[previewing] 카트 (Cart)

Previewing is the section of this blog where I talk about movie that are yet to be released, or movies that I have yet to see.

카트

Cart

Directed by Boo Ji Young

Starring Yeom Jung Ah, Moon Jung Hee, Kim Young Ae, Do Kyung Soo, Chun Woo hee

2014 

Cart, an upcoming film slated for a November release in Korea, actually had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, as part of TIFF's City to City series which focused on movies from Korea. The first time I came across the trailer for Cart was actually thanks to the TIFF as well, who posted the trailer on their Youtube page. 

Cart tells the story of temporary workers who work at a big chain grocery store (called "The Mart" in the movie) and their fight against the injustice after majority of the female non-regular workers are laid off with no clear explanation. At the center of the film is Yeom Jung Ah's Sunhee, who was promised a permanent position and now finds herself fired without a reason. Led by Haemee (portrayed by Moon Jung Hee) who seem to know her labour rights, the laid-off workers go on a strike. 

The film seems to take a lot of inspiration from a real life event that happened in Korea only few years ago. In 2007, hundreds of non-regular female employees were fired at Home Ever, a chain grocery store owned by E-Land. They went on strike, and managed to settle on an agreement with the employer for the better when the marts were sold off to a different company, Samsung-Tesco. 

With that said, Cart seems like a movie with a message, and it seems fitting that the movie is being released now, with the social turmoil that's been going on in Korea. 

I've teared up every time I've watched the trailer, it gets me so emotional. Because the movie, directed by a female director, tells the story of women who actively fight for their rights. Here is a movie with an ensemble of (hopefully complex) female characters that actively, and vocally, fight for justice. That moment in the trailer when one of the company higher-up's says, "They're just women." And we get shots of these women who strike on, nonetheless. I get emotional just thinking about the social implications of such a movie being released to a mass audience. The film seems promising, coming from a more than capable female director, with a stellar cast of women actors. 

All that aside, it is impossible to ignore the hype from the fans of Do Kyungsoo (also known as D.O from his EXO activities). I've been noticing the ridiculously high ratings for the movie that came from Kyungsoo/EXO's fans who gave it perfect scores without even seeing it. Check the Cart's page on any Korean movie site - and the comment section is filled with encouragements for the young star, and how people can't wait to see this movie for him. 

Then there are people who comment about these fans and Kyungsoo's casting. Their complaint is that casting an idol and having the fans get interested in the movie just for that idol is distracting, maybe even disrespectful. There isn't much talk in these places about anything else about the movie; nothing about the director, other actors, the premise. Actually, the themes of the movie seem even secondary to those who are too concerned with debating Kyungsoo's casting in the movie. It's almost tiring, seeing these debates, because I think it's kind of irrelevant and unnecessary at this point. In the end, what matters is people watching this movie. Whether it's for Kyungsoo or not, people will watch it, and hopefully people will take something away from it. 

This is a movie that was made possible because of crowdsourced funds, from production to marketing. It was a difficult process to create the movie on limited budget, I'm sure. So why can't people trust the director's decisions? She ultimately decided to cast Kyungsoo in her movie, maybe because she wanted to target that younger demographic with his star power. Or maybe Kyungsoo did really impress her with his acting. Whatever the case may be, I wish people would stop complain about the idol casting, when they haven't even seen it and seen Kyungsoo act in it. (Obviously it will be a completely different situation if Kyungsoo ended up being terrible in this film. But I'll leave that up for the actual review of the movie.) 

On the other hand, I also wish that Kyungsoo/EXO fans acknowledge this movie as something bigger than just "D.O's first movie". I sincerely hope that even if they watch this movie just for him, they get something more out of it than just the gratification of seeing their favourite idol star on the big screen. 

[intermission] the woes of the internet-less one.

Just an update post.

I recently relocated to a new city for a summer internship. Since I won't be doing much in the evenings after I finish work and I like alone time after a tiring day more than anything, I was planning on watching a bunch of movies and tv shows. And write about them. But that hasn't been happening all that much (mainly because I get side-tracked like usual), and to make things worse, the internet in my sublease apartment stopped working. I guess I could set up my own wifi, but that seemed like too much hassle for just seven weeks I'll be here. So no internet in the house, other than my phone, which probably means I won't be blogging much over the summer, unless I start writing down reviews in a text file somewhere, like I am doing currently with this post.

