Kiss Me, Kill Me 킬미 (Kill Me) [2009] • South Korea

This one's very funny, one of those films in which the director and the actors do a dance of comic timing. Hye-jeong Kang is always good but Shin Hyeon-Jun turns out to be a real comic treat. This is an action flick with lots of humor.

Jin-young (Kang) is devastated after a breakup with her long time partner and wants to kill herself, but she wants to do it with flair so she hires a hit man to take her out. Hyun-jun (Shin) thinks he is hired to kill someone else and is surprised to discover Jin-young has slipped herself into the place of his intended target. Yeah, it's an "assassin falls in love with his target" story but the performances of the two leads makes this one a winner. The script is a little chaotic at times, lots of coincidences that challenge a suspension of disbelief, but if you just go with the flow it's a fun ride.

The film's ending unravels instead of tying things up but it's not a deal breaker. In a way, the whole film can be seen as a series of sketches that just parade by instead of building upon one another to form a cohesive whole, and that may be a valid criticism depending on the angle of entry the viewer chooses. Thriller? Romantic Comedy? Action flick? It's all of those, and it's one of the things I like about South Korean cinema. They do mashups, and they do them well, always playing with expectations and throwing in surprises.

If you are a fan of either of the two leads you will enjoy Kiss Me, Kill Me. It's fun and entertaining precisely because it's full of not what you'd expect.

★★★★

Director: Jong-hyeon Yang
Starring: Hye-jeong Kang, Hyeon-jun Shin, Hyeon-a Kim, Do-bin Park

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Why Did You Come to My House (Woo-ri-jib-e wae-wass-ni) [2009] • South Korea

This is an ugly film. Yes, it's about a suicidal man and a homeless lunatic woman who invades his life but that doesn't mean the photography has to suck. It could just be a poor DVD transfer but many parts of the film are too dark to make out what's going on. There's a fine line between making actors unattractive and making them unappealing. The script for this film helped land its actors on the unappealing side of that line.

The film starts off with the suicidal main character being interrogated by the police. Right away we know this isn't going to be an active story but a passive one that is revealed through the telling of various stories. This kind of technique isn't that uncommon and it can result in effective engagement, but that didn't happen here. As the man tells his story, the homeless woman is introduced. She in turn, within the story that the man is telling, has to tell her story so we understand who she is and why she's in his story. Her story introduces us to another character who has to have a story and the net effect of this is that the film never gets out of background mode until the very end where the cliché of love that arrives after death has intervened to make it impossible, and consequently tragic, attempts to tickle our heartstrings and make us forget that we really don't care.

Kang Hye-jeong is a wonderful actress and is almost able to make something of her character but she isn't given enough raw material to get completely there. This film relies on background stories for its grill so she is required to be a twenty-something hobo for most of the film and then a high school kid for some of the background. I don't know what it is about her face but she is able to believably portray a realistic looking teenager. This film is only for devoted fans of hers who must see every minute they can of her on the big screen. It is not recommended for anyone looking to see a good movie.

★★

Director: Soo-ah Hwang
Starring: Kang Hye-jeong, Park Hie-Sun

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Rules of Dating (Yeonae-ui mokjeok) (2005) • South Korea

This film has appalling sexual politics. A repugnant womanizer rapes a student teacher he is supervising. The act serves as an introduction to his playboy technique. We know the two parties involved are going to end up together because this is a film about them. It's about power and the rules of dating. The guy never redeems himself and the girl appears to hate the man but sleeps with him voluntarily anyway, as a sort of challenge to see if she can regain power. Hye-jeong Kang is equally mesmerizing and frustrating as the messed up girl with baggage galore, but the guy is a complete ass. He gets it in the end but it is a painful trip. I can't believe this movie tells the story it does, and to flamenco music no less. The poster is as misleading as the music. Weird, uncomfortable film. Recommended.

★★★

Love Phobia (Domabaem) (2006) • South Korea

Melodrama is what the Koreans do best. Love Phobia is standard formula stuff: cute and funny for an hour and then it makes you cry for another hour without dashing your hopes for a happy ending. It's executed extremely well with quirky bits throughout. If you like melodrama this is a grand slam home run. It's an interesting allegory as well but I don't want to give away too much.

Love Phobia is about a girl, Ari, who claims she has a curse and that bad things will happen to anyone who touches her. She also claims to be an alien. The film starts off with her as an elementary school kid who befriends a young boy, Jo-Kang. After he touches her one day he comes down with the measles. Ari mysteriously disappears the next day. Ten years later she reappears just as mysteriously in Jo-Kang's life, and then disappears again. Ten years later, or so, she returns to Jo-Kang again and her true story unfolds.

Hye-jeong Kang plays Ari as a teenager and as a young woman. She is not only cute beyond words, she's one of Korea's best young actresses. This is something that sets Korean melodramas apart, they use real actors and actresses instead of flavor of the month idols. From The Butterfly and Oldboy to this, with a half dozen well-received films in between, including the controversial and complicated Rules of Dating ... Hye-jeong Kang, at just twenty-six, is on a roll. Seung-woo Cho is also very good as Jo-Kang. Both are convincing as teenagers and as young adults, a testament to the Korean epidermis, perhaps, as much as thespian prowess.

★★★★