The Divine Move: Go Ahead and Hit Me Again

In the iEra, the nerds may have risen to power but they still don't know how to take a punch or land a roundhouse kick. So when a poorly-groomed gamer (Jung Woo-sung) whose specialty is Go ends up unjustly sentenced to the slammer, all he wants in exchange for giving master boardgame tips to his jailer is to receive ongoing martial arts training from his fellow convicts so he can kick some serious ass when he gets out. The prison fighting lessons in The Divine Move are built around the philosophy that good fighters must be beat up to learn how to beat up others. Sound crazy? Well, my grandfather took a similar approach with my father and it worked for my dad so I had no reason to doubt that it would work here too.

When you see Jung remove his shirt during one of his final prison brawls, you'll likely gasp at how effective such training can be. The actor is shredded to a point that makes you think this prison comes with a nutritionist/dietician, too. His character hasn't let his Go skills deteriorate while in the big house either. As luck would have it, he's sequestered next to a blind genius of Go whenever he ends up in solitary confinement; the two square off by tapping out moves through the wall. Further luck: Someone's left behind some chalk. And so he's a Go graffiti artist. He's a street-style fighter. He's an uncharted player. Plus he's a master networker.

That last talent allows him to entice a fine crew to exact his grand revenge, my favorite of the lot being a one-handed techie (Ahn Kil-kang) who has a nice variety of attachable parts including a hammer for self-defense. These are nerds who are no longer satisfied with outwitting former tormentors. They want blood on their knuckles, not just on their hands. Those jerks who killed our hero's brother (Kim Myeong-soo) are going to get iced, one (Lee Beom-su) quite literally in a freezer showdown to the death. Getting the girl (Lee Si-young) — a master Go player herself — is just Cho Beom-gu's fantasy fulfillment for all the nerdy gamers watching the movie (which they should!).

Mutt Boy: A Howl of Despair

Let's start with a scene near the end of Kwak Kyung-taek's despairingly watchable Mutt Boy. Specifically, the prison fight scene. The one involving Cheol-min (Jung Woo-sung) and his mortal enemy Jin-mook (Kim Jeong-tae) -- the same Jin-mook who had Cheol-min's pet German shepherd killed then fed to the school's soccer team when the two boys were in high school. That Jin-mook. That despicable, quite unlikable, sick and twisted jerk.

Paired together at last for the ultimate cage match, the eponymous "Mutt Boy" and the meanie strip down to their skivvies -- tighty whities for the hero; black panties for the baddie, of course -- and take to fisticuffs (while wearing, for some unfathomable reason, gags). Free to fight without interruption, they punch mercilessly and without strategy. They don't block. They don't dodge. They just punch and punch and punch. And then when they're done with punching, they wrestle. And then they roll around and grapple and neck lock, all while wearing their symbolic undies.

The fellow prisoners are excited at first, then they grow weary because the fight goes on so long, and then some get excited again when it's over, even if it doesn't feel like an outright victory. The same can be said about Cheol-min's relationship with his adopted sister and love interest Jeong-ae (Uhm Ji-won). They fight. They wear each other out. He kind of wins but it doesn't feel like a victory. Same for his relationship with his chief of police dad (Kim Kap-su). Fight. Win. Non-victory. Same with the movie. It wears you down, wins you over, but you don't leave feeling good that about it. But you have to admit that it won. Ding. Ding. Ding.

If they handed out awards for weirdest performance, then for the year of 2003, Jung would definitely get it here for playing the slack-jawed, shat-upon dimwit who against all odds gets to helm his own gang and win over the ladies. His isn't a Cinderella story though. He was made to be miserable. He's got love, family, friends, a job, a roof over his head, looks, a wicked right hook, and potentially a new dog at the end but I wouldn't trade places with him for the world.

Daisy: She Loves Him Even Though He's Not Really Him

Are director Lau Wa-keung and his trio of screenwriters aspiring for super-heightened-naturalism with his romance-turned-spy-caper Daisy? Their movie sure takes the old maxim "Truth is stranger than fiction" at face value. For with nary an ironic wink or a melodramatic scream, this one keeps getting stranger and stranger as its story gets more and more complex. How did this happen? On their own, the characters are plausible if incompatible.

