Confessions 告白 (Kokuhaku) [2010] • Japan

When I made my top ten list for 2010 I wrote I was confident that if I had seen this it would have made the list. It's a little late, but now I've seen it and added it to the list.

As par usual, I'm not going to go through a plot synopsis. Click on one of the links at the end of this entry if you want that. 

Confessions is not perfect but it's pretty close. It's dark and gorgeous. It's unsettling. It's got Takako Matsu and Yoshino Kimura; Radiohead and Boris on the soundtrack. It gets crazy and goes by quickly at times (hard to catch all the subtitles), even though a good portion of the film is in slow motion. It's a testament to the skill of the director that everything makes an impression, even fluttering by. A few times, for a moment, it seems like it might lose steam and then whoosh! There it goes again. This is hands-on film making. An audio-visual package right up there with Myung-se Lee's M. It gets physical. And that's what I like about it. Nakashima gets how to manipulate sight, sound, and time moving through time that creates both a sense of being on a rollar coaster and being suspended in time. Like being in a dream or a car wreck.

It's creepy that most of the players in the film are 14 years old, talking about killing people and their mommy problems. The film gets most of its fuel from mommy problems. Shocking that it seems so believable that these kids understand what they are talking about. Tetsuya Nakashima makes these kids smart. It's very refreshing.

The first and last acts are both tours de force. I've seen three different English translations of the last line in the film. Don't google it until after you've seen it. What an ending! Some folks have written that Nakashima throws it all away with the last line but I think it depends on how you take it. I found it eerily ambiguous and evil.

Most commenters on the film will point out the film's "social commentary", i.e., that kids under fourteen years of age can't be punished by the law for anything. I'm not big on social commentary commentating but watching the film I couldn't help but think that any thirteen year old contemplating murder sort of gets a green lit idea. And the bit about the teacher giving the unpunishable kids HIV tainted milk, as part of her revenge, is chilling but it's more that she fills the kids with a fear of their own mortality than attempting murder of her own. You'll see what I mean when you watch the film. It's just one of the many questionable aspects of the script's believability that ....

If you over think this film it can fall apart. If you're the type that does that kind of thing you won't like it as much as I did. But unless you are also sensitive to slow motion or post rock emo soundtracks it's hard not to be overwhelmed by this masterfully crafted film.

★★★★★

Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
Starring: Takako Matsu, Masaki Okada, Yoshino Kimura, Masakazu Ato, Atsushi Ozawa

IMDb
Asianmediawiki
Japan Times
Beyond Hollywood

No Mercy 용서는 없다 (Yongseoneun Eupda) [2010] • South Korea

Pretty standard cop versus killer thriller which is elevated quite a bit by a few good performances and a spectacular ending. It would be a tosser if it weren't for the ending. I didn't see it coming and it is SPECTACULAR (except for the missed opportunity of showing the girl sit there and not do anything when she could have been used to great effect instead of looking like an error).

This film plays out more like a pitch for a movie than a movie. Everything about it and all the characters are formulaic been there, done thats. The script is an eye-roller a lot of time. Bumbling cops and a rouge character on a singular mission who constantly does the impossible because his daughter is in danger. How many times has that been pitched to, and made, by a studio?

However, No Mercy is redeemed by some good performances. Kyung-gu Sol is a very fine actor. The guy who plays the funny pain-in-the-ass cop cliche is also good. Very appealing is Han Hye-Jin. She's one of those spunky young adorable Korean starlets, for sure. Reminded me of Gyu-ri Kim (aka Min-Sun Kim) in Rainbow Eyes.

So if you don't mind run of the mill cop versus killer thrillers, this one is totally worth it for the ending. There is a comparison to be made, to a very famous film with a very famous ending, but it would spoil this film to make that comparison. No Mercy also has some of the more graphic autopsy scenes I've seen in a film. If this is your genre give it a watch. I'm sure you will like it more than I did.

★★★

Director: Kim Hyeong-Jun
Starring: Hye-jin Han, Seung-beom Ryu, Kyung-gu Sol, Ji-ru Sung, Woo-hyung Kim

Asianmediawiki
HanCinema

Beast Stalker 证人 (Ching yan) [2008] • Hong Kong

There isn't one single monster in this (what's up with that?), although Nick Cheung looks pretty spooky with his fake eyeball and possesses some über-human qualities like always being out of the blue and into the right place always at the right time, moving at speeds faster than light, and getting bashed in the face with a rock and not bleeding. The (contrived and typical) story construction which explores the tug of war among duty, friendship, love, and responsibility is done well, and Nicholas Tse and Cheung both turn in top notch performances, as does the little girl. All the acting is pretty good when you can actually see what's going on. I had to stop frame and inch through a scene on a bridge/overpass where they hung the little girl over the edge. I wonder what the film could have been without being a stylized action pic.

