Korea III. Je-gyu Kang

I'd like to prove to myself that most Korean action movies are as bad as most Hollywood action movies. (Let us hold no monopoly on philistines.) To that end, I expect to be satisfied after surveying the blockbuster shoot 'em ups of the two Kangs: Je-gyu and Woo-suk. They appear to be the top contenders for the Michael Bay Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.

When subjecting myself to such experiences I always regret not having used those special parts to make some robot friends.

First up is Shiri, which no fewer than two Loyal Readers advised me to avoid. Oh, had I heeded the warnings! But given its historical significance it had to be seen. The new wave of Korean cinema, underway since the early nineties when economic growth made possible the first productions financed in toto by South Korea's private sector, entered its present blockbuster phase with Shiri in 1999. As an industry watershed the film is comparable to Jaws, the major difference being that Jaws is one of the best movies ever and Shiri is godawful crap.

But it looks slick. Writer-director Je-gyu Kang has reverse-engineered Hollywood polish so effectively that one only just barely notices that it's being used to buff the basic works of Steven Seagal.

Kang stamps out more boilerplate melodrama is his follow-up, Taegukgi*, which is nevertheless so technically accomplished that's it's allllmost a good movie. The surehanded camera work, editing and pyrotechnics combine into an audiovisual dead ringer for Saving Private Ryan, which is to say as brutally and convincingly realized as a war picture can be. Given that this was done on a budget about one-fifth that of Ryan's, and that I did enjoy seeing the Korean War from a perspective other than that of Capt Hawkeye (just this once), I must give a slight tip of the hat.

In fact, I was sufficiently impressed to become curious about Kang's 1996 debut feature, Eunhaengnamoo chimdae (DVD sadly out of print), which purports to be a spook story about haunted furniture.


* the official name of the flag of South Korea, I learn