Anijo

The story in Ong-Bak is nothing new, but that's not to be expected in this genre. If you're a fan of fight movies you've seen this many times before. A treasure is stolen from a simple village, and a young man has to go to the city and fight a lot of bad guys to bring it back. It's not innovation of the format that matters most in these movies, but how the individual scenes are performed. It's a bit like watching sports, people go out on the same field & play the same kind of game week after week but when it's good there's some individual variation & brilliance that make it worthwhile.

Ong-Bak starts out surprisingly slow, but when the action really picks up after some 30 minutes it's pretty good stuff. The first chase scene is one of the best I've ever seen. Tony Jaa is perfect as the hero. He's incredibly athletic & makes some awesome explosive moves in the fight scenes. And not least important, he doesn't engage in any dramatic over-acting, he's just a basic, simple tough guy. Kind of like Clint Eastwood in the beautiful spaghetti westerns. There's also a nice touch of humor that produces some good laughs. So if you like this genre I don't think you'll be disappointed with Ong-Bak.

If you've ever been poor & if you ever had to work by a dirty machine for minimum wages just to be able to stay alive, you'll appreciate that director Chan-wook Park knows something about the pure desperation such conditions can bring about. And if you've ever lost somebody that you truly loved more than yourself, the most emotional scene in this film will probably make you cry.

'Sympathy For Mr Vengeance' deals with some very strong issues & grim facts. Chan-wook not only shows some real insight to these things, he also understands that he must use some artistic touch so the story doesn't develop as something that's just completely depressing from start to end. So a big part of this movie is told with a dark sense of humor & a twist of surrealism. I like this approach & I think there are some very good things both to enjoy and to contemplate in this work.

The plot revolves around a young man who tries to find a way to help his sister get a kidney she needs for a vital transplant. Since his economic resources are small he resorts to desperate measures which starts a devastating chain of assault & retaliation. Within the basic story there's exposition of some big subjects: the impossibility of true justice, the fact that what human rights you have mostly depend on where you happen to be born, and the sad truth that many of us value money more than human life.

As I said I like that Chan-wook applies a twisted touch to the story, but I also think that he goes a little overboard with these elements. Through the first half I felt like there was only a handful of scenes that was somewhat ordinary, and this both alienated me a bit from the characters & made some parts less believable. For instance, I certainly hope that it's not Korean reality that ordinary people take part in forensic autopsies. . . Then in the second half the movie becomes much more melancholy & straight forward, and people with a weak stomach should be prepared for some brutal violence. This left me with the impression that the first & second half of the movie was somewhat disjointed. I think the film would've felt more cohesive & convincing if the slightly twisted & the more somber parts had been more evenly dispersed throughout the story.

But all in all, Chan-wook Park still manage to tell an original & difficult story in a way that is much more impressive than depressive. That's worth 7/10 in my ratings. And he definitely made me feel very fortunate that I live in a country that values human life enough to ensure that everybody has the right to advanced medical care, regardless of the patient's bank account.

I think that 'Hulk' suffers from the same problem as some other recent sci-fi films, like 'The Core'. Instead of accepting that these kind of stories is all about fantasy & giving the audience a fun thrill ride, they try like maniacs to anchor them in reality & waste half the time on excessive talking & presenting "plausible" scientific explanations. Anybody with knowledge about this genre knows that such mumbo jumbo never makes the audience connect more, it totally works against its purpose. So it's a mystery to me that movie makers who are able to spend millions of dollars on their productions continually fail to understand basic facts about good screen writing.

In 'Hulk' the back story is presented very quick in the beginning, which I thought was good, but unfortunately this does not lead into a fun & fast paced action movie. Instead it almost comes to a full stop for about 40 minutes that is filled with romantic nonsense & lots of psychobabble. And when the action finally starts to unfold the development is still very slow, and it's only in the last half hour this really feels like a movie about the incredible Hulk. So once again we see that Freud, real world science & comic book characters don't mix well. Sorry Ang Lee, watch 'Blade II' & better luck next time.