Crooked House

Photo credit: www.imdb.com

Crooked House was not in my radar and I didn't know the novel was adapted to film until my sister told me.  And I liked it very much. Firstly I like the way Max Irons look and I love Glen Close (ever since The Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liasions) and I sure didn't guess who the killer is (I very rarely, almost never do in Agatha Christie novels). 

The Hitman's Bodyguard

Photo credit: www.imdb.com

The Hitman's Bodyguard turned out to be one of those good natured action films where the hitman turns out to be rather an avenging angel only killing bad guys and I liked the action scenes in European locales (especially Amsterdam). 

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

Photo credit: www.imdb.com

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 I think I would have liked this much better if I had not recently watch Thor:Ragnarok (a superior super hero comedy). It was ok I suppose but nowhere as good as the first one. 

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Photo credit: www.imdb.com

Star Wars: The Last Jedi turned out to be entertaining but I didn't like it a lot. To me the first three oldies are perfect and they can't seem to get it right since then. Sure I'm entertained and I watched it till the end but it didn't leave much of an impression. 

Along With The Gods

Photo credit: www.imdb.com

Photo credit: www.imdb.com

Along With The Gods stars two of my favorite actors. Ha Jung Woo is a very talented actor and I think him very handsome and welcome Ju Ji Hun who I think very elegant looking. So I put both of their photos here since I could not choose.

First a disclaimer anything with the label "from my sister" is probably a pirated product. She is into that and I'm not but she downloads them to watch on big screen at the living room so since they are already downloaded I see no point in trying to avoid them. This weekend turned out to be a treat of pirated films in this regard.

Along With the Gods was my first choice not only due to casting but also it is a box office champion and Korean film goers and I usually agree. And this ended up being a treat. At first I thought it would be one of those CGI extravaganzas without much emotion lauded only on technical achievements. How wrong I was since it ended up being a first class melodrama making me cry rivers (and loving it). 

Ohayo

Photo credit: www.unchangingwindow.com

Ohayo is a classic for a reason. And it never  gets old. Just as funny as the first time I saw it. I mean look at that cute boy and he is so adorable in the film too. This may not be the best film of Ozu San (I think that is Tokyo Story) but it is my favorite by far. 

Inside Out

Photo credit: filmautonomy.com

Inside Out was among the pile of film my sister has stored in one of her little flash discs and I thought I'd give it a try. It got great reviews and everyone liked it. I liked it as well. I had a great time, leaked a little and decided that it is the sort of film one can take their child and both child and adult can have a good time. 

Sado (The Throne)

Photo credit: variety.com

Sado (The Throne) is a historical S. Korean film telling the sad story of Sado ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prince_Sado ) who died confined in rice chest by the order of his father King Yeongjo. Firstly this film affected me a lot. Not only I'm familiar with the story (I have even read the diary of Hyegyong) and it is a sad one where it is not clear who is to blame. Some views that since Sado suffered from mental illness (he killed more than one palace servant) and his father had no other option but to end his life, and some think that the father was jelaous of the son (he treated him very badly in life) and Sado was killed as a result of the court politics. Sado's wife was the daughter of a different faction than the one King was more friendly to. The film is more sympathetic to the latter theory. Sado is shown to kill a servant during a time of mental turmoil but mostly he is depicted as a smart young man whose talents and ambitions are thwarted by his father (who focused his love and teachings to Sado's son). He is very emotional and doesn't take life's harshness lightly. Normally I wouldn't like the film very much since the story structure didn't appeal to me (we see Sado's sufferings in the rice chest and have flashbacks explaining how he came to be in there) but the actors are all my favorites. Song Kang Ho is probably my all time favorite Korean actor. He may not have the model good looks but he has great talent and he acts fantastically well, Yoo Ah In is also a fave of mine ever since Sungkyungwan Scandal and he is perfect as Sado, the emotionally disturbed but sensitive, suffering prince. And as a bonus his son's (King Jeonjo) grown up version is played by So Ji Sub (my all time favorite handsome Korean actor). Lady Hyegyong was acted by Moon Geun Yeong who is not only adorable but also a good actor. I have cried and cried and cried during this film. Yes I think I have suffered from dehydration. 

