* This post will cover Jee-Woon’s three most recent films, being that they are the ones I have seen as well as the ones which fit most nicely into my admittedly arbitrary cut-off date for reviews of “newish” films posted without some sort of larger organizing theme.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird
And here is where we go off the rails, and right from the beginning no less. Kim Jee-woon has always been messier than his fellow South Korean mad scientists Bong Joon-ho and Chan Wook-park, a point he makes no bones about hiding. His films are also messy with less of a pinpoint purpose and to much less subversive results – if Joon-ho and Wook-park are madman auteurs, Jee-Woon is a mad craftsman. If the former is a bit more satisfying in the end, both are lacking in today’s world (perhaps the latter even more than the former), and they’re both entirely welcome. Continue reading →
The Long Take 