Zzu’s mother. She appears by breaking through the side of a mountain in a scene that was clearly inspired by Yonggary and that is done at least as well as that more famous monster. Her major fault is that she comes at the 50 minute mark–  That meant 50 minutes with no real monster.. or did it?  Little Zzu-Zzu made it quite clear that she did not eat vegetables or grains.  Clearly, she was carniverous… I kept waiting for her to turn on the thieves and eat them. But she doesn’t get the chance. Her mother finally tracks them down in Seoul, after destroying much of the city, finally attacks the building where Zzu-Zzu is hidden and melts her kidnappers with her flame breath. 

That turn of events seemed surprisingly out of place in a movie clearly aimed at very young children as did the ultimate, and quite bloody fate of Zzu-Zzu’s mother as she bleeds out on the street and dies. The soldiers then turn their guns on Zzu-Zzu and…. 

This film was Shim Hyeong-rae’s first attempt at making a monster movie and he has many others to his name..Tyrano’s Claw, Young-gu and the Space Monster, Dragon Tucca, Yonggary and D-War.  Three of those are possible candidates for this list, but tomorrow I be taking a look at a 1961 movie featuring a vampiric vine.

Not all monsters, ghosts and things that go bump in the night are from horror films. Today’s entry onto the list of Obscure Monsters comes from the children’s fairytale, The Brothers Heungbu and Nolbu directed by Kang Tae-woong in 1967. 

Before introducing our feature guest today, I should probably talk a little about the movie.  The Brothers Heungbu and Nolbu was the first feature length film made in Korea to be performed entirely by claymation and dolls not unlike classic holiday favorites such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. This Korean movie was also made for a holiday, May 5th.  No, not Cinco de Mayo– Children’s Day!  In the movie, Heunbu’s hoarde of children sing a happy-ish song while animals and birds play together with them–I think this is right before a huge snake appears and attempts to devour the baby birds still in the nest.  The happy-ish song is a nice change for the kids. Most time when they are onscreen, they are sobbing about how hungry they are and how sorry they are for their parents.  While much time is spent on the kids, the story is really about the kind Heungbu who, along with his wife and children, savagely beat the snake to death. During the battle, one of the birds suffers from a broken leg. Heungbu and family take care of it  and are rewarded by the birds with a magic seed. In the film, when the seed grows, it produces three enormous gourds that Heungbu and his wife saw open. In one gourd are jewels, silks and luxurious clothes. In another gourd are piles of gold and coins. The final gourd transforms the family’s hovel into a palace-like home. And then comes the good part…

Heungbu’s brother is the scene stealing Nolbu and his evil wife.  Whenever these two are on screen, the movie is more interesting. These two are very wealthy and care nothing for Heungbu and his prodigious family. When Heungbu goes to them to beg for food for his starving family, Nolbu’s wife slaps him upside the head with a spoon full of rice and tells him he can keep whatever stuck to his face.  However, seeing that his younger brother is much wealthier than he, Nolbu becomes jealous and learns how his brother came upon such good fortune. Finding a swallow, he first ‘accidently’ breaks the birds leg and then goes about taking care of it to ensure he too will receive a magic seed.  However, his gourds are cursed. From the first gourd emerges a talking tiger that chases the couple through their home and warns them to stop their greedy ways. Not heeding the warning, the couple goes to open the second gourd.  A huge dragon appears in a puff of smoke. Although terrifying it wanders away without harming them. But in the final gourd, our star appears– the One-Eyed Ghost! With her entrance, all hell breaks loose. The cyclopsean spirit of vengence chases Nolbu’s wife around, eventually biting her in the neck with her fangs while Nolbu is chased by the tiger and the dragon returns to crush and burn their home to the ground. The movie has a happy ending with Nolbu and his wife going to live with Heungbu and his family. And here to say a few words about her role in the movie is the One-Eyed Ghost herself!

Won-ai:  Hiya folks!

Me: So what can you tell me about your part in the Brothers Heungbu and Nolbu?

Won-ai: Well, first let me tell you that I hated the ending. It was very different from the original story!

Me: What do you mean? I have seen a lot of children’s books with this story in it. They are all pretty much the same.

Won-ai: Those are the modern versions. They are way too soft on Nolbu. They have thieves or goblins or winds coming out of the gourd to deprive him of his wealth. In the original versions he got a good beating and covered with excrement! Nolbu’s wife isn’t in the original stories either. He was unmarried and carried with him a bag of perversity.

Me: Bag of perversity? Do they have those at E-Mart?

