Tag: korea

She’s On Duty

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★★★
“Cinematic candy-floss; hardly memorable, but pleasant enough.”

This frothy concoction is light-hearted entertainment, which doesn’t exactly pack much of a wallop, but has some nice characters and situations. Heroine Chun (Kim), is a young cop, galled when her undercover mission is swept away by a rival; she gets another chance, but to her dismay, this involves going back to school to watch the daughter (Nam) of a gang member who has agreed to testify against his boss, but has since vanished. Of course, a hot-tempered cop with martial arts skills fits perfectly into a Korean educational establishment, as anyone who has seen Volcano High will know…

Actually, though, this is closer in tone to My Wife is Gangster in its “fish out of water” story – another close cousin would be Stephen Chow’s Fight Back To School series. You could probably reel off the plot elements before watching it. Chun takes on the local tough girl (right), is attracted to another pupil (Gong), and finds her mission in peril when the previous nemesis also turns up, as a “teacher” at the school. Dealing with all this, while still keeping her cover intact, is an interesting challenge – not least when her teacher finds her drinking in a bar, and a classmate thinks she moonlights as a call-girl.

For a 115-minute film, this moves by effortlessly enough, but one can’t help thinking of the missed opportunities here. For example, her battle against the school bad girls is shown only in lead-up and aftermath, proof that the film’s interests lie in the comedic more than the action arena. That’s a bit of a shame, because in the two main set-pieces, which bookend the film, Kim shows some nicely balletic grace – as well as pulling some excellent faces throughout the movie. It’s all entirely unthreatening, but is well put-together, and you won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time by watching this.

Dir: K.C. Park
Star: Kim Seon-Ah, Gong Yoo, Nam Sang-Mi, Park Sang-Myeon

My Wife is Gangster 2: Return of the Legend

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★★★½
“Improved comedy countered by disappointing action sequences, yet still worth watching.”

Everyone’s favourite scissor-wielding mobsteress Cha Eun Jin (Shin) is back, in a follow up to one of the biggest hits in recent Korean cinema. Starting with a rooftop brawl set to White Christmas, there’s no hanging around here: Eun Jin falls from the roof, loses her memory, and we leap forward two years. She is now living with a restaurant owner (Park), and regularly resorts to desperate measures, usually involving electricity, to remember who she is. However, as her foes first time round have plans to build a mall in the area, and her step-daughter is getting bullied at school, no prizes for guessing that memory’s gonna be jogged, sooner or later…

If the comedy aspects succeed better at the second attempt, the action is disappointingly brief, barely an afterthought. This is best illustrated by Zhang ZiYi’s cameo: just as the two ladies get to grips, the film abruptly ends, leaving you with a bad case of premature anticipation. The middle 90 minutes are still entertaining (not least because of the inept enemy gang she faces, who seek revenge, yet first want to be sure she knows who they are!), but the potential of the various plot-threads is never extracted, and one also wonders why there’s little mention of the husband from the original. It does, however, remain lots of fun, though it’s essential to have seen the first. Otherwise, you’ll wonder why that woman is shaking her boobs at our heroine, and calling her “Honey”…

It’s more than slightly reminiscent of one of my favourite HK films of all time: God of Gamblers, where Chow Yun-Fat suffered a similar bout of amnesia. Shin has charisma, yet not quite to the same degree as Chow, and much like its predecessor, Gangster 2 flirts with greatness, before coming up fractionally short. If any third installment starts with the Shin/Zhang battle teased here, it’ll be for the better. We’ll probably be in line for it, regardless.

Dir: Cho Jin-Gyu
Star: Shin Eun Kyung, Park Joon Gyu, Jang Se Jin, Lee Won Jong

My Wife is Gangster

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★★★½
“Love, knife-wielding Korean mobsteress style…”

Another slightly clunky Korean title (see also Guns & Talks), but the first forty minutes or so of this are about the driest comedy/action you could ever hope to see. In order to fulfill the wish of her terminally-ill sister, mob boss Eu-jin (Shin), or “Mantis” as she is known, decides she to get married. Of course, she needs an especially stupid husband who won’t realise her true occupation, and finds one in Soo-il (Park), a civil servant with a 0% success rate on his blind dates. Their courtship, pre-nuptials and wedding (the last interrupted by a rival gang – a “martial arts demonstration”, as a fast-thinking sidekick calls it) are executed perfectly, largely thanks to Shin and her expressions of shock and horror at the mating game.

After this, the film does lose its way a bit, drifting without much direction or aim; there’s a bit of humour, a bit of action as her rival White Shark tries to muscle in, and a good chunk of pathos due to the deaths of two major characters, none of which really sit well with each other. A more consistent approach would have helped, and there’s no doubting director Cho’s talent for comedy. However, it perks up again with a rousing finale, pitting Mantis against a large number of thugs, which doesn’t end as you’d expect – though, being honest, neither does it perhaps end as you’d want. Still, you can see why it has reportedly been bought by Miramax, as the concept is great, even if the execution goes mildly off the rails.

Dir: Cho Jin-Gyu
Star: Shin Eun Kyung, Park Sang-Myeon, Ahn Jae Mo, Kim In Kwon