MOTHER

마더 (Ma-deo) | Bong Joon Ho | 2009

PLOT:

An anonymous lady lives in a small southern side town of South Korea. She lives off selling herbal medicinal ingredients and practicing illegal acupuncture works for her secret regular customer to feed herself and her son Do-Joon.

As an intellectually challenged man, Do Joon didn't have many friends, apart from Jin Tae; the town’s good-for-nothing unemployed slacker. Problems arose when a high school girl found dead on the roof of the junkyard, and the evidence leads the local police to believe that Do Joon was the murderer. This is the story about a mother’s fight to defend her son’s innocence, as she unraveled the other side of the story from the people she met along the way.

NOTES:

This movie is quite unsettling. 

It felt so close;not too close to triggers memories, but close enough to smack your head and get your attention. This is proper storytelling. 

Kim HyeJa delivered an intense performance; a close up of her face will give you goosebumps in this particular movie. That look, her close ups, will keep you on your seats. Her performance is filled with heartwarming (and wrenching) details of motherly actions, which makes it highly relatable to the audience. 

This movie blends heavyweight content with comical execution skillfully, without turning it into a comedy or a tearjerker drama. It is the in-betweens. Main story aside, there are issues on teenager’s life, social pressures, normative interaction and the stress of being outcasted from the society. Not as an accent or fillers, the issues are wisely dropped to shape relevance to the settings. It serves you layers after layers of uncertainty like a street magician, until the complexity of the story conveyed beautifully; it is blossoming towards the end. 

In the beginning, it’s like the ending. But in the end, it questions everything and answers nothing.

And this is one of the prettiest dramas I’ve ever seen.

 

 

MUKIMUKIMANMANSU - S/T ( 무키무키만만수 ) - 2012

These girls are the shit. 

To be blatantly honest, I’m tired of those good girls singing prettily in front of their webcam in a neatly done bedroom with acoustic guitars, doing covers of the top40s or oldies and foolish love songs into “their own version” of coffeeshop background music. 

I’ve had enough of “that”. Those are poison. I didn't get my ears checked three times a year for “that”. 
These girls I’m about to rant about is the antidote of all that is “that”.

First off, let me break it down to you real quick why you should really, REALLY, get their album:

1. They’re sporting the most awesome group name ever.  I mean, who would’ve thought of MUKIMUKIMANMANSU as a name? What is MUKIMUKIMANMANSU? But admit it, it kinda grows on you by now, innit? Try saying it. MUKIMUKIMANMANSU. Really, SAY IT!
2. They’re crazy. They’re crazy and intentionally honest about it. See the live performances below. It’s fugly and refreshing.

Their self-titled in 2012 was a big blowout. They tore the cliché about girls and acoustic guitars. The album is fueled with angst and freedom. It’s like talking to a person with full expression and no image to be taken care of.  It’s fun and liberating.

MUKIMUKIMANMANSU is a well-produced insanity accentuated with temper tantrums thrown here and there. It is folk-ish in the most punk-ish context; it spat on the JUNO soundtrack with the filthiest gooey slime and redefines minimalistic sovereignty. Try going for a ride with your toddler controlling the wheel. Intense, unpredictable, and will surely involving a few curse word due to frustration, but at the same time you want to know how it will end. It is wrong on so many levels (and culture, I’m sure).

I never knew there was a fine line between idiocy and psychoticism, but MUKIMUKIMANMANSU sure dances comfortably there. They are the queens of the in-betweens.

 

Check their sounds in the video below with ONLY your best headphones. Your lousy notebook and desktop speakers wont do them any justice.

Note: I can only describe MUKIMUKIMANMANSU’s brilliance with antonyms of the mainstream’s definition of acknowledgement. Fuck adjectives.

Dear Cloud - One Million Roses (MUST: Era of the Band)

Good people at kIndie put this marvelous link on their Dear Cloud's "MUST: Era of the Band" commentary.

Thought it was an old Korean song when the band performed it at the show.

The remake's tad flat, but the petals and all looked sweet. Anyways, it's nice to see Dear Cloud's performance being documented properly.

Doomsday Book

Doomsday Book

(Yim Pil Sung, Kim Ji Woon – 2012)

3 segments from 2 South Korean directors

PLOT:

1.      A couple sat around in a park bench after dinner. During the kissy woosy session, a group of schoolboys harass them. The man stood up and beat the living hell out of them, only to amaze himself with the super power he unexpectedly had. Little did he know, that the power came as the first symptoms of the transformation. Like everyone in the city, he’s turning into a flesh-eating zombie.(Brave New World)

2.      A technician called out to a test out a domestic help robot in a Buddhist monastery. He is required to verify a claim, that the robot have received enlightenment, therefore now a Buddhist robot. As the robot have become an important member and consultant of the monastery, the technician faced his biggest mechanical hiccup issue.(Heavenly Creature)

3.      A daughter of a billiard enthusiast dented her father’s 8 ball. To prevent him from noticing, she threw the dented ball out the window and go online and went to a shady website to order a new one. After two years, the 8 ball she ordered finally arrived; as a giant asteroid that threatened the country.(Happy Birthday)

NOTES:

Ilove this one.

These three stories here are a part of those chains of stories that need no explanations at the end. So many things left buoyant because they just are.  Some philosophical values are weakly presented, but it’s a great compilation of possible absurdity nonetheless.

I can provide you more spoilers but still you need to watch this one yourself. Proper entertainment. You get to see Bong Joon Ho’s cameo appearance here and, of course, nothing can go wrong if Bae Doona is in it <3 p="">

Get the blu-ray copy of Doomsday Book at 1o8o.

The Man from Nowhere / 아저씨(Ahjussi)

The Man from Nowhere / 아저씨(Ahjussi)

(Lee Jeong-beom - 2010)

This is the second Won Bin movie I’ve watched. The first one is MOTHER, a splendid movie.

PLOT:

The movie revolves around a loner man. Self employed himself in a pawnshop he built in his apartment; he lived a motionless life and ignores his surroundings. His only interaction wasmostly with So Mi, a thieving little girl, daughter of his neighboring junkie woman. Got So Mi out of trouble several times made him developed a nurturing nature towards her.

Trouble begins when So Mi found her mom tied up and battered by a group of guys from a big chain of criminal organization. The guys kidnap So Mi and they hunt the loner man for something So Mi’s mother pawned in his shop. Defending his life and provoked, the man carry out a survival skill that is only possessed by selected and highly trained man. 

As the fight to seek the answer proceeds, bits by bits of the loner man’s past life flashes and opened; on why he leads a static life and what triggered him to risk his life to save So Mi.

NOTES:

Reading the reviews, it thought this movie was a restoration of Leon: The Professional, and it proves me wrong. 

Apart from the nasty wig I have to deal with for more than half the duration, Ahjussi delivered my expectation from a South Korean movie well. Tactical storytelling, fast paced sequence, and of course, proper tearjerker scene.

I really enjoyed the fast, graphic and tight close combats (Won Bin was fighting with a watchamacalit short and stout knife) AND the scene where he jumped out of the window and the camera followed. I repeat that scene for about four times before finally moving on.

Another goodie from this movie, check the official soundtrack “Dear” by Mad Soul Child. 

You can get this movie at 1o8o.

 The Man From Nowhere trailer.