Island of the Doomed (1967)

A bunch of tourists take a trip to a largely deserted island. No one lives there except a lone baron (Cameron Mitchell). As they're driving down a deserted road, a man staggers out in front of them. Something was obviously wrong with him before he expired. They're rattled but press on. They finally meet the baron who takes them in. Of course, all is not well — the Baron is a mad horticulturalist and is keeping a garden full of carnivorous plants.

ISLAND OF THE DOOMED (aka Maneater of Hydra and The Blood Suckers) should have been made a decade or two earlier. This tale of a mad scientist and his experiments is way too campy coming out the 1960s and in bright colors. This should have been dark and shadowy, with Lionel Atwill in the lead. Seeing it recently in the stunning version that Sinister Cinema put out has me pondering what I think of the film. For years, I had watched it via faded grainy and choppy prints, and my feelings were tied to the fact it looked like a misunderstood schlock classic. Seeing it pristine makes me think differently. This isn’t to say the film is bad: it’s not, more that as it stands now, it’s good in a bad sort of way.

Is it worth seeing? If you love good bad movies or if, like me, you're a sucker for crazy monster films — it is.

Authenticating Anguish: an interview with Oh Seung-uk, director of THE SHAMELESS (South Korea, 2014)

The film that hit me hardest among those shown at the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival was Oh Seung-uk’s THE SHAMELESS. I’ve noticed some bones being made about his acclaimed debut in 2000, Kilamanjaro, and unfavorable comparisons drawn with this long awaited followup. Full disclosure, I’ve yet to see the director’s debut, but I cannot imagine it could have dampened my affinity for his recent follow up. Its slowly circling narrative about characters trapped by their vice-laden surroundings had a hypnotic effect along with visuals that truly seared themselves on the brain, making it the one film I knew would be essential to watch again in a state of the art theater.

I had a chance to speak to the director right before the film’s New York premiere. It was not without trepidation that I prepared to speak with the esteemed veteran. But I need not have worried. It took only a few simple questions to get the garrulous director, himself full of character, to go into great lengths about his process and experiences around making this moody film as genuine a crime drama as possible. Below is an approximation of our talk.

Mondocurry: I understand that you have been teaching filmmaking at a university. Was there an inspiration to return to filmmaking?

Oh Seung-uk: I’ve been teaching for about 12 years and it is more like a survival job for me because I have to pay the bills. The place where I’ve taught filmmaking is the Korean Film Academy, which is a government funded institution. My role is more like that of a filmmaking coach rather than an academic professor. I did have a gap of 12 years between this film and my last, but during that time it was not like I was totally removed from filmmaking. I kept on writing my own screenplays. Although some of my projects fell through, I’ve kept writing them for myself as well as other directors. So I don't feel like it has been a complete gap.

MC: Was there something crucial to getting the making of THE SHAMELESS underway?

OS: I have this sort of distinctive work process where in the beginning I work with the art director of the film. The art director I’ve worked with has been a close friend of mine for fifteen years. For this film I was also adamant about working with him. I started writing the screenplay around 2006 and from that time I was with the art director and we would talk together and find locations and design sets together. If I don't see the location and the space where I am going to be filming first, it’s kind of hard for me to actually start the screenwriting process. Even while screenwriting I would talk with him and exchange ideas. Meanwhile, I had been meeting new staff members and new crewmembers.

MC: There are indeed many intriguing views of the surroundings throughout the film. Is the story set in Seoul?

OS: On a macro level, the whole film takes place in Seoul. But I had a concept that as these characters descend more and more into their own destruction, they are pushed away into the more surrounding parts of Seoul. Satellite cities such as Incheon and Seongnam are the places where the characters slowly descend into their destruction. These characters start out in the main city and then are slowly pushed away.

For the character Kim Hye-kyung, we had the places where she was living in Seongnam but there came a point that we couldn't film there so we had to find a place that resembled Seongnam the most and film there. There was also the last scene, where the lead character is walking out. That was supposed to be filmed in Incheon, but circumstances prevented us from filming there so we found a place that was really on the outskirts of Seoul and filmed there. We had to play along with the locations we had. But I wanted the actual addresses in the film to match the onset locations.