Won-ai: You don’t want one. The bag made him do evil and disgusting things like pee in the well or stuff dung into the mouths of crying babies or use other men’s wives if they owed him money. He was a terrible person and derserved what he got!

Me: You seem to be getting angry just talking about him. We can change the subject…

Won-ai: Sorry. I’ve been holding onto my han for so long that it sometimes gets the better of me.

Me: Your han?

Won-ai:  Sure. How do you think I became a ghost? or anyone else becomes a ghost for that matter?

Me: Umm… you died?

Won-ai:  Yes, I died. But I died with a great han. Han is a Korean concept deeply rooted in traditional thought. There is no single word to describe it in English ‘though it is often translated as ‘grudge’ or ‘resentment’ or ‘regret.’  It is the feeling from putting up with oppression in silence or being helpless to help someone you love. It is having to forgive when you really don’t want to and the sorrow of never being able to express how you really feel.

Me: Really? So anyone can feel han?

Won-ai: Well, nine times out of ten it is applied to women. I read an article in the LA Times this past January where they talked about a man shopowner in LA carrying han, but I found it very odd. Ask any Korean around you and they will tell you that han is generally used to refer to something a woman feels–her supressed emotions that she is not allowed to express. Some researchers also say that it is part of the national psyche because of the long history of invaders in Korea through the centuries. In horror movies, it is almost always the thing that motivates the vengence of a female ghost. Korean horror movies through the years have had titles like Resentment of a Daughter-in-Law, My Sister’s Regret, Wol-nyeo-s Grudge… I could go on and on.

Me: I see. Now I know why you are a ghost. But what about the one eye? Is that natural?

Won-ai: Nah, this is my scary face. In the movie you might notice that I sometimes have two eyes. Ghosts can change. In the movie Public Cemetary of Wol-nyeo the ghost appears as a beautiful mother, a floating light and a toothy demon. I can be quite pretty when I want to be.

Me:  I noticed you are carrying something. A DVD of the Japanese movie Ring? Why do you have that?

Won-ai: I just took this along to show you that my scary, one-eyed look is not unique in film. Not only Ring, but if you look behind me in the picture above, you will see an image from the Japanese movie Ju-on and the Korean film Face on the wall behind me. Modern horror also makes use of the baleful, giant eye.

Me: Yeah, I see it. Come to think of it, you do look a lot like the ghost from Ring…

Won-ai:  What!  I’m from 1967!  Ring was made in 1998!  If anything she looks like me!  But y’know, I can’t claim to be the first long-haired ghost wearing white either. Horror movies from the 60s and possibly earlier are filled with us. Sadako was NOT the first contrary to what many Western articles and bloggers have to say. She was just the next in a long line of ghosts.  She wasn’t even the first one to come popping out of a well!  The ghost in Shin Sang-ok’s Ghost Story of the Joseon Dynasty lived in a well and that was made in 1970. I’ll give Sadako the climbing through the tv bit though…that was pretty good… Then again, I came out of a gourd fresh off the vine. I’d like to see her try that!

Me: Well, that is all the time I have today. I want to thank our guest for the day, One-Eyed Ghost, and congratulate her on being the featured Obscure Monster on our Countdown to Halloween. See you tomorrow!

Although today’s entry in the Obscure Monster Countdown to Halloween is from 1984, I have to go back to 1966 to begin.  You see, if you were living in Japan in July 1966, you would have been treated to the very first appearance of Urutora or, as he is known to Western audiences, Ultraman.  Created by Eiji Tsuburaya, the original Ultraman television series ran for 39 episodes. Throughout the following years, Ultraman has returned in various incarnations.  Apparently, these giant warriors fuse their life force with a human who can then turn into the titantic defender when Earth is threatened. Growing up in the USA, we did get the original Ultraman series that was aired on Saturday morning when I was a very young child (when it was known as ‘Cartoon Day’, not Saturday)  However, it came on too early in the morning for me to see.. I would always catch the tail end of the show when he would shoot it with a laser from his arm and the monster he was battling that week would blow up.  I always wanted to see more.  When I was a little older, there was an American cartoon featuring Ultraman–several ultramen I believe– but when I moved to Korea, I saw my first complete series of Ultraman featuring Tiga. I think the most comparable show to Ultraman is the British series Dr. Who.  By this I mean that the main character and cast changes over the years, yet the fans instantly recognize and accept these changes as part of the mythos.