Sunny

Photo credit: http://wpmedia.montrealgazette.com

Sunny is a film I have watched and like before (and have a dvd of) but as I was eager for a weepie and I had Stepmom in mind (thinking mistakenly that my sister has it) I just picked this one since I knew it would make me cry rivers. And it did once again.

Very Ordinary Couple

Photo credit http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/

Very Ordinary Couple is a film my sister chose for herself and I have only viewed because I had nothing else to watch at that moment. And I liked it a lot. It is a romantic comedy. It begins with two colleagues working at the same bank branch breaking up. And they get together and break up again. It is entertaining with good, likable actors and the characters are indeed ordinary but both of them won my heart.

Recommended.  

Love 911

Photo credit: https://gllitterkid.wordpress.com

Love 911 is a romantic comedy with two unlikable charactes who will both grow on the viewer as the story progresses. This second viewing was not unpleasant, especially as I'm currently watching Empire of Gold and liking Go Soo (the male lead). Han Hye Joo is someone I really like ever since I watched her in Brilliant Inheritance the first time. All in all this is a bit long but is decent time pass. 

Rough Cut

Photo credit: https://endersgirrrl.wordpress.com/    (and it is a great site too) 

Rough Cut is a film I have purchased and watched a while ago. But it was there in my sister's electronic stash and it is always great to watch So Ji Sub (one of my fantasy men). I liked it a lot better at this second viewing. The story is interesting. There is a gangster, number 2 of a gang with the leader in prison. This guy is very handsome, attractive and the silent, brooding type with a hidden sense of humour and he loves films and looks like So Ji Sub (yeah my kryptonite). There is an actor who has behavioural problems (like getting mad and hitting his co actors for real, keeping his girlfriend hidden away with their only communication being booty calls in the actor's van. So when he hits his co actor and causes an accident that ended the said actor in hospital, no one wants to star with him. The made him think of the gangster he met at a karaoke place (the gangster is his fan). 

So he offers him the part and he accepts with the condition that they will fight for real and the end fight will be real too (normally the actor should have won according to the script). 

Their interactions affect each other, the gangster begins to soften up somehow and the actor starts to realise what a jerk he is but will the end for the gangster be happy? (spoiler: no). 

Kang Ji Hwan plays the actor and he is very good. I love this actor especially after Capital Scandal. My problem with him is not his face (not my type) but his voice. It is rather high pitched. 

Anyway this one is interesting if you like this sort of thing. Also it is artsy. I'd call it viewer friendly Kim Ki Duk. 

Ghost of Oiwa

Photo credit http://thebloodypitofhorror.blogspot.com.tr/

Ghost of Oiwa to me was not that scary. Also I had seen a similar story in another film (Kaidan??). It only served us (my mother and I) to see that women are treated badly everywhere and made me think about how Japanese people, as a culture made things harder for themselves (all the dresses and cast systems, rules and regulations, customs etc.) 

Pacemaker

Photo credit http://www.hancinema.net/

Pacemaker only interested me because the lead actor is Lee Myung Min and he is really good. And at the end of the film I thought that I'd still have liked it with someone else starring. It is a decent story with a not really probably but definitely happy ending. 

Boomerang Family

Photo credit: http://hangukyeonghwa.com/

Boomerang Family is not a film I would have chosen myself but I have watched it since my sister had it and she recommended it. All in all it was one of those mixed bag Korean films which starts as comedy/dark comedy and then slowly evolves into a melodrama. The actors were nice and I'm happy to say that Park Hae Il has won me over with The Arrow. And now I'm happy to see him instead of being annoyed by his presence. Anyway this one is not that good but ended up being a time pass. 