MC: The movie has a kind of calm suspense, not as much action as a typical South Korean action movie. Was this something you were conscious of?

OS: It was kind of my philosophy that in order to best express the pain and suffering that human beings are going through is to not use cheap tricks on screen. I feel that the realistic way is to never go over the top or embellish anything. I also wanted the overall feel of this film to be rough around the edges. I think the biggest reason I could achieve this was because I had talked with the actors and DP about the process I wanted. I made it clear that I wanted the characters to only move around at 2 or 3 in the morning or sunset. There is no sun when these people are out and about. That was a priority so we would film when there was no sun.

MC: It also feels as though it is a very realistic depiction of underworld activity. How did you research your subjects?

OS: It was like going through endless interviews with actual people. In the case of interviewing the detectives I felt that if I tried to interview them directly they wouldn't open up to me. So I sent the smartest and cutest assistants that I had to them and they went undercover and talked to them. For interviewing gang members I did that myself because it’s dangerous, and I like dangerous stuff. In the case of the hostess bars, I actually interviewed a lot of men who had experience living with some of the hostesses at the bars and I also interviewed a lot of the hostesses themselves. So a lot of the lines in the film originated from what they really said and several details come from that as well. You can see there are cigarette burns over here (gestures to arm) and that actually comes from personal experience of talking to some of these women. I actually met a lot of women who had descended into this hellhole of a world to really go through the details.

One of the really striking things that I experienced while I was researching for this film was that one of the women I interviewed who really was a part of this underworld asked me: do you know what my number one weapon is when dealing with people who are shady and always lying? And she told me that her number one weapon was honesty. In a world where everyone is lying and cheating and dishonest, she said honesty was her biggest weapon. You can see in the film the character Kim Hye-kyung never lies. All she says is the truth.

MC: The aspect of the film’s plot involving pheromones used as an interrogation method was very unusual…. Did this also come from research?

OS: That actually all came from interviews I had done ten years ago. Those are all based on real life events that cops had told me about. Actually the detective who used pheromones is the guy who this whole film was mostly based on. I based the character on him because he would use pheromones to get confessions out of women. He was this really tall guy, looked like Song Seung-hun who is a really tall popular actor. So he would only wear really luxurious items and was very captivating. The film was actually spawned from that character.

For more information about the New York Korean Film Festival, visit its website here.

Fujishima's Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: THE WORLD OF KANAKO opens Friday

Tetsuya Nakashima’s long gestating follow-up to 2010’s psychological thriller CONFESSIONS (kokuhaku) is a deceptively masterful conception; compared to its preceding slick black pretty hate machine, THE WORLD OF KANAKO (kawaki) is a sprawling blood soaked mess.  Yet throughout the ungovernable tale are many of the director’s increasingly familiar trademark techniques and a continued concern with the way a current generation of youth is raised.  The director has once again culled from the realm of Japanese literature, a tale that shows the life of teenagers to be wracked with pain, both a vicious threat to and something to be pitied by the generations that have come before.

The subject of the film is, for the most part, Kanako Fujishima, a high school student who has gone missing and is being sought by her estranged father Akikazu, a former police officer turned private investigator after incidents led to a disgraced dismissal from law enforcement. Kanako largely remains an enigma whose true nature is chipped away at as circumstantial details are gradually put on display. It’s not like everything being put back in its right place; more like the china falling off the shelf and exploding all over the floor. Traumatic truths are revealed in the shards scattered about the floor, as both characters descend into a more nightmarish abyss the further along they go

As in CONFESSION, multiple narratives are deployed to lead viewers into the darkened world of  its central character: most prominently, that of Akikazu, her alcoholic rage fueled father, and a meek classmate who has developed a weighty crush on her. Cleverly, Nakajima presents two points of view that could not seem farther apart, yet share something crucial in common: the enraptured pursuit of Kanako. Meanwhile, the lack of representation of Kanako’s own point of view throughout the better part of the movie is itself rife with meaning.

The paths orbiting Kanako traverse both temporal as well as mental spaces, making for a dizzying and potentially confusing big picture. Nakashima has set out to make viewers feel as much as think – not so much emotions but sensations. The jumps between perspectives are disorienting, jolting even. And near everything viewed through the lens of Akikazu’s sloshed eyes is not only troubling but feels like a hangover simulation. It helps that Koji Yakusho has thrown himself fully into the role with uncharacteristic lack of restraint. 

