Korea Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Night Owl’ (2022), starring Ryu Jun-yeol and Yoo Hae-jin

December 21, 2022

by Carla Hay

Yoo Hae-jin and Ryu Jun-yeol in “The Night Owl” (Photo courtesy of 815 Films)

“The Night Owl” (2022)

Directed by Hwang In-ho

Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Korean kingdom of Joseon, in 1645 and briefly in 1649, the dramatic film “The Night Owl” features an all-Korean cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A partially blind acupuncturist, who goes to work for the empire’s royal family, witnesses the murder of the prince who was the empire’s direct heir, and the acupuncturist finds himself in a battle with the king, who wants to abide by the official cause of death as malaria.

Culture Audience: “The Night Owl” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching “slow burn” movies that combine murder mysteries with political intrigue that’s partially based on real-life historical figures.

An acupuncture scene from “The Night Owl” (Photo courtesy of 815 Films)

“The Night Owl” has a title that is meant to describe movie’s wise protoganist, who is nocturnal by nature and sees things at night that he won’t necessarily reveal right away. It’s a somewhat slow build to the most suspenseful parts of this political crime drama. And the movie’s ending is a bit too contrived. However, most of “The Night Owl” is a well-acted thriller, partially inspired by real Korean history of the 1640s.

Directed by Ahn Tae-jin, “The Night Owl” takes place in Korean kingdom of Joseon, in 1645 and briefly in 1649, during the Joseon Dynasty. Ahn co-wrote the fictional screenplay with Soo-in Bang and Gyu-Ri Hyun. Even though the movie is fictional, it features some portrayals of real-life historical figures and events. “The Night Owl” takes a well-known Korean legend about the mysterious death of a real prince and shows it from the perspective of a fictional and partially blind acupuncturist who was hired by the royal family and who witnessed the death.

The opening scene of “The Night Owl” takes place around 6 a.m. on April 27, 1645. The acupuncturist—a mild-mannered man in his 30s named Chun Kyung-soo (played by Ryu Jun-yeol), also known as Chun Geyong-su—is frantically running out of the royal palace while carrying a boy on his back. Viewers later find out that the boy is the king’s 10-year-old grandson Yi Seok-cheol (played by Lee Joo-won), who also looks very frightened because his father has died under mysterious circumstances. “The Night Owl” returns to this scene near the end of the movie, and viewers will know by then why these two are running away from the palace.

The movie then cuts to a scene of Kyung-soo with two other men in acupuncture training because they hope to be hired as physicians for the royal family. The salary is high enough that one of the men remarks, “We can be rich if we become royal physicians.” Kyung-soo has become an expert in acupuncture, and his services will soon be sought-after by the royal family.

Kyung-soo happens to be partially blind. During the day, he cannot see, but at night, he has very limited vision. He doesn’t tell most people that he can somewhat see at night. Kyung-soo leads most people t believe that he is completely blind at all times.

Kyung-soo, who is a bachelor with no children, has a very personal reason for wanting to get high-salary job: His 10-year-old bother Kyung-Jae (played by Kim Do-wan) has an unnamed medical condition that requires herbal medicine that Kyung-soo has been struggling to afford. There is no mention of what happened to the brothers’ parents, but they are presumably dead, since Kyung-soo is Kyung-Jae’s only guardian and caregiver. An early scene shows Kyung-soo nearly being evicted because he hasn’t been paying his rent.

Under these dire circumstances, the timing couldn’t be better for Kyung-soo when he find out that his reputation for being an expert acupuncturist has resulted in the royal family’s chief medical staffer Lee Hyung-ik (played by Choi Moo-sung) recruiting Kyung-soo to live and work at the palace. The movie never really explains who’s taking care of Kyung-Jae while his older brother Kyung-soo is away. Kyung-soo is shown writing secret letters to Kyung-Jae, because Kyung-soo doesn’t want people to know that he’s not completely blind.

One of Kyung-soo’s fellow trainees named Man-sik (played by Park Myung-hoon) is hired y the royal family at the same time as Kyung-soo. Man-sik, who is goofy and a little bit irresponsible, likes to see himself as a ladies’ man. His antics are the movie’s main comic relief. Man-sik will often get distracted by ogling at the royal family’s female servants—he gets an instant crush on a court lady named Seo (played by Kim Ye-eun)—and he sometimes sleeps on the job when he thinks Kyung-soo isn’t noticing. Kyung-soo and Hyung-ik have both been assigned to work together during the night shift.

