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 The back of the DVD only lists a bunch of film festivals this movie appeared
in. I hadn't heard of any of them except the one in Vancouver. And really,
what sort of film festival do they really have up there? Isn't that where they
used to
shoot 21 Jump Street? 2001, 108 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
I bought this one many, many months ago and finally got tired of looking at its
fancy silver case and busted it open, even though I had no idea (still don't)
what exactly a "sorum" is. I knew back in the day that once Guns N' Roses
kicked original drummer Steve Adler out, they replaced him with Matt Sorum, but
I was guessing that this probably wasn't some sort of VH-1 Behind The Music DVD
about Matt's meteoric rise as premiere skins guy. As I watched this
frequently confusing and always uninvolving tale of screwed up and very boring
psychopaths, I was searching my memory trying to figure out what had exactly
possessed me to order the very special 2 disc collector's edition DVD for only
$29.99. I can only assume that this was sometime around when I had just seen
the original Japanese version of The Ring and Uzumaki and thought that every
fancy new release from the far east that was touted as being really creepy,
actually was. I
think it was pretty creepy how I ordered this without ever figuring out what is
was about, but I don't believe that I've ever maintained that my brain synapses
ever fired like they probably ought to. What impressed me about this movie was
that even though I dutifully paid attention to it (even more so than is usually
the case since I was having to concentrate on reading subtitles), I never quite
figured out what was happening. When it all finally stopped, I was left with
the satisfaction of having completely missed the point of the movie. There was
a scene at the end where this guy was looking at some pictures and recognized
someone in them and I suppose that it all made some sort of crazy sense to
him, but then again he was an orphan who had a nasty habit of killing people so
he's going to be making some weird connections in his head. Me?
Unfortunately, I know who my parents are and I've only fantasized about killing
lots of people.  Since I have no idea what was happening here, I feel like I can provide a
unique critical perspective on what was happening here (or what might have been
happening if this had made sense to me). A guy moves into a really
skanky-looking apartment. Okay, I lived in St. Louis one summer on a month to
month lease, so this part I get. They were called the Maplewood Luxury
Apartments and while they weren't in the city proper, they were right next to
the city, which meant that while all the tenants weren't unemployed, they were
getting fired an awful lot. This was about the time that I suddenly decided I
needed to take up softball. And by that, I mean I went out and bought an
aluminum softball bat and kept it by my inflatable bed. The Maplewood Luxury
Apartments were a full service type of community, providing its own pool for
the local kids to drown in, featuring stoops for everyone to sit on during the
hot summer evenings sipping their gin and juice and debate who was getting the
better of the domestic disturbance in 4C, and having their on-call pesticide
guy come in periodically to spray for roaches. Naturally, I had assumed that
they were spraying to get rid of them, but them little suckers just seemed to
enjoy the chemical bath and were much more lively after a good DDT shower. The
main character in this Korean movie whose name is (I kid you not), Kim, doesn't
seem to
encounter any of these problems, but he does have a would-be novelist living in
one of the apartments near him. This guy is working on a book based on life at
the apartment and it's going to be about how the room that Kim stays in is
haunted, which I assumed was what the movie was about. There is some
relatively loose talk about ghosts and dead folks and I was starting to think
we were in for some otherworldly shenanigans and eagerly awaited the first time
Kim or the other guy would get slimed. Sadly, that never happened, but there
was one time when the wind blew the pages of book around. Oh, and there was
also the time that picture fell off the wall. And how could I forget the time
some unseen force of tedium rolled me off my couch into a sleepy heap onto my
floor?  Initially, Kim seems to have a little potential as a guy that you'll be
idolizing. He's got this pet hamster named George (it might have
been named Kim, too, but for some reason it looked like a George to me) and we
learn late in the movie that Kim admired George because of his toughness. See,
he can leave George all alone for like a week without any food or love or
nothing and when Kim finally gets back from doing what ever it is that whacko
orphans do for weeks at a time, George is still there chugging away on his
little wheel like it was no big whup. I identified with George since I can go
for weeks at a time without love or food, but I was a bit envious of his wheel
(I do have a Gamecube though). The other sweet thing about George is that Kim
tells his girlfriend that he thought George might like a little company so he
bought him a little hamster buddy, but George just took one look at his new pal