Marrying The Mafia

Photo credit: http://asianfilmseries.blogspot.com.tr/

Marrying The Mafia is a film I have watched years ago during my Korean film craze (which, apparently recurs from time to time) It is a very successful film that spawned many sequels and remakes. And there is a reason for that. I loved how our lawyer male lead who is in a long term relationship with a woman with western sensibilities, finds himself waking up from a one night stand he can't remember. Our female lead works in a laboratory and is seemingly demure and old fashioned. However there is a catch. Her family are a mob family and they want them to get married. He tries to get out of it but as fails time and time again, he starts to fall for this weird woman who falls for him back. This is very entertaining and I enjoyed it just as well as I did the first time. 

Fateful Encounter

Photo credit: http://www.dramarecap.com/

Fateful Encounter is an apt name for this film (the original translation is King's Wrath) but it turns out there is a manga and another film/drama (?) with the same name and it was not as easy to find visuals. Hyun Bin is the guy in the photo plays the King Jeongjo who is the son of Prince Sado (who died a very unpleasant death). He is a good king but he has major issues like getting revenge for his father, balancing the government in which a faction has more power than the other, his freaky step grandmother etc. Despite being a hottie and a decent actor, his part of the story was the least interesting. The other side of the story tells about the King's eunuch. This man is devoted to the King and does his best to aid him. He is caught after a failed assasination attempt and we learn that he was caught by vicious and merciless assasins as a kind and was painfully trained to be a deadly man. He chose to be an eunuch spy in the palace to save another kid he befriended in the hell hole they lived. The other kid was saved from being an eunuch but he ended up being a deadly assassin (unconvincingly played by Cho Jung Seok, this man just gets on my nerves) and they grew up being apart but not forgetting each other. The deadly assassin is chosen to murder the King but he is smart, supported by loyal followers and quick witted enough to make some change sides.

All in all while loving and shedding tears over the melodrama of the assassins, I was kind of cold towards the troubles of the king (despite the fact that Sado incident being a very interesting one). All in all this film failed in the box office and I can understand why. The director Lee Jae Kyu is more suited to direct melodrama than tense political intrigue.

The Techicians

Photo Credit: https://imjuhwanifc.files.wordpress.com/

The Technicians was one of the films in my sister electrical stash so I have given it a go. Actually the weekend before that (it has been sometime I have updated this blog!) I have done an impromptu Korean film festival - come to think of this this weekend was like that too. Anyway this film was probably promoting an idol (Kim Woo Bin) and was not very good. Sure it is slick an kind of entertaining while not being anywhere was good as The Thieves (which probably was an inspiration).

This is a heist film where con men try to our con each other. While in The Thieves women were just as smart and active as men, here we only have one female character who is just window dressing and plot point. I liked the villain's henchman (Im Ju Hwan in the photo) the best and the rest were too cartoonish to mention. This one was not for me. 

Our Sunhi

Photo credit: http://www.screendaily.com


Our Sunhi was just looking at me from my sister's film selection (which are files on the computer and one doesn't have any idea about the film if not previously familiar with the title). And imagine my surprise when at the first shot I knew that it is directed by Hong Sang Soo. And I loved it. Great performances and that certain something (which is said to be French new wave) that appeals to me in Hong films. I like the way it ended too. This is not for everyone (and I think it didn't get good reviews) but I liked it very very much. 

Hara - Kiri: Death of a Samurai

Photo credit: http://mondo70.blogspot.com.tr

Hara- Kiri: Death of a Samurai is a remake of Kobayashi Masaki's excellent film Harakiri. Takeshi Miike is a director I like. Not only for his shock value films (which are great for single viewings) but also I like the way he goes all out. This one turned into a first class melodrama that made me leak tears (despite the fact that most of the melo scenes were so dark it was not easy to see properly). I like Eita (who is in the photo) and his performance was great. The rest of the cast also did a nice job and I recommend this one but please watch the original (a superior film imho) as well.