In fact, in a weird way, Yakusho’s Akikazu can be likened to an estranged brother of Inherent Vice’s Doc Sportello. Both meandering through their pursuits with any progress they make more the result of their accidental bumbling than any kind of productivity.  Yet Akikazu’s  boiling over aggression also makes him an extreme counterpoint to Sportello’s constant mellow. With all of the baggage laden on Akikazu, as well as others, the notion of objective truth is also thoroughly called into question by Nakashima’s vision.

Music used in the film is both a source of good taste, with a range of selections to rival that of Tarantino or Wong Kar Wai, and fascination (not a surprise considering CONFESSION’s tour de force soundtrack). Not so much subtle mood enhancers, the music herein leaps out, sometimes as signposts of how we are meant to feel, other times offering stark contrasts. Perhaps most important are Barbara Borra’s ‘Gone Away Dream,’ a hazy reverie of 60’s Americana echoing the domestic dream that exists in the occasional moments of sobriety that overtake Akikazu; and an impossibly catchy facsimile of a dream pop classic (that turns out to be an original creation by famous anime soundtrack scorer Yoko Kanno and vocalist Ryo Nagano) which proves the film’s most persistent earwig. It’s a pristine embodiment of blissed out joy that the occasional adolescent narrator experiences when he thinks of Kanako, serving to intensify the blow when joy is nowhere to be found.  Other tracks eschew 70s exploitation nostalgia to play with the notion of men acting out fantasies of action hero violence or give a taste of a frantic skittery teen scene with  fractured mile a minute electropop that makes the Springbreakers soundtrack seem subdued.

The soundtrack full of pop culture associations and visual panache point out that the film is an artificial construct. While it may serve to entertain, it also holds the viewer captive, whether disturbed by its darkness or dazzled by its pizzazz, thus forced to confront the troubling realities lying beneath its artifice. Less reflective views of Nakashima’s films could misconstrue his intergenerational grudge matches as simple tales of us VS them. But KANAKO, even more pointedly than CONFESSIONS, has a strong conscious lurking beneath its grimy surface. It is a haunting tome on responsibility, and when it falls by the way side, the cycle of damage that is wrought.

THE WORLD OF KANAKO will play select theaters and is available on VOD starting Friday, December 4.

@mondocurry

The NEW YORK KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL Returns With A Sharper Edge Than Ever

Some 15 years ago Korean cinema lodged itself into a special place in my heart, kicking and screaming all the way. Not a source of tranquility or soothing balm, I came to look to the nation’s exploding film scene for a reliable dose of cathartic turmoil.  While its output has been diverse, certain cultural qualities have often found their way into the fast growing canon of work, not the least of which is a tendency for biting rounds of verbal sparring. That and a tendency for unleashing cutting societal criticisms have led to my rabid consumption of South Korean film whenever the chance should arise.

For a while Korean cinema and I have experienced a bit of an estrangement. General busyness has led to seeing less films, and those I have seen felt as though they were laden with an uncharacteristic populist flavor. Even when detailing great struggle, the mood was more celebratory than caustic.

So, it pleases me to report that this year’s rendition of the New York Korean Film Festival, which runs from November 6 - 11 at the Museum of the Moving Image, is bringing the nation’s collective angst back to this metropolis in full force.

Perhaps the venue change to MOMI, situated in the internationally flavored borough of Queens has made the difference; Its vast Sumner Redstone theater is surely an ideal venue for absorbing films’ more bombastic qualities. It may also owe a lot to this year being officially cosigned by Subway Cinema, presenters of the New York Asian Film Festival, who have an eye always out for Asia’s more electrifying works and a penchant for wrangling an impressive array of guests. 

The result is a lean selection of films that is crammed tight with social issues, verbal exchanges both lively and thorny, and plenty of blood spilled, with top notch guests a-plenty on hand to guide you through it all.

