Tag: CJ Entertainment

Cinema Dispatch: Parasite

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Parasite and all the images you see in this review are owned by CJ Entertainment and Neon

Directed by Bong Joon-ho

The first movie I ever saw on Netflix streaming was Lady Vengeance by Park Chan-wook who is one of the filmmakers in the South Korean New Wave of cinema; along with the director of this film who’s made The Host and Snowpiercer; neither of which I’ve seen which is why I referenced an incidental fact about a tangentially related movie a moment ago.  As much as I’ve liked the films of Park Chan-wook like Oldboy and The Handmaiden, I haven’t really explored the rest of this movement in South Korean cinema as much as I should as I’ve seen MAYBE ten minutes of I Saw The Devil and twenty of The Good, The Bad, and The Weird.  That all changes today however as I’m here to see a movie that has gotten a bajillion awards and even breaking through at the US box office!  Is this the movie as good as everyone says it is, or will I end up being a Grumpy Gus yet again telling you that everyone else is wrong and you should always listen to me?  Well, I mean… you should listen to me ANYWAY, but let’s find out!!

The Kim family, consisting of son Ki-woo, daughter Ki-jeong, mother Chung-sook, and father Ki-taek (Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, and Song Kang-ho) are a family living in South Korea that are so lower class that they literally live below everyone else in a basement apartment.  They can barely afford food on a daily basis, they have to steal wi-fi from the people upstairs, and pretty much all the life has been sucked out of them.  And yet the family being rather smart and talented for the most part (I’m not sure what the dad brings to the table) which makes you wonder if that whole “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” thing is total nonsense perpetuated by those who were already handed everything in life!  Well things might just be turning around for them as Ki-woo’s friend Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon) drops a huge opportunity on his lap with an English tutoring gig for the daughter of a very wealthy family nearby and all he has to do (despite being very good at English already) is pretend that he actually went to university and make up some backstory that sounds impressive.  Fortunately the wealthy Park family is somewhat gullible as the mother Park Yeon-kyo (Cho Yeo-jeong) buys Ki-woo’s ploy so easily that he thinks it might be worth getting everyone else in on the scheme as well.  While he’s teaching Park Da-hey (Jung Ji-so) English, his sister will teach the son Park Da-song (Jung Hyun-joon) art therapy, their mother will be the housekeeper after they find a way to oust the current one Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun) and the father will become the chauffeur for the father Park Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun)

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No coasters!?  THE MONSTERS!!

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Cinema Dispatch: The Handmaiden

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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The Handmaiden and all the images you see in this review are owned by CJ Entertainment

Directed by Chan-wook Park

I have been waiting to see this one for a while now which is somewhat depressing considering all the other film critics got to see it some time ago, but on the other hand at least I was lucky enough to see at all which a lot of other people haven’t been lucky enough to do yet.  Now all the way back in 2010 (I think) when Netflix was still delivering DVDs, the first movie I ever watched when I took the plunge into their streaming service was oddly enough Sympathy for Lady Vengeance which… I guess doesn’t REALLY have any significance, but it was my introduction to Chan-wook Park’s work, and I ended up watching Old Boy not too long after that.  If you aren’t aware already, this is a guy who is an absolute legend that we get to experience in his prime; on par with the greats like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and John Waters.  Okay… that last one was for me, but there are comparisons to be made between those two as Chan-wook Park, like Waters, finds humor and absurdity in people just being people.  Now to be fair, Park tends to go in a much darker direction with that concept, especially in films like Thirst which is about someone desperately trying to find a way to live as a vampire while maintaining his humanity, but its honestly these touches along with his technical acumen that has led him to stand out and garner all the critical praise that he has.  So is his latest film yet another example of this director being just as brilliant as everyone says he is, or are the cracks starting to show now that his work has been at the bleeding edge of film discourse for over a decade now?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins in Japanese occupied Korea with Sook-Hee (Kim Tae-ri) who’s been recruited by Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo) who’s managed to drag himself out of the lower class but still doesn’t have the kind of money he needs to truly be accepted into high society.  What is Sook-Hee recruited for?  Well he has a plan to rob this rich guy known simply as Uncle Kouzuk (Cho Jin-woong) who’s niece Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) is the inheritor a vast fortune.  Count Fujiwara plans to have Sook-hee go undercover as the titular Handmaiden to Lady Hideko and will gain her trust so that she can start convincing her that this dashing new suitor is the PERFECT husband.  Once married, Count Fujiwara will lock Lady Hideko in an insane asylum (which I’m guessing wasn’t all that hard to do back in those days) and split some of the money with Sook-hee.  Now obviously things don’t go exactly as planned as we watch Sook-hee get closer and closer to Lady Hideko, and we learn more and more about the life she’s led and how her uncle has treated her since her aunt died some time ago.  Will Sook-hee go through with the plan that will get her all the money she could ever need, or will her feelings make it impossible to do so?  Will Count Fujiwara be able to stay civil long enough for the plan to even work in the first place?  Just what the heck is going on in that library they keep bringing up!?

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“Tonight’s reading will be a selected piece from VegitoBro420 titled Mercy and Tracer go to White Castle: A tale of Love and Hamburgers.”

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