Why am I talking about Ultraman? Well, the producers of Ultraman had to come up with monsters each week for the hero to battle. Some were quite good. Others were ..umm.. not so good. And while costumes could be recycled over the years you are still going to have a lot of unused monster suits after a 50-year history. What to do with them?  If you were director Kim Jeong-yong, you would have had the idea to get your hands on some of them and make a monster movie. Then again, it might not have been his idea. The production company Woojin Films might have bought the leftover suits and designated Kim to make the film. And what a film he made! Not just a single giant monster, his movie had six different creatures tearing up cities and villages in Korea.  He used the suits that appeared in the Ultraman series as Fester, Sea Gorass, Sea Monster, Bemster, Pterotils and Baragon. Baragon deserves special mention. He was from Toho Studios, the company that produced Godzilla. He was frequently loaned to Tsuburaya Productions to battle Ultraman. He originally appeared in Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965) and is blamed for attacking Paris in Destroy All Monsters (1968) although he does not appear in that movie as his suit was on loan.  I have to assume that Tsuburaya Productions eventually bought Baragon, but he ultimately wound up in Korea and appeared in the 1984 film Flying Dragon Attacks.. (the title I am using is what appears on the VHS box shortly after its theatrical release. The KMDB lists this film as Flying Monster)

Baragon can hardly be considered obscure enough for me. Instead, I want to give the spot in the Halloween Countdown to the title creature, the Flying Monster herself, Pterachilraus! Her fearsome visage with her angry red plumage is pictured above.  Her height seems to vary throughout the movie depending what background she is in. I would estimate her to usually be around Godzilla-sized, 2-300 feet tall. However, when shooting interacting with her co-stars (the lower of the two images pictured above) she is more like 60 feet tall. One professor Kim gets  it into his head that Pterachilraus is a threat to humanity and that the only way to eliminate the threat is by attacking her nest and destroying her eggs. However, I am not sure what he hoped to accomplish by that… drive Pterachilraus to commit suicide as Rodan (a Toho monster whom Pterachilraus somewhat resembled) had done?  It didn’t work. Instead the gigantic flying beast goes on a revenge fueled rampage and destroys the cities closest to her home. She is apparently joined by many of her monster friends.. There is a three-minute video collage of the film here (http://tvpot.daum.net/clip/ClipView.do?clipid=4907259) See if you can make any sense out of what is happening…  No?  Well, don’t feel bad. You are not alone.

The lovely woman staining the soles of Pterachilraus’ foot in the picture above is reporter Kang Ok-hee who went undercover as a maid in Prof. Kim’s house to get the scoop on the ‘rejuvenation formula’ he has been working on. While I do not know for sure, I am willing to bet that it is more than just a anti-aging skin cream he is working on and that it will somehow regrow her legs. I hope so anyway, for her sake.

I have to admit that as a child I loved ‘giant monster movies’ but as an adult I find them extremely difficult to go back and watch. I would not be able to do it at all except for the invention of the ‘mute’ button.. those monster roars are noisy…and much too frequent!  However, I would happily buy this movie if it were ever released on DVD just for the shear insanity of the film. Pterachilraus is the definition of ‘obscure monster’ and earns a place on the Obscure Monster Halloween Countdown.

Many people know of the ghosts, monsters and creatures that have skittered through Korean horror films over the past decade. The ghosts of Phone or A Tale of Two Sisters have left indelible images on the minds of viewers around the world.  Others maybe won’t prove as memorable, like the haunted tree in Acacia, the giant pig from Chaw or the the werewolves of Ssunday Seoul but they are still fairly recent and won’t be dealt with here.

In these posts counting down to Halloween, I will be dealing with the obscure–my favorite topic. Monsters, ghosts, goblins and the like from before the year 2000; creatures from movies never released on DVD that are in danger of being forgotten in Korea and not known at all outside of the country.

First on the list one of my favorites, the Possessed Doll from the movie Suddenly at Midnight (1981) directed by Ko Yeong-nam– an excellent film that deserves a DVD release.  The doll itself is odd, but at first not particularly scary. In fact, I would not have minded keeping it on my mantle if I were to find one– it certainly would be a conversation piece. It stands about a foot tall, is made of wood and depicts a shaman priestess in the midst of a ceremony with her cleaver held aloft. The lucky owner of the doll is Mi-ok, a simple girl raised by her mother deep in the mountains of Korea. Mi-ok might have remained there all her life and followed in her mother’s footsteps as a shaman, talking to spirits, divining futures and performing exorcisms had it not been for a chance meeting with the dignified professor of butterflies, Dr. Kang Yoo-jin and a fire that claims her mother’s life. Benevolent Dr. Kang takes the suddenly orphaned young woman home to his wife to work as a servant in the house. His wife, Seon-hee, feels a little jealous about Mi-ok’s beauty and is naturally very curious about the doll as well, but Mi-ok is very protective of it and won’t let anyone touch it.

