Well if there is one thing that I have learned as I watch
Korean movies, is that you CANNOT hold them to American standards. In some
ways, this is a fun fact and in others incredibly disastrous. I mean this
because if you are used to American movies, the type where everything works out,
or you know you don’t have to really fear if the main character is in danger
because they could never die... because you could never kill of the main
character…it doesn’t work like that in Korea. Be prepared for movies that are
never predictable. Be prepared for movies where the main character tragically
dies unexpectedly. Be prepared for movies that leave no clear ending, but
rather leave you to interpret the ending in your own way. Be prepared for
movies that have no closure. Be prepared for movies where love does not conquer
all… These are some things that frustrate me, anger me, and at some points make
me so desperate that I have fits of irritation where I blame Korea for not
knowing how to make a movie properly. Well that is just how it is here, and the
thing is…Korean movies are usually pretty amazing. The acting is great, the
cinematography well done, and they usually have intriguing and compelling
stories…realistic ones even. Now as a foreigner I am not the best judge of the
movie quality compared to someone who is a native, but personally I think the
movies are great. Sometimes the not-knowing is what makes me so sucked into
these movies. That being said, I would like to rant about two that I have seen
recently.
SPOILER ALERT
-
Train to Busan (Released July 2016)
Now if you like a good Zombie movie, this is it. I liked the plot line
and I thought that for once the gore aspect was not overdone like movies in the
USA. I liked the way that changing into a zombie was depicted as well. The
acting and scenes were dynamic, suspenseful, and detailed. The thing that irks
me is that love does not conquer all in this movie. Most of the main characters
die and it initially infuriated me. The two elderly sisters on the train, who
deeply love one another, who against all odds made it all this time without
succumbing to the infection? They die. One sacrifices herself to do the right
thing. The other… to be with her sister. Two young lovers? (Choi Woo-shik and
Ahn So-hee) No, they don’t fall for each other as they encounter danger, only
to barely make it out alive and finally confess their feelings. They
die…unhappily at that. The newly married husband and wife (Ma Dong-seok and
Jung Yu-mi) who are expecting a child, the husband being a rich character with
a wonderful, caring personality and a charming wife? He DIES. And finally, the
most important character of all. The father (Gong Yoo), who is taking his young
daughter (Kim Su-an) to visit her mother on her birthday. The father who has a
lot to make up to his daughter since he is always too busy to spend time with
her. The father who fights so hard to make it to Busan’s safe zone with his
daughter and gets them nearly all the way to Busan. HE DIES. When he learned
that his company could be partially responsible for the outbreak I thought that
was a clue. When he was bitten, I wasn’t worried. “They were nearly to the safe
zone, surely they were working on a cure. If it was his company, he must have
some idea how to reverse or at least hold off the effects until he can find
help…” These thoughts ran through my mind. This is what would happen had it
been an American movie. But NO…HE DIES! Leaving only the daughter and pregnant,
now-widowed wife to survive out of the entire train full of people. Two people
who while they were important characters, were only depicted as supporting
characters for the leads. They were the reasons the main characters fought so
hard…only to die. The movie had a wonderful plot line, and the deaths were just
and filled with symbolic meaning, but since I was expecting an American style
movie such as those I was used to, I was highly unprepared for the ending. If
you are going to watch Korean movies as an American…you have to throw out all
you think you know about movies, and you cannot effectively predict or think a
character is safe. Knowing and accepting this will make Korean movies much more
enjoyable than they already are. Then you will be able to enjoy a movie without
the irritated grumbling that usually occurs after I watch a movie, and you won’t
need to call up your Korean friends and make them listen to your detailed
complaints about all your expectations that the movie didn’t follow through
with either.
A Werewolf Boy (Released November 2012)
This is another awesome movie. Basically, Song Joong-ki, the main
character (best known for his acting in Descendants of the Sun - one of my
favorites) is a mistreated boy who has had experiments done on him his entire
life, been treated like a dog and successfully made to transform into one when
under extreme stress or endangerment. When his ‘master’ who experimented on him
dies, a new family moves onto the property and the 17-year-old daughter (played
by Park Bo-yeong) finds the boy. The family, thinking he is a
teenage orphan, takes him in. He is a
strange boy and acts very much like a stray dog, so the eldest girl, picking up
on this ‘trains’ him. He grows attached to her and it ends up becoming a mutual
feeling. BUT, at the same time the jerk who gave the family the property (and
suitor of the girl) gets jealous and harasses the girl, endangering her and
therefore making the werewolf boy turn to protect her. Main point being, others
find out about him and scientists come for research, enforcements come to put
him down, and the girl tries to protect him from others finding out by playing
the one boy off as a crazy, misunderstood jerk. So, the crazy jerk tries
shooting the girl to set werewolf boy off, it works, and the boy and girl run
off together. Then the girl leaves him there for his own safety, leaving him a
note she will return. The family leaves, they move out of the country and she
NEVER COMES BACK! Then when she is old and gray she gets a call about selling
their property in Korea so she returns there with her granddaughter, only to
find the werewolf boy, still the same age, waiting for her there like she asked
him to. Waiting for like 47 years for her to come back! He even learned to
speak for her! She had this whole happy life and never once came back for him
and suddenly feels so guilty. She should feel guilty! This is another one of
those moments where I would say this would never happen in an American based
film. The whole love conquers all rule doesn’t apply in this film either. Had
it been an American film, she would’ve come back for him, or they would’ve just
run away together in the first place, and they would’ve remained together as
they should have. Either that, or the werewolf boy would have been killed, and
she would have been sad but moved on in the future. The fact that it ended with
the depressing fact that the handsome, heartwarming boy waited over 40 years
for the one he loved to return and that she only did so due to a legal matter
was just not the typical plotline that I had expected. Had the girl never
thought of him, of what he meant to her, what had become of him, if he was
waiting like she had initially asked of him?!?!?! This movie has one of those
endings that also is set up so that the watcher kind of makes their own
interpretation of what happened. So, there is no clear-cut answer for how it
really ends the way I understood it. I hoped for a happy ending for them both.
I
thought that Song Joong-ki played the role of Chul-Su really well in this film.
His mannerisms and behavior seemed to be very well modeled after that of a dog.
At the same time the film was touching in the connections the boy made (with
the girls, the neighborhood kids, his new family) and the trials that he went
through. You are really rooting for him in the movie, which is why his lonely
devotion is so heartbreaking. This film is most certainly a tearjerker, but I
recommend it.
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