billion_mucks

Korean films are the go to when looking for grit, realism, blood without gore and gore without blood. Na Hong Jin turns the story of a cab driver turned contract killer into a tour de force of two characters that tear through a string of missteps, errors and double crossings like Iron Men, through the gauntlet of car crashes, knife fights, fire and all you can imagine in the vein of the Bourne dynasty, all to come out VERY harmed. That is the spirit of the movie: pain, collective suffering, bleeding, survival and grinding for a life perhaps not worth living; all of this framed in a decadent, sloppy area of China bordering Korea that is filled with deprivation and hardships, but in a way, beautifully shot.

The story, acting and locations are perhaps the strong points: at the other end, the action sequences get too convoluted, the characters take too long to get to their unavoidable outcomes and some scenes and plot points end up being redundant. It's a good movie, for it's Korean, and Korean films rarely miss..

I love Jiro. He makes sushi and has the philosophy of a samurai sword master, doesn't bend but is flexible, is dry but has a quick wit, and controls his sons dominantly but loves them abundantly.

The movie is really not about sushi (which it really very much is) but more about being driven professionally into one thing and one thing only. To Jiro, it was sushi. In my case, it is compulsive stress eating.

We all are the best at something-

Please do not be fooled: Amelie is sick in the head. The titular character has very palpable schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive dissorder and I believe some autism too.

She behaves more like an alien in a flesh suit, than a person. The world she lives in is brightly overexposed, yellow, sacharine and tragically depressing.

She belongs in a nuthouse, and the movie should be a documentary about her lunacy. I know she is not a real person and a movie character, but someone please end her suffering.