Hide and Seek: The Proper Way to Address a Murderer

One of the unforeseen but enjoyable side-effects of studying the Korean language is being able to spot when characters in Korean movies are speaking to each other with respect. And when they're not! In the serial killer thriller Hide and Seek, for example, there's a scene in which the murderer is terrorizing two children (Jeong Joon-won, Kim Soo-an) trapped in a car. Given the killer's age, expensive coat, and real estate holdings, I would've expected these two kids to speak to their attacker with greater deference. I guess the rule of thumb however is to automatically default to a more casual form of address when screaming at a murderer. I would've missed this nuance in the movie if I hadn't started taking Korean!

It could also be that writer-director Jung Huh is making an intergenerational statement in Hide and Seek. Maybe these two kids don't respect any adults because their parents are so inadequate. Their mom (Jeon Mi-seon) is a negligent whiner who lets them play in a ghetto alleyway while she yammers away with her stateside mother on the phone. Their dad (Son Hyeon-ju) is a withdrawn enigma who exhibits creepy obsessive compulsive behavior and breaks out into unprovoked violence in the middle of the night. Why speak to adults with respect when they're so messed up? Come to think of it, that's a question every generation must ask.

I'm guessing that Pyaong-hwa (Kim Ji-yeong), the pirate-patched daughter of the poor, harried mom that lives next door to the long-lost, potentially-deranged brother (Kim Won-hae) of the OCD dad, already has her own answer. From the looks of it, this little girl has taken it upon herself to is learn English -- and is taking to it quickly -- because the language doesn't require such differentiations in respectful address. She's not about to "sir" or "ma'am" anyone. Everything is casual in the US. Even, some may argue, murder.

A Better Tomorrow: The Beauty of Not Being Original

Art movements have their renaissances, theaters have their revivals, neighborhoods have their rebirths. But movies, movies have their remakes. As re-creations go, this is certainly the least glamorous of terms. And after watching Song Hae-sung's A Better Tomorrow, the Korean remake of John Woo's landmark film of the same name, it got me to wondering: Why do movie remakes -- also called rehashes -- get immediately stigmatized? It certainly isn't as if we generally leave most movies, commenting "How original!" Isn't it enough to come away from a movie saying, "How excellent!" That's how I felt after watching Song's A Better Tomorrow. But then I'd never seen the original.

But should I have? Would I have enjoyed the film more? And are remakes made simply as byproducts to compare to their progenitors? Is it wrong to re-make a movie because a director thinks the material might speak to a different generation or to a different culture or have something in it that now has something new to say? Should you chastise that director for not optioning a wholly new script, and instead choosing a really good story dying to be retold? When you look at the parts of the first A Better Tomorrow, it's not as if they're pioneering ideas either. We're all familiar with the story of two conflicted brothers -- one a cop (Kim Kang-woo), the other a criminal (Ju Jin-mo). We've all heard the one about the sleazy backstabber (Jo Han-sun) who rises to the top of the mob through nefarious means. We've also cheered on the anti-hero (Song Seung-heon) whose luck runs dry as he goes out in a blaze of well-amunitioned glory. Woo's script -- from which I'm assuming this draws heavily since Woo is credited as both producer and co-screenwriter -- isn't good because it's got new ideas. It's good because it's well-constructed. It makes sense to use it again.

Song's pic updates the recipe somewhat. (How much, I neither know nor care so I'll just make educated guesses.) Now the two brothers are North Korean defectors; their tough-love aunty figure (Kim Ji-yeong) runs one of those eatery tents that I've never seen outside Korean movies and scifi pics with an apocalyptic bent. Let traditionalists deride Song's remake as a retread and those who prefer this A Better Tomorrow celebrate it as a snazzy re-invention. For me, it's just a really good mafia movie tackling all the expected themes of family, betrayal, devotion, greed, redemption and respect amid a deliciously bloody fantasy of gunfire. You watch the one-man vigilantism of the righteous partner or the high-adrenaline final shootout between the self-chastising brother and the thug who's trying to kill his younger brother then tell me whether you care whether it's ever been done before. I sure don't. More likely, you'll be repeating what I wrote earlier: "Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!"