The first third of “The Night Owl” shows Kyung-soo and Mansik getting established in their new living and workng environment at the royal palace. Hyung-ik gives a friendly tour of the royal clinic. Hyung-ik tells him, “Order of rank must be upheld.” Kyung-soo is also told that the king’s only grandchild—a boy named Seok-cheol—has been urinating on himself, but only the people in the royal clinic know.

There’s a possible psychiatric explanation for Prince Seok-cheol’s urination problem: He’s experienced trauma because his father, Crown Prince Sohyeon (played by Kim Sung-cheol), has been in Qing (a part of China) as a hostage for the past eight years. (This captivity happened to the real Crown Prince Sohyeon.) And now, Sohyeon is coming home to Joseon.

The homecoming is fraught with tension becaue Sohyeon’s father, King Injo (played by Yoo Hae-jin) has fallen ill and is wary about greeting his returning son, whom King Injo fears has been brainwashed by the enemy. Sohyeon is the king’s only direct heir. In recent decades, Joseon has already been ravaged by Japanese and Manchus who invaded Joseon. King Injo wants to protect his kingdom from possible interlopers at whatever cost.

Sohyeon’s wife, Crown Princess Minhoe (played by Jo Yoon-seo), and son Seok-cheol are happy and relieved about Sohyeon’s homecoming, which is witnessed by a large crowd of Joseon residents. Minhoe is upset that King Injo can’t drag himself out of bed to greet his son at the homecoming ceremony. And just when it looks like King Injo will skip the homecoming ceremony, he appears at the event and gives Sohyeon a slightly reluctant embrace.

Conversations between Sohyeon and King Injo reveal that Sohyeon grew to trust his Qing captors and believes that Joseon and Qing can reach a compromise to leave peacefully. Sohyeon tells King Injo that the king must adapt to change and not be stuck in old ways of thinking. King Injo is stubborn and skeptical. And the king, who thinks Westerners are barbarians, gets even more suspicious of Sohyeon when he finds out that Sohyeon has been learning and accepting of Western customs.

The tensions between King Injo and Crown Prince Sohyeon continue to build until one night, Sohyeon dies under mysterious circumstances in the early morning (just past midnight) of April 26, 1645. The official cause of death is malaria. However, Kyung-soo saw what really happened: Sohyeon was murdered by poison. The circumstances of the murder are shown in detail, so viewers know who the committed the crime.

Kyung-soo’s dilemma is how to report this murder when people won’t believe that a blind man witnessed it. The killer also covered up the murder, so Kyung-soo must have enough evidence to prove what happened. Meanwhile, Kyung-soo knows that if he comes forward with a claim that Sohyeon was murdered, then Kyung-soo could be at risk of being accused of the crime, since Kyung-soo was one of the last-known people to see Sohyeon alive.

King Injo seems determined to not let anyone doubt that Sohyeon died of malaria. Is he a king who is in denial who doesn’t want any royal scandals, or does King Injo know more than he’s telling? As shown in “The Night Owl” trailer, Kyung-Soo does indeed come forward with an accusation that Sohyeon was poisoned. And King Injo doesn’t it like it one bit.

There’s a “race aganst time” aspect to the story, since Sohyeon’s body will soon be cremated, and his body is one of the main ways that Sohyeon can prove that he is telling the truth. “The Night Owl” has solid acting from all of the cast members, who all give very credible performances. The main conflict in the story comes down to an underdog (Kyung-Soo) versus an extremely powerful person (King Injo), who both want very different narratives about Sohyeon’s death. “The Night Owl,” which gets more tension-filled as it goes along, is a story about truth and justice that shows having the truth on one’s side might not always be enough for justice.

815 Pictures released “The Night Owl” in select U.S. cinemas on December 16, 2022. The movie was released in South Korea on November 23, 2022.

Review: ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin II,’ starring Jing Wu and Jackson Yee

April 24, 2022

by Carla Hay

“The Battle at Lake Changjin II”

Directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam

Mandarin, Korean and English with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Korea, China, Japan and the United States, in December 1950, the action film “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” features a mostly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing military people and politicians involved in the Korean War.

Culture Clash: Two bickering brothers, who are in the China-based People’s Liberation Army, have various battles with each other and military enemies during the Korean War against the United States.

