The Resurrection

RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL (2002), an ambitious cyber-punk actioner from the director of 2000's LIES and 1996's A PETAL. It's one of the few Korean films I've seen that has polarized audiences as much as it has. An expensive failure upon its first release, the film has, with a couple of repeat viewings on DVD, started to grow on me, not that I didn't like it in the first place.

The narrative has a socially disaffected gamer attempting to make the title game character fall in love with him before she dies while fending off an array of well-armed oddballs. Eventually though, she rebels against the system with a Great Big Gun. There's a tricky blur between real world and game world in this often maddeningly vague film, and I'm still not sure I've read all the director's messages correctly, or if he even makes them at all, but the visuals are so enticing, the action so deliberately overblown, and the philosophy so seemingly just out of reach, it's tough to stop watching (and watching again). I suspect that this film will develop a strong cult following in the years to come, with even many of those who absolutely hated it re-approaching it from different angles and perhaps finding new meaning in it. Despite it's Korean setting and cast, it's probably the least Korean-feeling Korean film I've yet seen, generally eschewing themes of identity and patriotism as well as the maudlin melodramatics so often found in Korean cinema. Somehow, I suspect that was all intentional. Unfortunately, the Korean DVD of this title had no English subs, so most people who've seen it subbed have had to spring for the bootleg.

RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL (2002), an ambitious cyber-punk actioner from the director of 2000's LIES and 1996's A PETAL. It's one of the few Korean films I've seen that has polarized audiences as much as it has. An expensive failure upon its first release, the film has, with a couple of repeat viewings on DVD, started to grow on me, not that I didn't like it in the first place.

The narrative has a socially disaffected gamer attempting to make the title game character fall in love with him before she dies while fending off an array of well-armed oddballs. Eventually though, she rebels against the system with a Great Big Gun. There's a tricky blur between real world and game world in this often maddeningly vague film, and I'm still not sure I've read all the director's messages correctly, or if he even makes them at all, but the visuals are so enticing, the action so deliberately overblown, and the philosophy so seemingly just out of reach, it's tough to stop watching (and watching again). I suspect that this film will develop a strong cult following in the years to come, with even many of those who absolutely hated it re-approaching it from different angles and perhaps finding new meaning in it.

Despite it's Korean setting and cast, it's probably the least Korean-feeling Korean film I've yet seen, generally eschewing themes of identity and patriotism as well as the maudlin melodramatics so often found in Korean cinema. Somehow, I suspect that was all intentional. Unfortunately, the Korean DVD of this title had no English subs, so most people who've seen it subbed have had to spring for the bootleg. I give it an 8.

As I was watching "Sungnyangpali sonyeoui jaerim" I felt that it had a lot of promise as a creative, over-the-top, self-conscious thrill ride with underlying social commentary on Korean popular culture. But I thought it fizzled off to a flat, unnatural conclusion that made the movie seem like it was reaching in vain for something higher. And in reaching, it lost within itself any potential for critical self-awareness.

The film is a pretty fair summary of late 90s, early 2000s Korean popular culture. The real-life pop-star playing a pop-star is comparable to having Justin Timberlake cameo as a teenie-bopper idol; and the other real-life pop-star who plays the champion pro-gamer is like having LL Cool J star in a dramatic role (with special emphasis on the word "dramatic"). Although I must admit that Kim Jin-pyo gave a pretty convincing and successfully comic performance. And, I guess it's only fitting that a country as wired as Korea and a popular culture that drives an arcade owner to his death by a combination of starvation and sleep deprivation brought on by a fortnight Starcraft marathon could produce such a feverishly obsessive movie that could just as well have been an elaborate role-playing computer game.

In any case, I still enjoyed the film for creatively blurring fantasy and reality. I think the movie opens up an interesting exploration into the eventual merging of cinema, video games, and music video into a true single-serving multimedia experience. Indeed, without the over-arching Halo/Doom/Area51 aura, I think the excessive violence and action sequencing would not have been able to escape being accused of being hackneyed and overtly borrowed, let alone be stomached. Kill Bill it is not, but I liked it and laughed quite heartily at the expense of my peers back in the motherland.

RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL is an oddball of a movie. It's half satire, half parody, and sometimes plain silliness. The director is an Indie favorite, but for some reason he was given a lot of money and told to make a movie out of it. Well he did, utilizing every single cent, but the problem is that he didn't have his heart in it. As a result, MATCH GIRL is visually competent and even terrific, but narratively speaking, it's a total mess.

There are some good ideas here, such as the mocking of Hollywood films driven by special effects. And yet the movie never really makes you laugh. There are no chuckles to be had, and if anything the film just feels incredibly half-hearted on just about everything it attempts. Again, there just doesn't seem to have any focus to the picture, or any actual WILLINGNESS to make a good movie.

For what it is, MATCH GIRL certainly looks nice. It's just not worth talking about that's all.

4 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of this movie or reviews of other foreign films)

What kind of movie is this? Ummm.. well it's... weird. It's VERY weird actually... It's like someone wanted to make mixture of Fallen Angels, Nowhere to Hide, Avalon, Matrix, Unreal Tournament, Rainbow Six and... Little Matchgirl!

I have to say that I liked this movie. It was beautiful, strange and full of humor and spectacular action. The actors were good and the effects were mostly brilliant.

I'm not going to tell you anything about the plot, because... it's so strange, twisted and complicated and you don't really need to know it before you see the movie.

I think that the weirdest thing in this movie is that they used NYLON BEAT'S song in the movie! It was quite surrealistic to watch a South-Korean movie and listen to a FINNISH popmusic! I have to say that I HATE Nylon Beat, but somewhy their music worked in this movie... and actually all music in this movie was quite good.

I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes to watch original an different movies..... this definitely is a DIFFERENT movie...