When alone with the doll, Mi-ok talks to it and when the doll is alone it wanders around outside..or at least that is what Seon-hee believes as she catches it glaring in at her from outside the window. Later on, it just seems to keep turning up in the most unexpected places–especially after Mi-ok has a little… accident..really.. Seon-hee is completely innocent.  When we next see the doll, it is life-sized– which not even I would want in my living room.  Seon-hee hates it so much now that she winds up in a life or death struggle with the oversized doll… but it would be telling if I said who won. 

Suddenly at Midnight is a great movie that leaves a lot open to interpretation. Is the doll really possessed by the spirit of Mi-ok’s mother as Mi-ok and Seon-hee believe? Does it really move around?  Or is it the imagination of a jealous, insecure woman who is descending into madness?  Whether it is real or not, Possessed Doll earns a place on the Obscure Monster Halloween Countdown.

Park Nam-ok made a mark on Korean cinema history by being the first Korean woman to direct a film. However, it was an under-appreciated effort at the time it was made and there was no real interest in the film until the 1st Seoul Women’s Film Festival ressurected it.  At the time it was made, Park could only get one theater to screen it because she was a woman and even when she finally got it released, it was only for a four-day period. But it was still an amazing accomplishment considering the times.  Park Nam-ok was born in 1923 in Hayang, the third of ten children in her wealthy family. She demonstrated a strong character, enjoying sports such as shot-put as well as movies and literature. After graduating high school, she wanted to go on her own to study in Japan, but her family refused to let her go. Instead she had to enrol in the Home Economics Department at Ehwa Women’s College. She wound up leaving school while fighting her parents’ wishes that she marry. Instead, she became a film critic for the Daegu Daily Newspaper. After Korea was liberated from Japan, she joined the Joseon Film Company as a script editor, but again her parents forced her to return home in the hopes to get her to marry. When the Korean War started, she edited newsreels for the army. She did eventually marry a playwright who had written the scenario for The Widow which she began making into a film. She had a child at the time, but lacked a willing babysitter, so she used to go to work with her daughter on her back.  Park only made the one film. She divorced her husband and started a film magazine called Cinemafan in 1956 but again her parents got her to give it up and convinced her to work for her brother-in-law at Dong-a Publishing. After 21 years there, she moved to the USA to be with her daughter who was living there and she remains there to this day.

The movie The Widow was made at a time when money was in short supply. While director Park may have felt that less than many people living in Korea in the mid-50’s, her characters are frequently concerned about and motivated by the thought of money. The learn that the title character, widow Lee Shin-ja, is in need of money because her daughter’s school is “bleeding her dry” and the teacher has informed her daughter not to come if she cannot pay. Having no source of income of her own, Shin-ja has been relying on her husband’s friend, Lee Seong-jin, to support her but the man’s wife has become suspicious of their relationship.  Shin-ja’s best friend and neighbor, a prostitute, tells her that she could be getting a lot more money if she takes the friendship with Seong-jin to the next level. Later, again while talking to her friend about money, she forgets to watch her daughter who is playing in the beach. The child nearly dies as a result and only the quick action of Taek saves her.

Normally in these early films, the lead character is a pillar of chastity. Widows were expected to remain single as according to traditions, they were still married even though their husbands were dead. However, while Lee Shin-ja outwardly appears this way, she gradually changes throughout the movie. When we first meet her, she always wears traditional-style clothing. Often in early Korean films, what the female character wears determines the type of morals she has. For example, when we meet the prostitute, she is wearing pants which definitely brings her character into question if one is familar with films from this period. Shin-ja’s clothes style changes with the decisions she makes. After taking to living with Taek as his common law wife, Shin-ja adopts Western style clothes which we see often in early Korean film as a sign of declining morals (such as in The Coachman and The Aimless Bullet). Although Shin-ja learns to drink during the film she does not hit rock bottom and smoke as the prostitute does. Women smoking in Korean films was saved for either very elderly grandmothers who had earned the right or women who were considered the villain of the movie or, at the very least, someone whose character needed changing. 

At one point in the movie, Lee Shin-ja calls herself a bad mother and her neighbor, Mr. Song is quick to disagree.  However, I have to take issue with that. Shin-ja is a terrible mother. Normally I would not be so quick to judge, but she our heroine gives away her daughter for no more reason than the child has become an incovenience! Givingup children happens sometimes in Korean films like in the I Hate You But Again series or the One Love where the father and mother are separated and one parent is better able to support the child than the other, but this is not the case in The Widow. While she is poor, Shin-ja raises her daughter lovingly. After she meets a man whom she wants to live with, her daughter has suddenly become “a burden” and she asks her lover Taek if she should “make her go live with Mr. Song?” By this time, she has opened her own sewing business and is making sufficient money to support her child.. which she does.. but she has no interest in having her daughter around.

