The Day He Arrives: Drink, Eat and Be Melancholic

Dear Hong Sang-soo,

I'd like to offer you a public apology. After years of bad-mouthing your films and trashing them through reviews on my website and elsewhere, I've come to see the error of my ways. You are indeed a great filmmaker and if I don't like all your movies, the ones I do like, I do so with unrestrained enthusiasm. Count The Day He Arrives in this latter category. Much like the heart-wrenching Woman Is the Future of Man and the despairing The Power of Kangwon Province, your 2011 pic The Day He Arrives is an exquisite picaresque in which a seemingly directionless narrative somehow leads us to a greater appreciation of the inherent tragedy of life.

That you're able to convey such depths of emotions from chance encounters, that you consistently pull such naked performances from your actors, that you can revisit your ironic stand-in, the cad-director (an ingratiating Yu Jun-sang), and make him feel fresh... All these things delight me even as they catch me off-guard since the first few movies of yours I saw repeatedly drove me to fits of rage.

Was Song Seon-mi as good in Woman on the Beach as she is here playing a fawning cineaste? Was Kim Ee-seong as natural in The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well as he is here playing an embittered actor? In short, the pleasure I'm getting from your films now makes me doubt my assessments before. Should I retract the savage comments I made on your other flicks? Maybe Night and Day isn't a piece of crap. Maybe your short "Lost in the Mountains" isn't half-baked.

I'll have to go back to those and re-watch them some time. For now, I'll just recommend The Day He Arrives, your flawless, black-and-white meditation on coincidence, love, bromance, loneliness, and the art of creation itself. Well done Director Hong and please, forgive me.

Sincerely,

Drew P.

My Boss, My Hero: Mafia School

Clearly writer-director Yun Je-gyun's My Boss, My Hero is a comedy, but what sub-genre does it fit into best? Jopok comedy? Sure, that'll work since its lead character Do-shik (Jeong Jun-ho) is an up-and-coming gangster who appears to have taken a leadership class from that slap-happiest of stooges Moe. Teen comedy? That'll work too since the action takes place primarily at a private high school where Do-shik has returned -- somewhat preposterously given that he's now in his late 20s -- to get his diploma. Romantic comedy? Why not, since there's not just one but two kooky love stories: one involving fellow mobster Sang-do (Jeong Woong-in) who starts courting the school's hot English teacher (Song Seon-mi) at T.G.I. Friday's; the other a strangely platonic romance between Do-shik and class-smartie-cum-karaoke-hooker Yun-ju (Oh Seung-eun). Fish out of water comedy? It's got some of that. Sex comedy? That too. Slapstick comedy? Generational divide comedy? Gross-out comedy? Comedy of manners? Yes times four. There are few sub-genres that My Boss, My Hero doesn't incorporate into its plot. I guess, road movie and mockumentary are covered in one of the two sequels.

Funny thing about My Boss, My Hero, however, is that the best part isn't the comedy. It's the martial arts. The movie has two really enjoyable fight scenes, one involving Do-shik taking on a rival teen gang all by himself; the other, which starts similarly with Do-shik against many, eventually ends up a more balanced battle as Do-shik is joined by his fellow gang members and the entire student body to take on the thugs hired by the corrupt corporation that is making a mockery of their education. Both fights are well choreographed, and the second one features added tension created by a handheld camera guided, at times, by a cheerful flasher who periodically shows up in the story to expose himself. I can't say I laughed continuously throughout My Boss, My Hero. Indeed some of the incidental violence in which teachers hit students is truly shocking in its realness. But the climactic fight, which builds to a tag team brawl in the rain, is so exhilarating that you really do crave two sequels. I'm hoping at least one of them gives increased screen time to Jeong Un-take who plays an idiotic second banana name Head who's like a big, dumb puppy. I'd also like to see more of the skinny actor playing the queeny student who straightens his hair with his flip-phone in the girls room. He's a hoot.

Woman on the Beach: Writing What You Know When You Know Nothing

Writer's block is a drag. But when the condition becomes the inspiration for a movie, like it does in Hong Sang-soo's arty Woman on the Beach, audiences tend to suffer right alongside the struggling screenwriter. Admittedly, the case depicted here isn't a particularly crippling or painful one: Hong's stand-in (Kim Seung-woo) is able to work through his creative paralysis in less than a week thanks to some trusty tools familiar to many artists (and moviegoers who frequent biopics of same). How's he do it? Well, he betrays his close-friend/producer (an underutilized Kim Tae-woo) by sleeping with his girlfriend (Go Hyun-jung) then betrays his new girlfriend by seducing a lonely divorcee (Song Seon-mi). Blame it on the soju! As portraits of womanizing artists go, Woman on the Beach is fairly tame stuff because the creative cad at its center neither ruins anyone's life nor exhibits self-destructive behavior on a grand scale. He just makes the lives of those around him a little messy and his own life, a little lonely. We can only hope that the art which he produces by stirring up all that trouble is better than this document of his creative process.