Christmas In August (product link) Drama One of the great love stories from Korea or anywhere else in a generation, a movie which gives a new meaning to unselfish love. The film's enormous power is based on a simple but brilliant plot concept and world-class acting by Han Seok-Gyu and Shim Eun-Ha. These actors understand the importance of timing and restraint, of holding back for the right moment, and the ultimate effect is unforgettable.
I'm just an old white American who's never been to Asia, but there must be a Korean spirit who wandered into Memphis and kindly possessed me. I know that sentimental Korean love stories and reminiscences about a child's first love don't always reach the hearts of cynical Americans. But I thank God that I have come to be a lover of Asian films of all kinds. So I am not embarrassed to be touched by a movie like this, which is so obviously designed to tug at the heartstrings of old men, looking back at tender youth.
I have watched thousands of movies now for half a century, and I consider myself an objective critic, but I was simply moved to tears by this movie, something which rarely happens. It is inexpressibly warm, achingly bittersweet, and an absolute treasure. I feel sorry for all those folks around the world who are prevented from seeing this movie by social prejudice or by unenlightened DVD marketing within their nations.
I hope that HKFlix continues to make the movie available.
Peppermint Candy (product link) Drama In its agonizing journey backwards through a shallow and bitter life to a moment of happiness lost forever, in the rare complexity and passion of the lead performances, "Peppermint Candy" is an overwhelming and unforgettable experience. I am reluctant to praise anything so unreservedly. But in looking back, I often find that I have an uncanny prescience about how critics will judge films decades later. At this moment, I feel that "Peppermint Candy" will come to be regarded as one of the greatest movies of its era.
For me "Ringu 0" is by far the best of the Ring films made in Japan. (The Korean remake of the first "Ring" is probably, as art, the best of them all. But curses on the fool who named it "The Ring Virus" for international distribution. The Korean title is simply "Ring".) In "Ringu O" there is a complexity of motivation, action, and consequence which lifts the film above its Japanese "Ring" brethren (although all of them are better than 95% of American horror films). "Ringu 0" is more than just another "J-Horror" flick. (I hate that patronizing term, which sounds like "B-movie." It is now widely used by fans and critics who don't know how diverse and inventive, as well as profound and moving, many Japanese horror films are.) "Ringu 0" is a work of art carefully and intricately wrought by the writer, well-directed, and superbly acted. The Sadako in this film is a young woman, more tormented than tormentor, and I find it impossible not to empathize with her.
(Sorry for the parenthetical asides, but there is so much about Asian cinema in general about which Western fans are clueless. I am also an American, but I have at least 500 major Asian films in my collection, many of which have never been released in the U.S., and the collection grows steadily.)
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I definitely agree that the Korean "Ring Virus" is an underappreciated gem. I have to admit that the US "Ring" remake was my favorite--the score alone, wow--but "Ring Virus" is up there too.
July Rhapsody (product link) Drama / Art A dramatically subdued film which gains tremendous power from its restraint. The film never oversimplifies the web of relationships which sometimes support, sometimes confuse our lives. Memorable performances by the three lead actors. July Rhapsody deserves to be available in every region and should be valued as a classic of contemporary world cinema.
I think HKFlix is off the mark in so handily dismissing this powerful movie.
It does seem slow and uneventful at first, and the pace indeed is deliberate. But with repeated viewings (I have seen the movie at least 20 times) the very restraint, the masked emotions of the main characters, create an almost unbearable tension. Their sense of loss and betrayal is complicated by the guilty love they are beginning to feel for each other while their cheating spouses lie comatose in the hospital. I respect the opinions of the great folks at HKFlix, but I think they are seriously misleading potential purchasers. (For one thing, there is really no such thing as a BAD Son Ye Jin movie.) Several times I have watched this movie twice in the same evening, without a pause, just to reexperience the film's smothered intensity, the terrible pain and perplexing desire forced beneath the surface of the characters' vigilant, somber demeanor. To a passerby, Son Ye Jin would appear like any other wife outside an IC ward, waiting for better or worse, calm only because she is exhausted by shock and sorrow and dread. But we are permitted to know more than the passerby, and we discover the amazing range of emotion the actress conveys with the most subtle of modulations.
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