Within the last 100 years, American filmmaking has represented a group of eager men and women who want to move the motion picture forward with new ideas. That time isn’t now. The evidence is an American hotbed of remakes, sequels, carbon copies and trite crap. The best American film of 2006 was “Brick,” and many audiences and critics didn’t seem to care.
Hope remains, though, in South Korea. In this Asian country, there is a movement. I don’t know whether the movement is conscious or simply organic. But it stands for reaching beyond the limits of current film, breeding hybrid genres and giving audiences something to think about. The following is a list of movies that ignore the orthodox and strive for brilliance.
Oldboy
“I’ll rip your body limb from limb. And your remains will never be found. Why? Because I will swallow every last bit.” These lines are spoken by the protagonist of “Oldboy,” Oh Dae-su (a magnificent Choi Min-sik), and they demonstrate the unrestrained power of the most original revenge film you’ll ever see.
The story centers around Dae-su, who escapes from a room after being imprisoned for 15 years. What follows is a smorgasbord of memorable scenes, from the infamous live octopus meal to a revved-up reference to “Marathon Man.”
Director/co-writer Park Chanwook avoids convention with a passion but never loses sight of what completes a good story: the characters. On the one hand, Chanwook supports over-the-top efforts like a one-take, two-and-a-half-minute fight scene that should go down as one of the most breathtaking shots in film history. But for every one of its grandiose moments, “Oldboy” manages to stay grounded and builds an attachment between Dae-su and the audience-an attachment that is both strengthened and challenged. When the film unveils its secrets, you won’t just be floored. You’ll never look at revenge the same way again.
Memories of Murder
“Memories of Murder” is so smart and haunting that it’s hard to believe it belongs to an overdone sub-genre, the serial killer film. But whereas American filmmakers are content to repackage and sell, sell, sell, director/co-writer Bong Joon-ho creates a quiet yet scathing commentary on a true murder case in South Korea.
The case involves a series of rape/murder victims investigated by tenacious and bumbling detectives. The officers overlook clues and follow pointless leads while a demented stalker preys on young, beautiful women. Joon-ho often satirizes the faulty detective work so well that you’ll still think you’re watching a mystery flick. Yet after the conclusion, the identity of the serial killer takes a backseat to a depressing truth.
A Tale of Two Sisters
Honestly, I almost turned this one off within the first 40 minutes. The beginning of “A Tale of Two Sisters” seems like another version of “Ringu” (the film that inspired “The Ring”), filled to the brim with dull, slow and stupid creepiness.
Coming home from a mental institution, two sisters deal with their cold stepmother and brooding father (Kim Kab-su, who shows admirable restraint). The siblings sense more than just family problems at home – the house they live in could be haunted.
Sounds lame, right? And rest assured, it’s very lame for a while. But unlike its pretentious and ultimately unsatisfying Asian and American counterparts, “Two Sisters” rebounds from its hackneyed core in record time. Although the second half of the film is about as enticing as they come, the impatient need not apply.
Save the Green Planet!
Certainly, this is the weirdest title to grace a poster, DVD case or a newspaper article. Admittedly, when someone first recommended this genre-bender to me, I initially dismissed the suggestion as absurd.
I’m glad my instinct was wrong. In fact, “Save the Green Planet!” has enough ideas and innovation for four or five movies. The plot details how a paranoid, movie-loving goof believes the world is being invaded by aliens. So he kidnaps and tortures a rich businessman, whom the protagonist believes is a leader of the alien squadron.
Writer/director Jang Joon-hwan is a certifiable mad scientist, throwing together a plethora of genres: slapstick comedy, B-movie horror, science fiction, satire, mystery, etc. And the amazing thing is that the mix of genres doesn’t feel like an excuse to reference a thousand films (although it does reference a few, such as “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”). Call me crazy, but every bit of the madness is necessary to tell this unusual story. And a betting man would say that nobody can predict hardly any of it.