Gabi: Russian Coffee: A Half-Empty Cup

One man sees coffee as love.
Another man sees coffee as the dream of an Empire.

I like a cuppa joe as much as the next guy but Chang Youn-hyun's historical thriller Gabi: Russian Coffee imbues the beverage with a potency that staggers the mind. Evidently, coffee can make you fall madly in love. It can save you from being murdered. It can get you insider access to a paranoid king. And it can inspire that same king to build a cafe in your dead father's honor as a way to restore status to the family name. I always thought it was enough that coffee could help you stay awake when you got sleepy. Boy, was I wrong.

Tanya (Kim So-yeon), the court barista, knows better than me, too. She knows that the coffee-making method taught to her by her lover Illych (Ju Jin-mo) produces a brew capable of seducing — by way of its floral scent and bitter taste — even the currently in-hiding Emperor (Park Hee-soon) of Korea. Furthermore, she knows which type of cup to use, how to fold a filter, and the right way to pour. She also enjoys the philosophical small talk that can make sipping the hot beverage so enjoyable for master and servant alike.

What she doesn't know, or at least hasn't yet to come to learn, is that you don't assassinate someone just to save your own skin and you can't trust your torturers, especially when one of them — a fellow spy (Yoo Sun) — is also in love with your self-sacrificing boyfriend. Perhaps too much caffeine has clouded her judgment.

As such, Gabi: Russian Coffee is a silly movie. You can understand why actress Lee Da-hae dropped out of the production less than two weeks before the shoot began. She must have read the script and thought, "Hell, I'd rather be a barista in real life."

The Showdown: Frenemies With Swords

Do-yeong (Jin Ku) and Heon-myeong (Park Hee-soon) are the kind of best friends who would've been a lot better off if they'd never met each other. They come from warring families and they both want the same woman (Jang Hie-jun) who may be the only interest they have in common. Because Hyeon-myeong is more academic, more intuitive, and more athletic than his BFF, resentments pile up over the years. (This is what happens when there's no other kids in the neighborhood to play with in 17th-century Koreea, I guess.) That Hyeon-myeong eventually tattles on Do-yeong's father and gets him killed doesn't foster much fraternal love either but at least it gives Do-yeong the high ground. Do-yeong is now more loyal and more moral. When these two frenemies end up stranded in an abandoned inn after struggling through a blinding snow storm in enemy territory, the survivors of a Pyrrhic battle that has left most of their fellow soldiers dead, they decide the time has come to talk out their differences, share some secrets and settle the score.

The catch is they're not alone. Do-soo (Ko Chang-seok), a bumbling farmer-turned-fool conscripted into the war and deserter during the battle, is stuck in this ramshackle inn as well. He's not conflicted by past loyalties and betrayals. In a flashback, you learn he's been unfairly drafted, unkindly treated, and repeatedly scammed. As potrayed by Ko, Do-soo is incredibly unlikable but it's hard not to root for the common man when the rich and the royals won't even give him his due when he tends to the fire and cooks up a potato soup for his "betters." Whether he actually adds to the story is debatable. The same can be said for the rival Chinese soldiers who show up in growing numbers at the inn but never really pose a threat or change the dynamic between Do-yeong and Heon-myeong, who, to their credit in writer-director Park Hoon-jung's The Showdown (a.k.a. Swordbrothers a.k.a. Hyultu), never look anything less than fabulous despite the frozen hair, the bloody eyes, the grimy hands, the tattered clothes.

My Friend and His Wife: Never Sell the Truth Short

And now, a few words about the workaholic at the center of My Friend and His Wife... If there's a more blistering portrait of the self-centered businessman (Jang Hyeong-seong) who takes responsibility for little else than financial profit, none comes immediately to mind. Shin Dong-il's dour domestic drama is a heart-stopping look at how one well-dressed heel's me-first money-making mentality inevitably stomps out the inner lives of everyone who tries to get close to him; in this case, the foolhardy offenders are a cook (Park Hee-soon) and his beautician wife (Hong So-hee). At different points in the movie, both halves of this almost-happy couple have fallen painfully in love with the careerist-capitalist because he seems to promise a better future and a stronger sense of themselves. He loves them too in return — something he shows with increasing dividends — but he's habitually unable to emotionally invest in either relationship. No level of intimacy is more valued than a phone call from the boss; no date can't be canceled once hedge funds go in flux. Because of that, both parties get psychically shortchanged, even as their bank accounts thrive. The husband goes to prison then gets released to find himself the owner of a questionably self-sustaining eatery for fried chicken; the wife loses her baby but eventually helms a high-end hair salon. Neither is near contentment when the riches start pouring in. Which finally prompts them to re-evaluate their feelings for the sharpest point of their costly love triangle. And while they realize something interesting in the process, the biggest lesson is reserved for the biggest offender: A moral debt is the hardest to pay off. Sometimes, it's almost impossible.