But I do want to keep writing in this blog, I like talking about movies. The last few reviews I've written were a lot of fun to write.

The most exciting thing to happen, film-wise: during my first week here, I had the chance to see a special screening of Snowpiercer with the director Bong Joon Ho in attendance. Bong Joon Ho is my favourite film director ever, so it was a terribly exciting experience for me. And god, he is so intelligent and well-spoken, it was awesome. I even got his signature after the event. I usually don't get too starstruck (although that may be a lie, I might just pretend like I am not, while taking sneaky pics like everyone else), but man, Bong Joon Ho. He is my idol.

I even took some recordings of what he talked about at the Q&A after the Snowpiercer screening, so I might write up a post about that if I ever get around to it.

My intern place is actually only a block away from a neat little independent cinema, so I'm hoping to go there as much as I can every time there's an interesting movie playing.

And I guess a few things I've had on my mind - I wasn't sure how spoiler-y I should be with my reviews for this blog, and for the last few reviews, I've put spoiler warnings before the cut if there were any and tried to write spoiler-free movie reviews. But I don't think I'll be doing that anymore. From now on, this blog is going to be completely not spoiler free. It's incredibly difficult to write reviews on movies without going into specifics and plot points, and I assume people who are interested in reading movie reviews are people who have already seen the movie anyway. If you haven't seen a movie I review on this blog, just check out the star-rating I'll have before the cut and my one-line remark, which should be enough to let you know what I thought about the movie. If you are somehow here to see whether a movie is worth watching or not based on my opinion of it (although god knows why that'd be the case), that should really be enough. If you are here to read what I thought about a movie you've already seen, then me going through the movie with spoilers is probably more interesting, and maybe you can agree or disagree with me on things. Maybe we can work out confusing movies together. That'd be nice, no?

Anyway, I've seen a few movies since my last movie review, and perhaps I'll get to reviewing them, perhaps not.

I've also finished season 2 of Orange is the New Black, and finally got started on the latest season of Game of Thrones (two episodes in so far). Watched the first three episodes of the second season of Dancing9. I've also been meaning to watch more Korean dramas, Korean variety shows, and more tv shows on Netflix, but since my internet's down for next two months I guess that won't be happening.

Oh yeah, I finally caved in and subscribed to Netflix. Which really sucks because of this whole wifi-less situation. But I'll binge on that service in a bubble tea cafe every weekend day I'm not doing anything, and any weekday evening when I have enough energy to drag along my giant laptop to a cafe.

But I'm going to try to watch as many movies as I can, perhaps finally watch all the movies that have been sitting on my hard drive for the last 3+ years...

That's it for now!

[Previewing] Man On High Heels, and Its Approach to Trans Identities

Previewing will be the section of this blog that will talk about movie that are yet to be released, or movies that I have yet to see.

하이힐

Man On High Heels

Directed by Jang Jin

Starring Cha Seung Won, Oh Jung Se, Lee Som 

2014

Director Jang Jin's latest action film High Heel, also known as Man On High Heels, was released in major theatres in Korea today (June 4). Initially this movie wasn't something on my radar as I have never seen something directed by Jang Jin, and his movies weren't something I was particularly interested in.

Yet this specific movie caught my attention with its provocative premise. According to wikipedia, the synopsis of Man On High Heels:

Yoon Ji-wook is a hard-as-nails homicide detective known for his undisputed ability to nab violent criminals. He is revered as a legend in the police force and at the same time feared among the mafia for his brutality in cracking down on crime. Yet, beneath his cool, macho appearance lies a secret that he must hide from the world he lives in. Ji-wook has wanted to become a woman ever since his teenage years. He tries to suppress this inner desire, but in vain. Ji-wook finally reaches the point where he makes up his mind to live as a woman, and decides to take the plunge and get a sex change operation. However, before he has a chance to do so, unexpected crises arise and interfere with his plans. A gang that suffered from the cold, hard steel of Ji-wook's handcuffs are dead set on getting their revenge against him. Ji-wook resigns and tries to go about making his dream a reality, but people close to him get sucked into the revenge plot he finds himself at the center of. When some of those people get killed and a girl named Jang-mi falls into danger, he realizes that he can't stand idly by any longer.