First up is Hye-young (Jun Gianna), a street artist who paints daisies as her humble homage to Van Gogh's Sunflowers. She lives with her grandfather at an antique shop in Amsterdam, favors the knit hat and layered clothing that proclaims "Bohemian," and sketches charcoal portraits in the town square despite having access to an enormous warehouse for painting oils and a date set for her (first?) solo gallery exhibit. If she lived in Paris, she'd smoke Gauloises; if she lived in NYC, she'd have needle-marks. You know the type.

Next up is Jeong-woo (Lee Seung-jae), an Interpol cop who's committed to busting crime rings at any cost. He's what you might call a noble opportunist. And so he uses Hye-young as a cover for monitoring drug trafficking. Then he seizes his chance to seduce her when she mistakes him for someone else. He's not a cad per se. But it feels as though he's in an espionage pic, not a romance, even after he confesses all after she's lost her voice from a gun shot wound that he blames on himself. (Since she can't speak, it's hard to say whether she accepts his apology.)

Finally, there's the assassin (Jung Woo-sung): Jeong-woo would love to catch him; Hye-young would love to marry him. Except for one thing... He's neither the target of Jeong-woo's investigation nor the lover of Hye-young's dreams. He's one of those stalker-boyfriend-criminal types, the guy who watches his prey clandestinely, courts her secretively, coerces her into a relationship by making her get into his car when she's mute, then ends up causing her death inadvertently. An ideal he is not. And then there's his profession: killing people. Need we say more?

For a good long while, Hye-young believes Jeong-woo is the secret admirer who's actually the assassin then she thinks that her lover-assassin has killed her lover-impostor. She's wrong on both counts. If she hadn't forfeited learning sign language and opted to spend the rest of her life communicating through index cards with common phrases on them, maybe she would've figured out her reality faster. Maybe she wouldn't be dead. And Jeong-woo wouldn't be dead. Maybe the assassin wouldn't be single either and left with a painting now splattered with his loved one's blood.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird: Let's Assume You Can Drawl in Korean

The Ramen Western, like its forebear the Spaghetti Western, fetishizes the genre. All the period details -- the opium pipes, the sweeping leather coats, the aviator goggles, even the rotten teeth -- don't ground the action in reality. They tickle us with their particularity. That's especially true in Kim Ji-woon's vintage piece of filmmaking The Good, the Bad, the Weird. Here actors Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, and Jung Woo-sung seem to be playing cowboys in a tribute to a Sergio Leone homage more than performing in a movie indebted to John Ford or Sam Peckinpah. Consider this flick a hall of tarnished, sometimes cracked mirrors reflecting dusty cowboy hats, galloping horses and a big Montana sky. You'll be as pleased when you get the expected (like the climactic battle involving cannons, the Japanese militia, and scores of rebels on a desert landscape) as the unexpected (Song absurdly running around with a diving helmet straight out of Jules Verne). There's plenty of blood -- some of it splattering on the camera lens -- and more than a little sadism (one stabbing scene leading to the slicing off of a finger is particularly gruesome). Neither ever feels gratuitous. Much of it's pretty fun.

Sad Movie: Your Life Is Going Down, Down, Down, Down, Down

What strikes you as the most pathetic? A young boy (Yeo Jin-gu) who wishes his mother (Yum Jung-ah) would stay sick since she's so much nicer since she's been hospitalized? An unemployed guy (Cha Tae-hyun) who makes money getting punched at the local gym? A young woman (Shin Min-a) who won't take off the head of her Raggedy Ann costume because her face is badly burned? Or a woman (Lim Su-jeong) who can't get a marriage proposal from her firefighter-boyfriend (Jung Woo-sung)? Before you decide, please consider the potential for things to get much worse. Indeed, director Kwon Jong-kwan's bittersweet Sad Movie sets up these four woeful tales then intertwines them as he has them race towards the bottom of a pretty deep well of sorrow. So while the boy's mother will get better (temporarily), and the jobless dude will become an entrepreneur (of sorts), no one will escape the cruel hand of fate. See life as tough today? Just wait for tomorrow! I suppose a few of the characters learn something about loving others and accepting themselves while experiencing their personal tragedies but they don't seem better people for it, only bruised. Picture the ways your life can go wrong. Now live it. Or don't think about it and live for today.