Culture Audience: “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in violent war movies with amateurish dialogue and stereotypical characters that don’t have much that’s interesting to say.

Steven John Venn in “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“The Battle at Lake Changjin II” should have the more accurate title of “The Battle at Lake Changjin: The Deleted Scenes.” That’s because this cash-grab war movie isn’t a true sequel but just a series of scenes that could’ve been in the first movie. And the first movie wasn’t even that great in the first place. And even though “The Battle at Lake Changjin” (which is nearly three hours long) and its sequel “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” (which has a total running time of about two-and-half-hours) are both over-indulgent messes, just because “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” has a shorter time length doesn’t make it better than its predecessor. “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” is worse.

“The Battle at Lake Changjin II” has a nearly identical storyline as its predecessor, because the movie has the same production team as 2021’s “The Battle at Lake Changjin.” Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam directed both movies, while both screenplays were written by Lan Xiaolong and Huang Jianxin. In both movies, the Chinese military group People’s Liberation Army fights against the U.S. military during the Korean War’s Battle at the Chosin Reservoir.

The Army’s 7th Company is led by a courageous and respected commander Wu Qianli (played by Wu Jing), who has a 19-year-old brother named Wu Wanli (played by Jackson Yee) in the company. Wanli enlisted in the Army against Qianli’s wishes. Also returning from the original “Battle at Lake Changjin” movie are the 7th Company’s political instructor Mei Sheng (played by Zhu Yawen), fire platoon leader Yu Congrong (payed by Li Chen), artillery platoon leader Lei Suisheng (played by Hu Jun) and sniper Ping He (played by Elvis Han). Because this is a war movie, not everyone makes it out alive.

And once again, the chief villains of the story are U.S. Marines Major General Oliver P. Smith (played by John F. Cruz) and U.S. Army Commander Douglas MacArthur (played by James Filbird). “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” adds some more American leaders who weren’t in the “The Battle at Lake Changjin.” U.S. president Harry Truman (played by Ben Z Orenstein) appears briefly in a few scenes. Truman, who is depicted as someone who tried to reign in MacArthur, utters this line in one of the scenes: “MacArthur needs to be reminded that no man is bigger than this war.” Lieutenant Colonial Wilber Colbert (played by Steven John Venn) is a stereotype of a ruthless American military leader who thinks Americans are better than anyone else.

This inferior sequel does a few things differently with the characters in the movie, compared to “The Battle at Lake Changjin.” A wounded 7th Company battalion commander named Yang Wenjang (played by Geng Le) gets a little bit of a backstory. Wenjang has a flashback to his life before he was in the war, when he’s seen with his girlfriend. But that barely counts as character development, which is mostly non-existent in this movie.

“The Battle at Lake Changjin II” (also titled “Water Gate Bridge”) has even more over-the-top battle scenes than in “The Battle at Lake Changjin.” Some of the Chinese soldiers almost seem to have superhuman powers, based on the way they can do eye-popping leaps and kicks in the air, where they look like action stuntmen, not realistic soldiers. And sometimes, they’re literally on fire doing it, as there’s more than one sequence where soldiers who are burning up in flames still get things done.

Even though “The Battle at Lake Changjin” and “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” (which were both filmed during the same time period) are among the most expensively produced movies in China’s history, many of the visual effects look cheap and tacky, and the stunts often look sloppy. “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” is even more incoherent than its predecessor.

It isn’t until the last 15 minutes of this three-hour schlockfest that “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” tries to bring some grief-stricken humanity to the story, to show the realistic emotional traumas of war. But by then, it’s too little, too late. The last scene in the movie is overly sentimental and looks very forced, because the sappy tone is very off-balance from the rest of the callous violence film. This final scene looks like it belongs in a completely different movie but was dropped in “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” as a manipulative attempt to get viewers to cry.

The directors of “The Battle at Lake Changjin” movies have said that it’s possible that a six-hour directors’ cut could be released. Two to three hours of watching one of these films is more than enough time wasted. If you just want to turn your brain off and watch shootouts and explosions with mindless dialogue and forgettable characters, then “The Battle at Lake Changjin” movies are for you. If you care about watching more meaningful and authentic movies about real-life wars, your time is better spent on any number of higher-quality choices.

CMC Pictures released “The Battle at Lake Changjin II” in select U.S. cinemas on February 11, 2022. The movie was released in China on February 1, 2022.