There is one frustrating point while watching this otherwise engrossing film.  The last part of the movie is damaged. The last scene is missing off the end of the film so we do not see what happens at the end. Even more annoying is that in the ten minutes prior to that, the sound was lost so we can see what is happening, but we cannot hear any dialogue.  Fortunately, I was able to read a description of how the film ends, but it was very vague.  Even without knowing the exact ending, I think most people could guess that it would not end happily. Considering her actions, Shin-ja fails to live up to being an ideal wife/mother/woman and therefore, according to cinematic rules, she must be punished for these transgressions.

However, although Shin-ja fails to live up to the ideals 1950 society expected of her, the movie never paints her as the villain. Neither is the prostitute ever blamed for her actions because her methods of making money were very limited at the time. Had this film been directed by a man, I think the prostitute would have come off far worse. Instead, Park made the main  and supporting female characters very human and while we may not agree with their actions, we can understand them.  

I am puzzled about the Korean title the film was released under on DVD.  The poster above shows the title to be Gwabu-ui Noomool which means “Tears of a Widow”in big red letters.   Underneath that, in paratheses and in Chinese characters, it says ‘Mimangin‘ which I understand was the name of the screenplay. Clearly the film title was the former no matter what the screenplay was called.  Why then was the DVD released under the Korean title Mimangin?  I have not been able to find any mention as to why one title was chosen over the other. However, that does not change the English title which has always been simply The Widow.

The Widow is available on DVD, but only as part of the Landscape After The War  Collection which also contains The Flower in Hell (1958), Money (1958) and Drifting Island (1960).  It is worth tracking down to see what life in Korea was like in the years immediately following the Korean War.

I wrote the following review for the October issue of Asiana Entertainment and, as the issue was recently published, I am able to upload it here. I will preface it by saying I did not exaggerate… Leafie was a very pleasant surprise and currently stands out in a year of some excellent films such as Sunny and Late Blossoms (I had not seen Silenced at the time of this writing and I am very much expecting the release of The Client this week. The following is a slightly modified version of what I had written for the magazine article:  When I was first asked to review director Oh Seong-gyun’s debut, the animated film Leafie: A Hen Into the Wild, it was with some trepidation that I accepted. As it was an animation, I felt certain that it was going to be childish and it was with some embarrassment that I bought tickets for myself and two friends. Even though I review many older animated films, I would rather watch them at home where I will not be embarrassed… Anyway, we went into the theater expecting to have to endure 93 minutes of nonsense. We left the theater stunned and almost speechless. When we could speak again, we unanimously agreed that this was not only the best animated film we had ever seen, but it was also the best movie we had seen so far this year!

 I hardly know where to begin describing this impressive film which was based on a best-selling children’s story by Hwang Seon-mi. I think the first thing that stood out for me was the backgrounds. There is such an amazing amount of detail in the scenery that each frame is a feast for the eyes. Such care was given to the art in the background that you can easily identify the types of flowers, trees and insects they are meant to be. You can almost feel the breeze or smell the outdoors as you are looking at parts of this film.

The characters too, are lifelike and memorable. The movie focuses on Leafie, a hen who has managed to escape the horrible conditions of an egg production line. After surviving a harrowing encounter with a one-eyed weasel and being rejected by the barnyard animals where she grew up, Leafie is free to wander where she will. Her cheerful nature, naïve character and eagerness to make friends quickly win her a place in the hearts of viewers. Among her friends are a helpful, outgoing but somewhat meddlesome otter and a brave, regal and handsome duck nicknamed ‘Wanderer.’  The enemies she made are the overly proud ornamental hens of the farmyard and the previously mentioned weasel who would gladly make a meal of the vulnerable hen in the wild.

Through a tragic series of events, Leafie becomes the guardian of a duck egg and, eventually, a duckling.  The lifestyle of a chicken is very different from that of a duck, but Leafie was willing to learn and make the sacrifices she needed in order to ensure the happiness of her son. The fact that a hen cannot swim or fly does not stop Leafie and her child although the local waterfowl definitely think the situation odd and in some cases are quite unkind to the pair. However, this film is not a rehash of the fable of The Ugly Duckling. This is a warm and surprisingly realistic tale where the themes of love and sacrifice frequently come into play.