and killed his ass. I will confess that I was riveted to my seat whenever
George took center stage, but unfortunately we would only get a glimpse into
this nutso hamster's life and we spent most of our time with Kim and his new
lady friend. Her name could have been Sun, but that's just me cheating and
looking it up on the Internet Movie Database. The story of Kim and Sun's
twisted relationship would have been fine except that both of them are so
reserved (except when they were beating the piss out of each other at the end
of things) left you shouting at the screen for them to say something instead of
staring about pensively and/or morosely. Kim is a taxi driver who has a taste
for what looked to be Oh Henry bars, while Sun worked at a 7-11 and liked to
smoke cigarettes and make cryptic comments about losing her baby. You know,
either tell us what happened or just shut the hell up about it. I can't stand
these dolts that act like they're haunted by something too painful to talk
about, except when they're alluding to it periodically. The world does not
revolve around your tragic past. At least it doesn't when there aren't any
ghosts killing people, rattling windows, or letting hamsters loose (I would
talk about the time my sister and I let our pet gerbils loose on Easter morning
about twenty years ago, but I'll just allude to it cryptically. You need to
imagine me making one of those "ask me me about my tragic past faces"
now).  The movie explores the developing relationship between Kim and Sun and it's
evident from the get-go that this isn't probably going to be one of those
storybook romances, but more along the lines of all our parents' failed
marriages. The first problem is that Kim is apparently being questioned by the
police about why his last girlfriend pulled a disappearing act after they broke
up. He offers up the standard "she owed people at my job some money and told
them I would pay them back. I didn't. They fired me. She's a goner, I mean,
gone." Makes sense to me. Meanwhile, Sun is living with a guy who beats her
up for
getting rides home from work from orphaned taxi drivers and also takes her
money to go gambling with. He also manages to make vague comments about losing
their son. Don't these people understand that there's an audience out there
that
needs to be spoon-fed? So, how will these neighbors ever get together? It
turns out to be easier than you think once Sun shows up at Kim's door and needs
his help disposing of her now ex's body. Scenic trip in the rain to the remote
forest follows and their relationship blossoms. Well, it blossoms as much as
anything these two emotionless voids (uh, they do feel bouts of rage, I guess)
are involved with. Seeds of discontent are sown once orphan boy overhears Sun
shooting her mouth off to her friend about how she doesn't love him and is just
using him. I don't really understand orphan boy's eventual rage about all
this, since he's had a girlfriend before and should therefore understand that
that's just how women are. Not surprisingly perhaps, things come to an ugly end after a day of drinking
and karaoke. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say that the
director got good use of his rainy forest/shallow grave shooting location.
When Kim goes back to the apartment he encounters the novelist and beats him up
for some reason. Since this is a foreign film, you'll find that characters
talk very little, but are prone to senseless outbursts of violence. Kim also
engages in a stare-down with Sun's friend in the hallway. Did I mention that
that friend had a boyfriend who died in a fire in Kim's apartment before he
moved in? And that the novelist is stealing his ideas from that dead guy's
notes? And that Sun's mom may have been killed by her dad when she was a
little kid? What about the fact that Kim admitted that he killed a guy in high
school and buried him a mountain? What's happening here? Beats the tar out of
me, but I wouldn't have minded it so much if it hadn't been so blasted boring.
I'm guessing that someone thought this was an important movie because there
were a crap load of bonus materials included (I think all in Korean thank God)
and a separate disc with a collection of the director's short films. I'm sure
his mom was proud of that. There was even a three inch chunk of film,
presumably from the movie, included in the sleeve! In spite of how stupid this
movie is, I'm thinking of having it framed and hung up in the MonsterHunter
offices. It'll no doubt impress the dummies out there who didn't see the movie
or read this review (and really, what sort of dummy wouldn't read this
review?). I think I'll tell them that the director and I are buddies and that
he wanted me to have a memento of his momentous film once it wrapped.
Either that or I'll tell them I killed a guy for it and buried him in a
mountainous forest and it's really just the negatives that prove my long lost
baby was killed in a fire during a domestic disturbance between me and the
woman who only pretended to love me and bought me Oh Henry's. If she really
loved me, she'd know I preferred Zero bars. Now, have you seen my hamster
anywhere?
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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