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Reviews
Mi-syeon pa-seo-beul (2021)
Fabulous surprise
I cannot believe this movie has a low rating. It was laugh out laugh, without ever being ridiculous. It can be difficult to blend humor and action. This movie pulled it spectacularly. Both leads worked well together. It was quite late in the movie that we learn about one of the characters, I liked that development. I worried that they would go for the obvious and have the leads linked romantically. Nope. They played it straight. While there was clever editing, all the fight scenes were realistic. Nice pacing, I enjoyed the film from first shot to last. I realize that movies with subtitles are not everyone's taste. I can only rate this as highly as possible and hope more people discover this gem.
Gongbeom (2013)
Interesting and frustrating
An interesting premise that fails to live up to its promise. There are plot holes, which I will not comment on, but meant that I did not enjoy the movie as much as I wanted to. I found it interesting that I simply never could decide if the father was or was not the kidnapper and killer. Like others, I felt the last few minutes seemed a little contrived. These didn't ring true to me and that's why I have to give a lower rating. As too often happens with Korean movies, the police are not exactly covered in glory here. I'm not sure how I feel about the final twist either. Was this really necessary?
49 Pulses (2017)
Boo
I started watching this, with great interest. About 40 minutes into the documentary, I realized it was the same director as from 77 Minutes. Instead of being a sober reflection of what happened, the documentary turned into an indictment of the police. No attempt at neutrality, no attempt at objectivity, just the police are at fault and that's the end of the story. I wanted to hear the survivor stories, and the start of the documentary featured that, and I was truly interested to learn more from their perspective. Once the film veered into a condemnation of the police, I stopped watching. I barely lasted 40 minutes of a 90-minute film, when I truly wanted to know more about this event.
77 Minutes (2016)
Unfocused
This had the potential to be an excellent documentary. I believe it would have had much more impact had it been edited, and some extraneous material removed. I would have loved it if the running time equaled the length of the shooting spree, 77 minutes. The director/interviewer was unnecessarily confrontational at times. It would have been better if he receded more into the background and let the story unfold. The director made a wise decision to not include the name of the shooter and focus more on the victims. Too much Monday Morning Quarterbacking for my taste. In the end, it's a weak film, with too many flaws to recommend.