The Restless: The Official Language of Purgatory Is Mumbo Jumbo

Ah, the weird logic of fantasy worlds. In the Midheaven of The Restless, for instance, the recently departed pray to be reincarnated in human form instead of heading directly for those Pearly Gates. Guess Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be. Or maybe that magical bath they take to cleanse them of memories has this Medieval crew forgetting that Nirvana was supposed to be the posthumous goal! Whatever their reasons for wanting a one-way ticket back to Planet Earth, Purgatory's in trouble. The once-serene resting place of in-transit souls now finds it's got some rebel spirits among their ranks who want to open up the doors between Earth and Inbetweenland. Sounds like desegregation to me so I'm not sure why "white reaper" So-Hwa (Kim Tae-hee) is so dead set against it. Population control? Elitism? Real estate regulations? Regardless of why or who's right and who's wrong, Yi Gwak the demon killer (Jung Woo-sung) is going to fight alongside her because he loves her as much as he loves turning bad guys into burnt marshmallows with a magic sword that only human hands can handle. Can love triumph over evil? Is it really evil to want to change the world and not just protect it? And what is it with the Korean fascination with computer-generated fireflies? Now that's weird!

Born to Kill: She's Pretty, He's Dumb, Killer Romance

Sometime way back when, there was a poor little orphan (Jung Woo-sung). He didn't have a family so a gangster took him under wing and taught him how to use a knife. He got pretty good with said blade and perfected the art of stabbing. But having led a sheltered existence, his social skills were not on par with his job skills as an assassin. He'd never been with a girl, had a drink of soju or held a meaningful conversation. So when a brazen barmaid (Shim Eun-ha) intrudes and befriends then beds him, naturally his life gets a bit topsy-turvy. Suddenly, there's someone more important than his pet monkey Chi-chi. It's hard to say whether this self-serving woman understands the mixed up manchild but she admires his motorcycle, his looks, and the stacks of cash in the refrigerator. And when she demands that he hug her if he finds her pretty, he does so then yanks off his pants to show her just how pretty. So what that she's robbed him? So what that she calls him stupid? So what that she's not too bright herself? In Jang Hyeon-su's Born to Kill (1996), this is love, tragic love, and if the happily ever after doesn't happen, that's no big disappointment. This is a gangster film.

Musa - The Warriors: Once Upon a Time in 1375 A.D.

You can call it an historical epic, a period war movie, a Medieval costume drama, or an Oriental homage to Peckinpah. You could also call it a horror flick in disguise. How's that? Well, Kim Sung-su's suspenseful Musa - The Warriors can go bucket for bucket with many a slasher film plus its combat scenes are filmed in today's reigning jittery style. Heads fly off when you least expect it; red sprays from throats, bellies, backs, eye sockets, severed limbs and mouths wrenched in pain. More thrilling than chilling, Musa - The Warriors furthermore follows a typical genre thread by connecting all carnage by way of psychotic pursuers. The runaway princess (Zhang Ziyi) rescued by Korean envoys disrespected by the Ming dynasty to which she belongs are stalked, hunted, and taunted by various bloodthirsty Mongols ready to resort to any means necessary to get the girl. Too bad for the bad guys, the general (Ju Jin-mo) has eyes for the noblewoman. Too bad for the general, so does a slave (Jung Woo-sung). By the time these two reconcile their differences, any hope for survival has been obliterated. Like any good fright flick, the one warrior to get out alive (Ahn Sung-kee) sails out alone in the shadow of hopelessness. Genius!

Phantom: The Submarine - That Sinking Feeling

How much do some Koreans hate the Japanese? Enough to nuke Okinawa and then some. I'm talking some serious hate. And is this rage justified? Some say yes; one says no. As least, that's the set-up for Phantom: The Submarine (1999), a political thriller that argues both for and against violence as retribution. Since the angry thesis is made not just by an insurrectionist naval captain (Choi Min-Su) but also by his entire, mutinous crew, you do wonder a little about whether the lone good guy (Jung Woo-sung) is seeing the same big picture as his shipmates. Granted, the rebel against the rebellion understands the cost of violence firsthand. (He saw his father shoot his mother then escaped the same fate once dad was popped off by the military.) Yet surely, there must be a more persuasive case to be made against starting a war than I saw my mommy and daddy slayed. After a tedious convoluted opener involving a firing squad and an Orwellian relocation program, director Min Byung-chun generates underwater tensions in claustrophic confines lit in Christmassy reds and greens. Two Japanese subs are torpedoed. Another is dragged to its death. The friendly whale swims nearby and tries to enlighten the crew by singing its ageless song but these guys would rather hear screaming than really cool music.