Jingchu Zhang also stars but she seems to come up unremarkable in manly action movies like Overheard, Protégé and this one.

★★★

Director: Dante Lam
Starring: Nicholas Tse, Jingchu Zhang, Nick Cheung, Philip Keung, Esther Kwan
IMDb
Wikipedia

A.F.R.I.K.A [2002] • South Korea

I don't want to go on record as saying this is a good film but I enjoyed it. It's a toned down Korean version of Thelma and Louise with hotter chicks and twice as many of them. A couple girls borrow a car for a weekend getaway and discover two revolvers in the back seat. They initially think the guns are toys but when a trigger is pulled, blowing out the windshield, we know it's going to keep getting pulled. The guns belong to a cop and a gangster who want them back and don't want it known that they lost them, so there will be chasing. The film's got pretty girls robbing places, sticking it to the Man and other icky men, shooting guns but never killing anyone, and getting makeovers. Min-sun (aka Gyu-ri) Kim looks awesome with blond streaks in her long hair. Young-jin Lee, who usually plays brooding and intense, seems a little out of place but it's nice to see her trying to have fun. I actually enjoyed the shenanigans of the cop and the gangster more than the girls. All in all, a decent popcorn rental.

The title A.F.R.I.K.A stands for "Adoring Four Revolutionary Idols Korean Association".

★★★

Director: Shin Seung-soo
Starring: Lee Yo-Won, Kim Min-Sun, Cho Eun-Ji, Lee Young-Jin, Sung Ji-Roo
IMDb
Wikipedia
Asianmediawiki
HanCinema

The Man Behind the Scissors (Hasami otoko) [2005] • Japan

Random acts of weirdness turn out to be clues to an unsurprising, yet reasonable reveal. I had a lot of fun watching this. The Japanese are my favorite at plowing through absurdity with a straight face. The director employs a few visual flourishes to remind that this isn't a real crime thriller. The cops provide comic relief while the bad guys are almost frozen in their steadfast psychological drama. Asô Kumiko and Abe Hiroshi are present for credibility. I love Asô Kumiko and the film is mostly hers. She's pretty low key, doesn't swing her arms much when she walks, but she's still engaging, becoming more so as the film progresses and you get onboard with her and her hilarious attempts at suicide. The moral of the story needs a bucketload of salt but who cares? It's not laugh out loud funny but it's a good dark comedy of inner-child pain and murder. Not a lot, but a little, blood. The goriest thing has to be the nicotine stew Asô cooks up for herself.

★★★★

Director: Toshiharu Ikeda
Starring: Kumiko Asô, Hiroshi Abe, Etsushi Toyokawa
IMDb

City of Life and Death (Nanjing! Nanjing!) [2009] • China, Hong Kong

Maybe the color palette confines itself to a too small range of gray but it is effective. Maybe a few scenes are overly dramatized for effect but I can hardly imagine anything comparing to the real events that transpired. This isn't a documentary and it's not a perfect film but it is an incredibly moving one. There was a bit of an uproar in China over this film, claiming it did not demonize the Japanese enough. A member of the Politburo intervened on behalf of the film to keep it in theaters. There's that to chew on. I honestly can't separate recommending the film from recommending being aware of this ugly bit of history. You could just read a wikipedia entry on the Rape of Nanjing but you could also just watch Dr. Phil or Oprah instead of ever going to the movies. It's like that.

★★★★★

The Case of Itaewon Homicide (Itaewon Salinsageon) Burger King Murder [2009] • South Korea

South Korea has done pretty well with films based on real life killers: Memories of Murder (masterpiece); The Chaser (very good); Missing (good good). But the streak ends with this film about a kid who was apparently randomly stabbed to death in a Burger King bathroom. It's more of a courtroom drama than any kind of investigative thriller. The casting and the acting are pretty low-rent and the direction is glaringly bad. I'm not sure there is any direction, come think of it. The camera meanders around like someone's uncle videotaping a family get together. I'm not going to declare the spoken English as poorly executed, suffice to label it unpleasant. The two boys accusing one another of the murder were "americans", one of Korean heritage the other half Spanish, adding some international intrigue. Not really. This is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. Makes Tidal Wave (Haeundae) Tsunami seem awesome.