The realism of the film manifests itself in the laws of nature and the rules of predator and prey. This film is not akin to Madagascar or Lion King where the big cats do not hunt and eat the other animals. Instead, it is more like the beloved animated classics like Bambi and Watership Downs where death is not sugarcoated. It is a real threat and plays an important role in the film. In this respect, it is perhaps best that younger viewers see this movie with a parent.

This truly impressive and beautiful movie is destined to be a classic. Plans are already in the works to open this film internationally so a much wider audience will be able to see and enjoy it. Do yourself a favor and watch this film the first chance you get. No matter what your age, you are sure to love it.

Ghastly opens with a grisly death where a woman seems to have chopped her feet off with a butcher’s knife and bled to death in front of her young son.  The boy’s aunts and uncle come to stay with him at his enormous home.  The boy is understandably withdrawn and lashes out when people invade his personal space with their concern or, as in the case of his classmates, with their taunts. His strange behavior leads him to become suspect in the death of his mother, at least as far as one police investigator is concerned but it also leads to some friction with his younger aunt, a high school student, who is annoyed by his actions and resents the attention he is getting.  Opening an unbelivably large storage area on the premises where the boy’s grandmother kept the tools of her trade, the elder aunt stumbles upon a strange old book depicting scenes of a terrible rite that brings fertility to the couple participating in it.  Now the members of the very disfunctional household are suffering from terrifying dreams and preminitions of their own gruesome deaths. 

Whenever I sit down to watch a horror movie, I go into it with the idea that I am going to like it. I am also willing to put up with a little less quality in a horror movie than I might in another genre, so it has to be pretty bad for me to be negative about it.  Well, Ghastly just about fits the bill.  Although it has a handful of good points, the bad far outweigh any positive aspects.  The good are some of the scenes in the film, particularly the dream sequences where the ghost can be just glimpsed crouched menacingly at the edge of the shadows–just out of range of clear vision. Another intense dream involves a character sitting under a desk and pounding on its underside like he is trying to escape while apparently asleep while yet another dream involving a knife uncomfortably close to a sleeping person’s eye creates a lot of tension.

However, everything else is something of a mess.  To begin with, their are plot holes you could drive a bus through.  I really have to wonder just how the aunt found the body of Bin’s classmate based on a watch and missing person posters.  She had no knowledge of the location and no clues leading her there. There is also the question of why Bin was allowed back in school after lashing out with a pencil at a classmate who had stolen the painting of his grandmother. He would certainly have been suspended. And why was a certain character not locked up at the end of the movie. Even though we know that he/she was possessed by a ghost at the time the killings took place, it would still seem that she/he was responsible. There is no way the police would allow this character freedom at the end of the movie. 

Again, plot holes I could overlook. However, the editing is probably the worst I have seen in a modern Korean film.  There is often no transition between one scene and another and one has no idea how a character got there.  Because of the editing, it was difficult to understand how much time had passed. For example, the grandmother is found in the hospital, barely coherent and with bandages over her ears, yet we meet her shortly thereafter, apparently fine which led me to believe at least several weeks had passed. But the disappearence of a policeman between these two events raises no eyebrows. One officer comments that he is ‘away from his desk’.  But I would have thought more time would have passed based on the grandmother’s recovery.

Speaking of the police, the actor playing the investigator on the case is much too young. His real age is around 25, and he looks it.  There is no way he could have the job he has.  I have nothing against actor No Min-woo who playes the young cop–in fact, I hope to see more of him in movies– but something should have been done to make him look older.  The casting mistakes continue beyond that with T-Ara singer Hyo-min playing a high school student. Although she is by no means old– in her early twenties– she does not look like she is in high school.  Her acting is not bad although a little bit lacking in nuance, but couldn’t the director find an actress that was actually a teenager.  It would have made Hyo-min’s character Yoo-rin seem far less childish while she is pouting over the lack of attention she was receiving if the actress had looked younger.

While I cannot recommend going to pay full price to watch this movie, I would say watch it if you can see it for a discounted price.  It is, frankly, not very good. I probably won’t remember anything about it except for the rather horrible fertility rite, which I liked and found original), and  the ultrasound scene which may very well be the  stupidest thing I have scene in a horror film in a long time.