The event is bookended by two films that could not be more different tonally, yet manage to share a discontented point of view on institutional injustice: Opening night film OFFICE is a creepy foray into terror between the cubicles of a small and struggling company. Setting out to immediately disturb, we watch as an office worker returns home and calmly murders the members of his family with a chilling hammer attack. The moments of terror that follow shift between otherworldly apparition, stealthy movements, and paranoid perceptions. It is a confusing mix that intentionally keeps the viewer off balance, but what remains clear throughout is that the office politics are vicious, especially to its youngest and most powerless member, and the affairs of the police who come to save the day are no less bound by red tape.

Meanwhile festival closer WONDERFUL NIGHTMARE  is a mostly lighthearted comedy that presents the folly of a one way role reversal. An intensely independent, male bashing, executive lawyer Yeon-woo, whose life is abruptly cut short by a celestial error, is transplanted into the body of a housewife in the final weeks of her life. Her struggles to cope with sudden domesticated complacence make for riotous mirth, while highlighting the difference between traditional and more modern gender roles. Her sudden transplant gives her a new perspective on the effects of corporate interests forcing the hand of civic politics. Things get a bit soapy when serious societal ills befall the members of  Yeon-woo’s new clan, yet the story’s heart is always in the right place in this mass appeal audience charmer.

Another grandiose production taking aim at corporate greed unchecked is accomplished action director Ryoo Seung-wan’s ( THE CITY OF VIOLENCE, THE UNJUST, THE BERLIN FILE) VETERAN, by way of an over the top cop drama. After a largely unnecessary half hour of cartoonish action, the story settles into a more tightly wound buildup to a showdown between a privileged enfant terrible son of a corporate tycoon and the reckless top cop on the previously introduced squad, who cannot stomach seeing the antagonist’s transgressions go unchecked. Along with the numerous hotheaded wars of words, the film also contains another familiar feature of many touchstone Korean films: a grudge match between two directly opposed, usually male, individuals bent on tearing each other apart. The film walks an interesting line between serious and silly. It’s a moving depiction of growing class inequity, but never achieves the emotional charge found in the strained loyalties of THE CITY OF VIOLENCE. The numerous familiar faces of the Korean film landscape working together here is impressive in and of itself.

The festival’s main thoroughfare can perhaps best be characterized by a trio of dark dramas from outside of Korean cinema’s most widely known pantheon. TRAP sends a modish screenwriter stuck in a quagmire of writer’s block to a remote makeshift inn where he is immediately taken with the property owner’s barely legal daughter. The source of his fascination is far from innocent as she carries out accomplished acts of seduction. The fetishistic camera work not only captures the writer’s enraptured perspective, but cheekily dares viewers to not be taken in by it themselves. There may not be too much below the surface of this assured exercise in eroticism and suspense, beyond the notion that infatuation is just a slight step away from delirium.  There is a definite gleam of mischief about the film, a curious kindred spirit to OFFICE and WONDERFUL NIGHTMARE for putting female characters in provocative, confrontational roles.     

CONFESSION is an impressive feature debut that presents a clash between ambition and loyalty amid relative poverty in elegant fashion. A backdrop of dingy locales is a steady but not overbearing reminder of how economics and the dangling carrot of financial gain affect the actions and fates of its humble characters. The three individuals whose longstanding friendship is tested are all well-developed and portrayed sympathetically. A work of steadily paced, stirring drama that can truly carry its head held high.

Festival highpoint THE SHAMELESS is a fascinating presentation of the tightrope walk of navigating hierarchical relationships in South Korean society. There is a constant vying for the upper hand of status amongst cops and crooks alike via words and tones, ever threatening to escalate into physical violence. One would be hard pressed to find a cooler customer than detective Jung Jae-gon (Kim Nam-gil) who makes his way through the extremely corrupt landscape as an emotional grifter. He plays on women’s attraction to find suspects on the run from the law. His encounter with bar mistress Kim Hye-Kyung (Jeon Do-yeon, who delivers a perfect balancing act of ferocity and frailty) leads to a crack in his resolve. While he wrestles internally with what it means to lead an honorable path, his steely demeanor remains mostly intact.  With nary a crack in its vision of heartbreak and weariness in a dilapidated urban sprawl, this is one not to miss.