Review: ‘The Battle at Lake Changjin,’ starring Jing Wu and Jackson Yee

April 24, 2022

by Carla Hay

“The Battle at Lake Changjin”

Directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam

Mandarin, Korean and English with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Korea and briefly in China from June to December 1950, the action film “The Battle at Lake Changjin” features a mostly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing military people and politicians involved in the Korean War.

Culture Audience: “The Battle at Lake Changjin” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in violent war movies with amateurish dialogue and stereotypical characters that don’t have much that’s interesting to say.

James Filbird in “The Battle at Lake Changjin” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“The Battle at Lake Changjin” is a very bloated war movie filled with simplistic dialogue, poorly written characters and tedious fight scenes. This repetitive depiction of a crucial battle in the Korean War does not earn its nearly three-hour running time. The film portrays China’s military group the People’s Liberation Army fighting against the U.S. military during the Korean War’s Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Because it’s a scripted movie with some fictional characters, don’t expect it to be entirely accurate to real history.

If you only want to see war movies that have a certain agenda and care more about expensive-looking battle scenes than crafting a well-made war story, then “The Battle at Lake Changjin” might be for you. If you prefer to watch a war movie that places more importance on showing repetitive explosions and violent deaths than placing importance on audiences getting to know the main characters, then “The Battle at Lake Changjin” might be for you. For everyone else, it’s a mind-numbing slog that just looks like a video game with a big movie budget.

“The Battle at Lake Changjin” (directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam) is reportedly one of the most expensively made Chinese movies of all time, with a production budget of $200 million. Most of that money looks like it went into the bombastic battle scenes that pull out every visual-effects trick in the book to make the explosions, battlefield shootouts and killings look very over-the-top. Unfortunately, hardly any of the movie’s budget seems to have been invested in quality screenwriting or acting. The movie’s screenplay (written by Lan Xiaolong and Huang Jianxin) is simply abysmal, while the acting is mediocre at best.

“The Battle at Lake Changjin” attempts to have some meaningful family drama, by having the movie’s two central characters as brothers who often disagree with each other. Older brother Wu Qianli (played by Wu Jing) is commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s 7th Company, where is considered a a respected war hero. However, Qianli bears the burden and guilt over the war death of his older brother Wu Baili, who was killed in combat.

Qianli’s 19-year-old brother Wu Wanli (played by Jackson Yee) admires his older brother Qianli. However, the two brothers clash because Wanli wants to join the People’s Liberation Army, but Qianli doesn’t want that to happen, mainly out of fear that he doesn’t want to lose another family member in war combat. Wanli doesn’t see it that way, because he thinks that Qianli views him as inferior and not brave enough to fight in a war. Therefore, Wanli feels insulted.

Not surprisingly, Wanli ends up secretly joining the Army, much to Qianli’s disapproval. Qianli tells Wanli that he won’t get any special treatment, just because they are brothers. In fact, Qianli goes out of his way to not give Wanli any help or advice, even when other members of the Army bully and tease Wanli because they think Wanli will get nepotism perks. A lot of people in this army doubt that babyfaced Wanli has what it takes to be a tough soldier.

Wanli remains steadfast in his commitment to the Army. And slowsly but surely, he starts to gain respect from his Army peers and Wanli. These supporting characters in the 7th Company aren’t given enough depth in their personalities or development in their story arcs. They include political instructor Mei Sheng (played by Zhu Yawen), fire platoon leader Yu Congrong (payed by Li Chen), artillery platoon leader Lei Suisheng (played by Hu Jun) and sniper Ping He (played by Elvis Han).

Wanli’s first friend in the 7th Company is a fellow teen soldier named Zhang Xiaoshan (played by Shi Pengyuan) young soldier of the 7th Company who befriends Wanli. There’s also a sublot about how one of the People’s Liberation Army also includes Mao Anying (played by Huang Xuan), the eldest son of then-Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong (played by Tang Guoqiang), also known as Chairman Mao, who allowed Anying to join the war with some reluctance. People who know Chinese history already know what Anying’s fate was.

Military officials in this movie are depicted as broad caricatures with hollow personalities that just recite forgettable lines. One of these side characters is Peng Dehuai (played by Zhou Xiaobin), People’s Volunteer Army commander and People’s Revolutionary Military vice chairman. The movie gives the worst jingoistic dialogue to American military officials such as U.S. Marines Major General Oliver P. Smith (played by John F. Cruz) and U.S. Army Commander Douglas MacArthur (played by James Filbird), who’s depicted as a robotic warmonger, who’s often wearing sunglasses and chomping on a pipe.