Ttoli was a character that most Korean children growing up in the late 70s and early 80s would have been familiar with. In  the three 1970s’ films Ddoli was a child who grew up in the wild with his animal friends in the forests of North Korea where he battled against communist plots in no less than three films. However, by the 80s, he was turning up in different time eras such as the Joseon Period in Korean history, the future and one million years in the past in this movie.  Young Ttoli did not begin the film in the past.  He was clearly living in the modern age as his parents are piloting an airplane on the way to visit his grandparents.  They experience a Bermuda Triangle-like situation and are sucked through a vortex to the far past where humans, dinosaurs and pre-human, loincloth-wearing ape-men..oh and advanced aliens, all exist simultaneously. Ttoli’s father survives the crash but is so far from the wreckage of the plane, that he has no idea where his wife and son are. Ttoli’s mother is indeed never seen again, but the infant Ttoli is taken in by a tribe of cavemen. 

The child’s presence causes the already existing friction between the tribe’s chief whose wife want to raise Ttoli and the second strongest hunter who wants to lead the tribe to become worse. When Ttoli kills a baby tyrannosaurus that wandered into his cave, the cavemen all rightly fear reprisal from the adult.  It comes swiftly during the night as the gigantic white dinosaur nicknamed Tyranno attacks the village and kills nearly all the cavepeople including Ttoli’s adopted mother. His father was not present at the time having taken a hunting party out, but when he returns, he takes the surviving cavemen on a mission of revenge from which he does not return.

Orphaned for a second time, Ttoli is taken in by the dimmest of the cavemen who moves away from the village. For several years he raises the child who becomes an adept hunter and inexplicably has bonded with a pterodactyl. He also has made friends with a young cave girl from the village, but when her father recognizes Ttoli, she is ordered to stay away. On that same day, Ttoli is re-introduced to both of his father’s although he does not recognize them at first. His foster father has been wandering around like Captain Ahab hunting the white dinosaur who maimed him. Meanwhile, his real father had been found by a dying race of aliens who bequeathed to him their time-travelling flying saucer which he has been working on while holed up in a cave.

There is a lot more with the ape-men capturing Ttoli’s father and wanting to sacrifice him Fay Wray style to the white dinosaur and an active volcano. However, it has to be kept in mind that this is decidedly a children’s movie. I found it very noisy and the there were plot holes you could drive a flying saucer through.  Just who were those aliens?  They had less than 10 seconds of screen time! Literally, if you blink, you will miss them.  Where did Ptera, Ttoli’s pterodactyl friend, come from and why are they friends at all considering that every other pterodactyl wants to kill the humans? I will not, however, question why the cavemen and the modern humans all spoke the same language… I was grateful not having to sit through another Quest For Fire…

I own four or five Ttoli movies on DVD and this is the first one I have watched.  For a Kim Cheong-gi film, the creater of Robot Taekwon V and Ulimae, it was rather poorly animated, but at only 85 minutes, it was tolarable and since Ttoli is a classic character and a major character in Korean animation history, I do not regret watching it and learning more about him. .

This summer, my interest was peaked by the coming of the horror film The Cat and it inspired the post where I looked at some of the feline ghosts in Korean cinema’s past. Then I read some reviews about the film and decided to skip it in the theaters. Yesterday, I saw that it was on Hana TV.  Hana TV has been doing an excellent site of getting films quickly after finishing their theatrical run and I can see them at half the price as I can in the theater. Link and Beast were just released a month ago but Hana TV already has them available on demand! Anyway, this isn’t an ad for Hana TV… this is about The Cat.  My expectations going in were cautiously hopeful…maybe not as high as they were at the beginning of the summer, though. The movie had opened on July 7th and disappeared from theaters by the end of that same month with less than seven hundred thousand tickets sold.  But, regardless of the fact that the film was not a box office smash, I am happy to say that I enjoyed it very much.  It manages to build suspense quite well and maintain it throughout the film.  Too many times I am enjoying a ghost story only to find that once we learn what is motivating the spirit to torment the living, it becomes far less frightening. The Cat does not suffer from this as we do not learn what is driving the ghost until the very end and immediately following the reveal, we are given a satisfying ending.

The main character of the film is a pet store employee and animal lover named So-yeon played by Park Min-yeong.  On the surface, she appears slightly shy–perhaps relating better to animals than people– sensitive and kind-hearted.  The crush she has on her friends ex-boyfried Joon-seok is very well handled and serves to underline her shynes. However, she has a darker side as well.  So-yeon suffers from out of control claustrophobia. Her fear of enclosed places is so severe that she cannot take an elevator or ride the subway. She has even removed the door to her bedroom so she can sleep. The medication and counselling she is receiving does not seem to help. The other secret she is keeping is that her father is shut away in a mental hospital. She does not care to visit him and fears that she may wind up like him.  Her fears may be valid as she begins seeing a terrifying vision of a part cat/part girl that seem anything but benign.  I liked this aspect of the character as it presents a possibilty that the events happening onscreen are all in her head and that she, in fact, could be responsible for the deaths of a number of people who all had recent contact with her.