★

The Chaser (Chugyeogja) (2008) • South Korea

This film is so Korean. The way it is shot and the way the story is told don't conform to the way many Americans think genre clues should be presented and adhered to. At it's heart, The Chaser is a crime drama about a serial killer and the guy who's chasing him, but it evolves from many different angles. It's a comedy of errors in the way the police and politicians are portrayed; a melodrama with its inclusion of the precocious little girl who belongs to the woman serving as the film's primary "chase" and investigative point; a psychological thriller in the way the serial killer messes with the minds of the police; a mildly gory film in the way the bad guy uses a hammer and chisel; a bit of a tragedy in the way it ends. The only thing missing from this film is romance. Thank god they didn't make one of the missing girls a love interest of the pimp—he's only after the money they owe him. That's where the brilliance of the chase begins.

There's a fight scene early on where our protagonist, an ex-detective gone bad turned pimp, is beating the crap out of some guy he thinks has kidnapped and sold some of his girls. A long uphill foot chase precedes the brawl so both combatants are extremely winded when the fighting begins—punches don't land and there's a girly incompetence to the whole thing, which is to say, it's realistic. After finally landing a few punches that subdue his opponent momentarily, the pimp gets up and starts kicking him in disgust. He's very angry, still a bit winded and out of control. One of his kicks only grazes its target causing him to lose his balance and fall on his butt, and because of momentum he begins to roll and his feet fly up in the air. It seems funny, but it's not. You have to sneak in your chuckle as he gets up and continues kicking the guy. When he's finally pummeled his adversary into unconsciousness, he uses his foot to roll him onto his side so he can get to the wallet in his back pocket and ID him. He attempts to sit on him, not to keep him down, but because he's bone tired from all the fighting. He doesn't land squarely which causes the bad guy to shift a bit, and consequently he lands on his butt again. It seems funny but it's not.

After the fight scene both men are brought to the police station for questioning. Because the pimp is an ex-detective with a reputation, the cops initially sympathize with the other guy, thinking the pimp over-reacted—not to mention the causal fender-bender that brought the two men together in the first place. The pimp doesn't know that the other guy just took a hammer and chisel to the head of the girl he is trying to get back, he thinks she's just freshly been sold, making his sense of urgency misplaced, where it remains throughout most of the film. It's kind of awkward for the police to find much urgency in one pimp accusing another of stealing one of his girls. The bad guy insists he didn't sell the girl and then mumbles under his breathe "I killed her", and confesses in great detail how he killed her and several other girls. The pimp screams at the cops, "Can't you see he's just pretending to be crazy now?"

And so it goes. We know there's been killing going on and we know who's been doing it from very early on in the film but it manages to remain suspenseful throughout. The Chaser is a gripping thriller from the beginning until a few minutes from the end. The two main characters are portrayed with impeccable nuance. It's Yun-seok Kim's performance as the bewildered pimp that takes this film to great heights. There are so many things that don't go the way he wants them to, like people hanging up on him when he's talking to them on the phone, a little girl who startles him and asks too many smart questions, the cops can't do anything right; and every time, his subdued response of confused disbelief made me laugh. He brings a Kang-ho Song-ish melancholy humor to the film, (I can't think of an American actor to compare him to), while Jung-woo Ha as the impotent serial killer is so normal and unmoved it's creepy.

There are a handful of groan out loud plot moves in The Chaser, but so what. There are also more than a handful of plot moves this film doesn't do, moves that most people will be guessing it will do, that it more than makes up for it. This is a film I know I'll watch again just for the performance of it. The plot won't matter. It's that good.

★★★★

The Aura (El Aura) (2005) • Argentina • Fabián Bielinsky

It's sad Fabián Bielinsky died (young) after making this film because El Aura demonstrates clearly that its director has mastered his domain. There are a few puzzling moments in the script and its characters, but this isn't one of those "Don't go in that room!" thrillers, it's old-school/neo-noir; quietly intense and full of suspense.

Ricardo Darín's peculiarly charactered performance is executed with such subtlety and nuance that it's hard to believe he's acting. The sound design and original score are beautiful, and so perfect for the film they seem to be growing out of it rather than being imposed upon it. There are times when the lack of any soundtrack is deafening. The droning tensions and lilting piano ennui disappear, punctuating the moments of action with a moribund silence.

Sometimes I complain when a film ends with such ambiguity it appears to be a cop-out. But not here. The ending will make you rethink the journey you were just on but it won't devalue its magnificence. This is one of those rare films where the ride is so engaging that its hard to imagine anything but disappointment merely because it does end.

"Aura" is what doctors use to describe the moment before falling into epileptic seizure. Ricardo Darín's character describes it as a moment of pure freedom. The inevitable is so clear that decisions are impossible, hence ... Freedom. Clarity.

★★★★★