Vancouver International Film Festival 2008

South Korea

Hansel and Gretel

Review by Desirée Leal

Long, repetitive and cyclical are the labyrinthine narrative and pace of South Korean director Yim Phil-Sung's Hansel and Gretel. And this is a good thing! The deeper we go, the more intense and intricate the path - and that path, at times, leads us to destinations entirely different from the one we initially intended. Dark and deeply emotionally evocative, Hansel and Gretel is not child's play. It is a beautifully lyrical story of a young man about to become a reluctant father. While driving to see his sick mother - and in the middle of heated phone conversation with his pregnant girlfriend on the very subject of his responsibilities - Lee Eun-Soo has a car accident in which his car crashes into the woods and he is thrown clear. A young girl walking alone in the woods finds him barely conscious and bleeding from his injuries. She takes him to her family's home. At first he finds nothing more unusual than the cheerfulness of the girl's sickly sweet parents, older brother and little sister - who are all too happy to take him in for the night, but have no phone he can use to call for help. But soon Eun-Soo discovers he cannot leave the woods that surround the house, and every attempt at escape leaves him more confused and desperate. He then realizes that the "parents" are actually the children's prisoners and that any adult unfortunate enough to drift into those woods are forced to remain forever at the house to "look after" the young girl and her siblings. What unfolds is a gripping tale about a man trapped by the playfulness of children's imaginations as well as the rage brought on by the horror of childhood abuse and neglect.

Beautifully shot, Hansel and Gretel explores the idea that people often, in their adult lives, remain trapped in repetitive patterns of fear and anger that always lead back to the source of our deepest emotional wounds in childhood. As Eun-Soo struggles to find, earn or fight his way out of the woods and the children's grasp, he is forced to face the wounds of his own past so that he may free himself and emerge from the dense and entangled forest of childhood pain where many adults are doomed to remain. Apart from a few cliché horror movie-type devices which the film frankly it did not need to be creepy and suspenceful, Hansel and Gretel is a wonderful achievement showcasing some amazing acting by the cast over all, but particularly excellent on the part of the three children - the youngest of whichcould not have been more than five years old! This was a definite VIFF highlight for me.

Hansel and Gretel
Yim Phil-Sung | South Korea | 2007 | 116min

Fri. Sept. 26 | 10:00am | Empire Granville Theatre 7
Thur. Oct. 2 | 6:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre 7
Fri. Oct. 3 | 1:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre 2

South Korea

Night and Day

Review by Cameron Maitland

One thing that often makes a film a decidedly more unique experience is when a director leaves his home country to film a story abroad. In Night and Day famed Korean director Hong Sang-Soo turns his lens on Koreans in France and comes up with something very different.

The film follows Kim Sung-Nam, a Korean painter who flees to Paris after a series of trumped up marijuana charges makes him paranoid. From there we follow Kim aimlessly meeting up with exes, attempting to seduce young art school students and generally wandering around Paris trying to make a new life. The director deftly makes a film that shows both sensibilities of Korean and French cinema and the mix in visual and acting styles is quite enjoyable.

The strength of the film, beyond the directing, definitely lies in Kim Young-Ho's lead performance. All of the pathetic humour is delivered with ease and the audience never wonders when they should be laughing with the character or at him.

That said, the film's focus on monotony and repetition stomps over the thin line of humour into actual boredom. While it is amusing to see a buffoon caught in a cycle of his own problems after a while the audience themselves gets caught in that same cycle until nobody is having any fun at all. For a film that extends over the two-hour mark Hong Sang-Soo seems to have made his point about three quarters in but just tags on more film for unnecessary emphasis.

Night and Day is by no means a disastrous failure. It is watchable and amusing for the majority of its length but audiences are likely to want to walk out before the final point is made.

Night and Day
Hong Sang-Soo | South Korea | 2008 | 145min

South Korea

Tropical Manila

Review by Matthew Tsang.

Lee Sang Woo's graphic debut feature Tropical Manila explores the abusive relationships within a family living in Manila. The family consists of a Korean man, Kim Dusik, his filipino wife Medusa, and their son Philip. Kim constantly beats and abuses his wife while Philip watches helplessly unable to help his mother. Philip's hatred towards his father intensifies as it is revealed that Kim is looking forward to returning home to Korea, leaving his wife and son behind. Philip endures the destruction of his family as well as his own self-destruction. He succumbs to prostituting himself to a man for money. The film builds up to an inevitable violent confrontation between father and son that ends with the two being condemned to carry on together despite their hatred for each other.

The film does perfectly express a vision of the slums, and is realistic in its portrayal of misogyny within cultures. Lee Sang Woo makes great use of macabre images and symbols without going overboard, thus creating lasting images that you want to hold on to, no matter how much they make you cringe.

Tropical Manila
Lee Sang-Woo | South Korea | 2008 | 84min

Sat. Sept. 27 | 1:30pm | Pacific Cinematheque
Sun. Sept. 28 | 7:00pm | Pacific Cinematheque

South Korea

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Review by Cameron Maitland.

It’s rare to see a foreign film, especially in a festival setting, that matches the action-filled grandeur of an American summer blockbuster. Kim Jee-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird manages to not only meet those high standards, but quite handily exceeds them.

The story follows the three roguish titular outlaws in 1930s Manchuria who become tied up in intrigue revolving around a Russian map stolen from the Japanese government in a botched train robbery. The robbery serves as the first of about half-a-dozen epic action set pieces, most of which can only be described as a glimpse at what It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World would have looked like in the hands of Jerry Brukheimer. The film is far from mindless action, though, as it deftly walks the line between whimsy and reality while producing surprisingly rich and complex characters. Kang-Ho Song as The Weird is endlessly watchable in his portrayal of a seemingly oafish man-child who also happens to be the best and luckiest thief amongst the rogues.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird proves yet again that the best modern Westerns are being produced far from their American roots. Beyond the tip of the hat to Sergio Leone in the title, the film culls the best of cinematographic techniques and plot devices from spaghetti westerns and their predecessors, then turns those conventions on their heads and injects a unique Korean perspective to many of the issues brought up by the genre. One hopes that Kim Jee-Woon may be beginning another foreign renaissance for the genre, but it will be hard to top his rollicking first attempt.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Kim Jee-Woon | South Korea | 2008 | 127mins

Thurs. Sept. 25 | 10:00am | Empire Granville, Theatre 7
Fri. Sept. 26 | 9:30pm | Empire Granville, Theatre 7
Sat. Sept. 27 | 3:30pm | Empire Granville, Theatre 7