Category: Feature

The Oldboy and I | A Comedy on Purpose

August 19, 2023

Oldboy is one of the key titles from a time in my life when I watched movies a lot. Not a breadth of movies, but a small selection over and over again. I was studying to be a moviemaker myself, so I was doing a lot of director commentaries, and I doubt I was absorbing much. Actually, there’s this lesson you learn early in film studies, that anything substantive can be gleaned from watching bad movies. False! Sure, it’s a kind of deconstruction, and it’s easy to see the mistakes. “I won’t make a mistake like that,” you say, and then dream about what you’d do instead. But it’s harder to visualize what you’d do, especially once you’re in it, suddenly realizing that this successful execution of a payoff doesn’t make for an actual scene, as that’s an entirely different step. First you set everything up inside the broader structure, and then you have to ask, “What might be cool?” It’s a process of construction, and this is a separate discipline. … More The Oldboy and I | A Comedy on Purpose

Siren: Survive the Island – Final Report

June 12, 2023

Boy, that Physical: 100 finale must have left scars on all of us. In the back of my mind, there was such a sense of “contestants vs. producers” throughout that, in the end, it was easy to blame everything on the anonymous, unseen puppet masters doubtlessly manipulating every frame of this so-called “reality” programming to whichever nefarious ends. By the time I’m writing about its spiritual sequel Siren – hoping to give it any kind of boost – proper accreditation never enters my mind. The contestants, sure. Those ladies are badass and I love them. But the bloodsucking producers? No! And I find myself now winding toward an apology not just because the creator of Siren is also a woman, though that certainly helps. Her name is Lee Eun-kyung, and with Siren: Survive the Island, I think she’s done something really great. … More Siren: Survive the Island – Final Report

Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #7

February 14, 2023

In between last week’s episodes and this week’s, I found myself engaging with a Facebook group I’d otherwise elected to hide from (long story). Somebody wanted to know if anyone was watching Physical: 100, and apparently, I’ll take any chance to raise my hand and flail about. In that time, I’d also written an article for Collider, and characterized the show in breathless terms: “Whether all the contestants believe it, men and women are equal competitors in these challenges which emphasize a variety of strengths, creating a final, holistic visual metaphor — this time, for egalitarianism.” Wow! Put that on the DVD box: “Egalitarianism” – Collider. Naturally, I then bit my tongue, remembering that Jang Eun-sil was on thin ice, and if she goes down, the rest of the women follow. … More Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #7

Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #6

February 9, 2023

Last episode, we learned that five eliminated players would be returning, though their identities weren’t revealed right away. “So, they’re the survivors,” Chung-hoon says in proper anime form as they walk in – still unrevealed. We flash back to a “Quest 2.5,” where the torso busts hang from the ceiling via shibari, and the room is lit with steamy red. This is when Seohyun walks in and cracks the whip, but unfortunately, Love and Leashes never made it to the Netflix top ten. Physical: 100 hit number two this week! … More Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #6

Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #5

February 7, 2023

After bonding over this show on an episode of the podcast, Donovan and I were messaging last night about the upcoming fifth installment. I told him I wouldn’t be able to sleep, with the terrible weight of soon knowing Jang Eun-sil’s destiny on the bridge. He asked when the episode was actually gonna drop on Netflix, and we discovered it’s 8:00 GMT. What that means for our time zones, I could not tell you. You know how it is, with math. … More Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #5

Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #4

February 1, 2023

I’d made a call too early that 2022 was gonna be one of the best years for movies, and that didn’t pan out exactly. So, is 2023 gonna be the year for television? Already in January alone, I’ve cried at The Last of Us episode three, and I must say that this fourth episode of Physical: 100 had me extremely tense. It was almost unbearable. Funnily enough, you combine those two things and produce one Squid Game, but Squid Game did not have Jang Eun-sil, who finds herself in the spotlight once again. … More Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #4

Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #3

January 31, 2023

This is it. Finally, it’s Jang Eun-sil’s turn in the ring. Or the “arena,” but believe me, she turns it into a ring. Before we get there, the third episode opens with a resolution to last week’s cliffhanger, between Agent H and Seol Ki-hwan (I did a bit better with names this time). They have a pretty vicious fight, their shirtless bodies caked in mud almost immediately, and injury seems inevitable. Agent H takes the ball and performs a strategy we’ll see plenty more of: the turtle maneuver. He tucks the ball beneath his body, nice and safe, but it isn’t a done deal. Ki-hwan manages to get the ball loose and runs away with the game, despite not being favored to win. “I crushed him,” he says of Agent H, but feels bad all the same. Meanwhile, Agent H tells the camera, “The defeated have nothing to say,” with a chuckle. … More Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #3

Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #2

January 27, 2023

Well, there won’t be much to report on Jang Eun-sil here. See, one hundred is a big number. It makes sense that the first actual challenge will remove half. But in the meantime, managing the titular one hundred affects the show’s pacing, so we’re in for a multi-parter to cover the event. Unfortunately, that means Jang does not perform in this entire episode. So, what happened with our cliffhanger, the hanging challenge? Well, it was the soldier who won, and in doing so, gains an advantage for the upcoming game. But before we get there, we have to watch the other fifty do the same challenge. Come on, guys. Notable here is that the cheerleader drops second, alongside the huge dudes. Overall, the women didn’t do as well in this group, with the top scorer taking 16th place. … More Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #2

Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #1

January 26, 2023

One of the biggest lessons about writing that I have practically no use for came from a book entitled Rise of the Warrior Cop by Radley Balko. Highly recommended anyway, I noticed that each chapter in this larger account of police militarization in America chose a perspective – a main character. It wasn’t just “here are the facts,” it was “here are how the facts impacted this guy.” Framing history with subjectivity is what I tried to do with the feature about Mulan and more recently on Collider about a lost film, identifying H. R. Giger as the protagonist of that story. Clearly, I haven’t got it down, but that’s why I write opinion pieces, not history. And if you’ll indulge further meta, I had no idea how I was gonna approach writing about Physical: 100, so I’ve chosen Jang Eun-sil as the protagonist because it’s simply the most honest choice. … More Jang Eun-sil Report – Physical: 100 Episode #1

K-Drama Report: Inspector Koo

July 4, 2022

Little by little, I’m getting a sense for the geography of South Korea. Of course, there’s metropolitan Seoul and Busan. You land in Incheon, a major city to the east. Jeju is a popular vacation spot. Irene and her accent come from Daegu. Now we have the setting for K-drama Inspector Koo, Tongyeong, a destination on the southern coast which CNN praises for its “fresh seafood, picturesque seascapes and quaint fishing village charm.” After only two episodes, I desperately wanted to visit. Who knew a murder mystery could be so flattering for a city, but every chase scene, every surveillance detail is another opportunity for a wide shot or roving camera showcasing the mountains or festivals or public gardens. This is a regular feature of the genre as I’ve witnessed it, that K-dramas are always selling something, and in total present the shiny artifice of a country at its best. How is it that every male lead is at least six feet tall and every female lead is five-foot four? And take a look at this black bean noodle – doesn’t sound appetizing, but it looks amazing. How about that sunset on the skyline? There’s a beach in everyone’s backyard here, but you fall in love on the bridge over the river. … More K-Drama Report: Inspector Koo