“The Battle at Lake Changjin” gives very amateurish re-enactments of what behind-the-scenes war strategies might have been. The filmmakers seem to think that throwing in a lot of explosions and gunfire, in addition to showing men constantly shouting at each other, are enough to make a compelling war movie. It’s not. “The Battle at Lake Changjin” is an onslaught of very staged and very loud scenes of destruction that turn into a mishmash of mayhem until its very predictable conclusion.

CMC Pictures released “The Battle at Lang Changjin” in select U.S. cinemas on November 19, 2021. The movie was released in China on September 30, 2021.

2019 DOC NYC movie review: ‘Blessed Child’

November 18, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Blessed Child”

Directed by Cara Jones

World premiere at DOC NYC in New York City on November 9, 2019.

Is the controversial Unification Church of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, also known as the Moonies, a misunderstood Korean religion or is it a cult? It’s a cult, according to “Blessed Child” director Cara Jones, an American from upstate New York whose parents raised her and her four brothers in the church. Now in her 40s, Jones takes a riveting, autobiographical look back on her life as a former devout Moonie. She says early on in the film why it was so difficult for her to leave: “To me, the church never felt like a cult. It felt like an extension of family.”

She’s emotionally conflicted because her parents are still in the church. And she’s emotionally recovering from the damage that she says the church inflicted on her and other members because of the suffocating control the church had over their lives, including marriages arranged by the church, teachings that enforced sexism against females, and the Moonies’ condemnation of pre-marital sex and any sexuality that isn’t heterosexual.

The Moonies are perhaps most notorious for their massive group weddings, which often take place in arenas, and the brides and grooms usually don’t know each other very well before getting married. Jones was one of those brides in her early 20s, and her arranged Moonie marriage turned out to be a loveless disaster. Her Moonie husband ended up being more like a roommate to her (they didn’t have any kids together), and they eventually got divorced, even though divorce is a major stigma in the Unification Church.

Complicating matters, Jones’ parents are prominent members of the church, so she was considered a “blessed child,” which made it harder for her to leave the Moonies. (Her mother used to be Catholic. Her father, a former atheist, was president of the Moonie church from 1969 to 1972.) In the documentary, Jones tries to make sense of how the Moonie religion affected not just her family but also other current and former members of the church, whom she interviews in a style that is admirably non-confrontational and non-judgmental.

However, she doesn’t gloss over a disturbing pattern that she sees with former Moonie members, particularly with those who grew up in the church. These former members say that they often experienced childhood physical and emotional abuse, done in the name of discipline by church members. That trauma led to abusing drugs and/or alcohol in their teen and adult years—and tragically, in some cases, suicides or suicide attempts.

These self-destructive patterns are especially prevalent with former Moonie members who are members of the LGBTQ community, as was the case with Cara Jones’ younger brother Bow, who came out as gay when he was in his 20s. (Bow is also in the documentary as one of the cameramen.) Cara also mentions her own rebellious phase of hard partying before she came to terms with her past and decided to leave the church. The documentary also has a subplot of Cara’s quest to become a mother (viewers see her getting IVF treatments and freezing her eggs), which she wants to do regardless of her marital status.

To her credit, Cara doesn’t dismiss the positive aspects of the Moonie church, such as its tolerant views on interracial relationships, its philosophy of peace and its emphasis on helping people who are less fortunate. The movie also doesn’t demean current members of the church. There’s an emotionally touching scene in the movie where Cara goes back to visit Mary Larson, the Moonie member who raised her for the first two years of Cara’s life, when Cara’s mother was away on missionary duties. Larson was a caretaker/guardian for several other Moonie kids.

However, the movie points out that for all the goodness that comes from church members, the Moonie church has been tainted by too many stories of greed, abuse and corruption. (Moon, who died in 2012, and his family have been involved in scandals alleging infidelity, domestic abuse and embezzlement.) Where does that leave Cara’s relationship with her parents, who are still devoted members of the church? The documentary answers that question in a way that is testimony to how family ties can be complicated, but not broken, by religion.

UPDATE: Obscured Pictures will release “Blessed Child” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on July 17, 2020.