The film, from the get-go, doesn't try to hide that its main character is transgender. A main character of a mainstream Korean movie with a star-studded cast who's transgender? And an action film, to boot? How will they manage all that?

At first I tried to be hopeful about this movie. At the least, it's a mainstream movie with a transgender character at the center of it. Something like this has never been done before.

Then I read this article about Jang Jin's comments during the premier of the movie held last week. I've translated what was quoted in the article:

"'Transgender' is a stereotyped word. We must be careful when using the word. [...] I have a lot of friends in that area [who are trans]. When I wrote this scenario I showed it to them and they gave me so much help.

"They told me a lot of crucial information at the beginning of the screenwriting process. According to what I've heard, they don't become women because they have women inside them. 98% of them start out with homosexuality. Suddenly you start liking the neighbourhood dude, and then you start liking a male friend, and then you want to become a woman. Apparently the desire to become a woman starts out like that. When I heard that I made significant developments on the screenplay."

Now, I'm not very well-versed in trans theory or issues at all. However, I've been told over and over again that one's gender identity is independent of one's sexuality. Of course, I'm not trying to devalue the experiences of Jang Jin's "transgender friends", if he is indeed telling the truth and he does have friends who are transgender. But where the hell did he come up with the stat "98% of transgender individuals start out with homosexuality"? Can we get a quote on this? 98%? To me, it sounds like a load of bullshit, like he believes it's 100% but for the sake of playing safe, he tells people 98%.

Entrusting a transgender character to a cis director who's so confident in his inaccuracies seems very problematic to me. I have a bad feeling about this movie.

There aren't many reviews by critics released yet, but the three one-liner reviews from Cine21 (a weekly film magazine) were not glowing. Two 3-star ratings, which isn't bad, and one 2.5 star rating.

The audience reviews online on Naver Movie was mainly negative, with lots of one-star and two-star ratings. I've seen a lot of comments like "I can't believe I wasted time on this" and "This movie doesn't deserve any words, ugh". The Daum Movie review section seemed pretty fishy as most of the comments seemed to be fabricated and were written by part-timers (as many Korean movies do to get higher ratings on user-rating movie sites).

Yet I'm not sure if most of the negative reaction to the movie is due to the actual quality of the movie or if it's because the people who saw it were transphobic. I even saw a 2-star rating that said, "It's a gender movie ㅠㅠ, it reminded me of Harisu (famous Korean transgender celebrity)." The movie may be actually bad. If it's getting such negative reviews because it's a movie about a transgender character, then it's a bit alarming. But perhaps a look into what the Korean mass still thinks about trans people.

All across the board though, Cha Seung Won is getting good reviews for his acting.

Despite everything, I love the posters. They're so flashy but interesting to look at.

I will be definitely checking out Man On High Heels when I can, to see how they managed to deal with a transgender character. In the meantime, I will also try to read up and research more about trans theories and issues, since I can't say that I'm confident with my knowledge in that area.

If anybody has seen it, please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought about it, because I'm genuinely curious!

Check out the trailer below.

[Review] Stateless Things (dir. Kim Kyung Mook, 2012)

줄탁동시
Stateless Things
Directed by Kim Kyung Mook
Starring Lee Paul, Yeom Hyun Joon, Kim Sae Byuk 
2012

The bleak lives of the stateless ones. ★★★ 

Relatively Spoiler-Free. 

[Review] The Neighbors (dir. Kim Hwee, 2012)

이웃사람 
The Neighbors 
Directed by Kim Hwee
Starring Kim Yoon Jin, Ma Dong Seok, Kim Sae Ron, Kim Sung Kyun, Cheon Ho Jin
2012

Two hours spent waiting for the thriller that never happens. ★★☆

Spoiler-free.