Little girl ghosts may seem a bit cliche in Asian cinema since Ring, and Phone, and Dark Water but Kim Ye-ron does a good job of keeping her phantom fresh. (Incidently, if you have not seen the original Japanese film of Dark Water directed by Hideo Nakata, do it now! It is nothing like the unfortunate American remake).  The ghost appears to switch back and forth between the forms of a young girl and a domestic cat.  The questions are who is the girl and what is her motive? As it is with real cats, what this ghost girl/cat does is often a mystery that only becomes clear later in the story. Of aspect of her motives is clear immediately– Don’t do anything to harm cats or you will find yourself facing and unforgiving and terrifying visitor.

While there may not be enough to The Cat to elevate it to the levels of horror films like A Tale of Two Sisters or Ring, it is still a competent and satisfying movie– and one of the better Korean horror films released in recent years. Watch for its DVD release!

Two weeks ago, when I posted my article for Officer of the Year published in Asiana Entertainment, I said that in September, my article for the film Mama could be read in that magazine and I would repost the article here. However, while that review will still be published, I decided to write a separate one for here. That is because the editor of the airline magazine asked me to focus on “Korean motherhood from the point of view of a foreigner.”  There are so many things that irk me about that sentence… First of all, I critique and review films. It is not my intention or desire to do the same with a culture. Secondly, I am not qualified to to make such observations and loath making that kind of generalization. And finally, I have lived here nearly 20 years now– I have been here nearly as long as my students at the university have been alive. I hate that people think of me or my ideas as ‘foreign’.  Well, I wrote their article, minimizing the focus to more of a universal definition of motherhood, but I will write a fresh opinion for here.

Mama is a film featuring Uhm Jeong-hwa, Kim Hae-sook and Jeon Soo-kyeong in roles of mothers. These charaters never interact and their stories could have been told separately in an omnibus. Instead however, director Choi In-hwan (Whispering Corridors 4: The Voice) chose to weave back and forth between the characters’ stories showing similar problems in different lights. One of the main differences between the charaters is finacial.  Jeon Soo-kyeong’s character Hee-kyeong is wealthy and famous and has just about everything money can buy. However, she does not have the respect of her own adult daughter who lives with her along with the latter’s husband and daughter. Kim Hae-sook plays Ok-joo, a sweet if not necessarily bright woman who is absolutely devoted to her son Seung-cheol who pretends to be an English teacher when he is actually a gangester.  There relationship is treated in a warm and loving manner by the film and it provides the most laughs due to its comedy and smiles due to its warmth.

Uhm Jeong-hwa plays Dong-sook, a single mother living on the edge of poverty but working hard at many jobs to support her sickly son. Her character is active and seems to be full of life as she has a smile for everyone. However, she faces the worst challenge of her life when she is diagnosed with a disease that will almost certainly prove fatal. While she is not worried about herself, she wonders who will take care of her son. The other two mothers face their challenges too. Ok-joo must have surgery that she feels will make her less of a woman and she decides that she would like to meet her highschool sweetheart before that happens. Hee-kyeong is coming to the end of her career and begins to feel frustration at her daughter who has never shown any sign of personal ambition.

At first, I was annoyed with the movie which seemed to try to be overly sentimental too early into the story. Without developing the characters, the script was trying to force tears by perhaps depending on the audience’s nostalgia for their own childhood. In my case at least, that did not work. However, once I have gotten to know the characters a little more, I did feel for them— although not as much as the film obviously meant me too. I was not weeping at the end of every little conflict.  I saved that for the conclusion of the film where I challenge anyone to have a dry eye. The penultimate scene is genuinely moving and I absolutely loved the way the director left the end which could go one way or the other–depending on the viewer. I don’t want to expand on that though until more people have had a chance to see the film.

Uhm Jeong-hwa does a good job but her early scenes suffer because of the script which clearly intends for her life to be a tragic soap opera. Ok-joo and her son (played by the excellent Yoo Hae-jin) were my favorite pair to watch together but I think the best acting actually goes to Jeon Soo-kyeong. I was unfamilar with the actress but later learned that she has a lot of experience on the musical stage. Her voice is amazing when we finally here what she can do in the auditorium.

All in all, I would recommend this film. It is a nice movie that tries a little too hard to a tearjerker. For the most part it is not, but you still might want to have a box of tissues ready for that final scene.