MADONNA is less artful than the rest of its cohort but still compelling, as it weaves the tale of a hospital’s determined caregiver to uncover the past of a comatose, pregnant patient. Meanwhile, strings are being pulled by the son of an elderly wealthy patient on life support, who would resort to immoral means to keep his father’s body alive another day. It’s a chilling microcosm of the disparity of power amongst a nation’s citizens.

For those comfortable with the confrontational nature of many Korean films, the biggest endurance test of the fest may in fact be THEBEAUTY INSIDE, which stands out as a tranquil romantic tale, albeit with a fantastical twist. Its male lead suffers a curious affliction of waking up every morning with a completely different body. A designer of fashionable customized wooden furniture, he falls instantly in love with a woman who works in a shop that sells said furniture. Despite circumstances, they give a relationship a try and for a while, it's all ultra hip wooden chairs and equally hip music choices during a meet that seems interminably cute. When the unique and trying nature of his condition puts a strain on their relationship, things do become sufficiently dramatic. The lack of effort to do anything to understand or curtail the condition lends a fairy tale element. And really, the inclusion of this unreal element allows the director to abstract the problems faced by any typical relationship with adverse elements that has gone past the honeymoon stage, and present them in an entertaining way. Though cloying at times, its second half is heartfelt as is the film’s  ambitions to say something about diversity in these modern times.

For a full run down of the New York Korean Film Festival’s selections and schedule, as well as guests due to appear, visit the Museum ofMoving Image’s website.

@mondocurry

JAPAN CUTS 2014: Sociable Media KILLERS

A point of contention over many modern fiction films dealing with serial killers and other human predators is that slick and thrilling productions tend to glamorize the subject, in effect whitewashing the horrifying nature of the atrocities being depicted beyond moments of uneasy anticipation. Despite its striking cinematography and luxurious soundtrack, the same cannot be said of the Indonesian Japanese coproduction KILLERS, helmed by Indonesian directing team the Mo Brothers. It is a thoroughly dank and dismal tour of the lowest depths of the human spirit. It maintains a course both riveting and exhausting in nearly equal allotments, and rarely hits a note that can be considered entertaining.

Two narratives unfold, each with the potential to be the subject of their own dark movie. The effect is almost like watching a very extended De Palma-esque split screen sequence.  In Japan a man named Nomura (Japan Cuts guest of honor Kazuki Kitamura) hunts women, luring them with an uncanny charm, manipulating their emotions until the moment he decides to extinguish their lives. He documents these murders as video clips and posts them anonymously to a website. A wrinkle in his ways comes in the form of a young and struggling flower shop owner. Something about her and her troubled younger brother stirs another urge within him beside that of decimating another life. Though this too will bring to light an unsettling truth about him and his worldview.

In Indonesia, Bayu (Oka Antara, Raid 2) is a reporter, relentlessly pursuing the story of a corrupt politician suspected of molesting and murdering children. His guilt appears to be all but public knowledge, the truth being a less powerful force than wealth and status. Bayu‘s awareness of these crimes, his inability to do anything about it, and a breakdown in his family life bring about signs of a crack in his psyche. It is furthered by an incident in which he fatally shoots two men in an act of self defense and posts it to the same website as Nomura, inspired by or perhaps as a way of subconsciously reaching out to Nomura. This establishes a connection between them. As Bayu delves into acts of vigilante-ism, his stability lessens, with Nomura an unshakeable presence in his life.

It’s a dark twist on the expected formula, which typically finds protagonist drawn to antagonist in a quest to vanquish evil. Here, first and foremost, there is no hero, only one who is perhaps less villainous. His inability to transcend his quagmire almost makes him more of a reproachful figure. Kitamura’s exuberant monster is the far more active of the two, exerting a poisonous effect on Bayu til at last a breaking point is reached.

I am somewhat at a loss for finding a greater meaning to this bleakness other than a goal of confronting audiences with the existence of true ugliness in society, which edgy entertainment often trivializes. In this, the Mo Brothers do not fail. It is an unparalleled sense of dread watching goodness swallowed up by murderous urges.

Kitamura’s undiluted portrayal of a demon in mortal form will make for a very interesting introduction when he speaks before the movie at the Japan Cuts festival of contemporary Japanese cinema. They present a rare late night screening of the film at 11 pm this Saturday, July 19. Click here for more information or to buy tickets.

Me on twitter = @mondocurry