The annual London Korean Film Festival always brings with it the
anticipation of which colour bag will be given out free when attending the
films in London's ever-annoying West End. For this year's offerings, I decided
to choose a theme of silly comedy, based partly on mood and partly on being too
hungover to make a more serious screening. This year, I was content to merely
squeeze two films in the week's packed schedule, making do with the chance to
walk down the red carpet at a Leicester Square during the Closing Gala. And
yes, my girlfriend won the sweepstake: the bag this year was blue.
Third Window are a London-based distribution company, largely
specialising in a certain genre of Asian cinema: light-hearted, Japanese and
Korean comedies. It's no coincidence that the two films I ended up seeing
equate to the two that Third Window Films will in future be releasing on DVD in
these British Isles, being that their logo features often along my pathetically
numerous DVD shelves.
The first film - a last-minute choice - 'How to Use Guys with Secret
Tips' fits almost perfectly into my favourite ever film genre: the Korean saucy
comedy. Out-of-luck Assistant Director at an advertising company, Choi Bona,
assesses her current situation, finding both her career and her love life
stationary. Ever trying to be assertive, she is easily led into buying a good,
ol' VHS video series of titular self-help guides. Hilariously working her way
through them, she gradually puts the secret tips into practise, seeing
improvements in her fortunes, welcome or not. With her luck improving, she
finds that life proves even harder, as she struggles to deal with her new
success.
Like many comedy films, this starts off well enough, with the tone of
joke set early on. As the films progress and plot needs to come into it,
sometimes, more often than not, they become a bit tedious and end with a
horrific romp towards the inevitable happy ending. 'How to Use Guys with Secret
Tips' is probably a film that goes the way of the majority, but doesn't become
a complete bore towards the middle. The self-aware self-help guide is the real
comedy here, with standard comedy Korean man-in-suit and the highly selective
white couple featuring in them. The 'real world' is a bit more of a standard
rom-com, that has its moments, but is fairly run-of-the-mill. But entertainment
is the key here, and with a title such as this, the film delivers what it
promises: an almost Korean saucy comedy.
The Closing Gala closed the Festival with the most likely hit shown
during the week: 'Boomerang Family'. Another comedy, this features a more
well-known cast and mainstream appeal , focusing on a dysfunctional family that
have to put their differences to one side in order to overcome adversity.
With two, ever-bickering brothers - a failed film director and a
low-level gangster - and a sister that can't keep her knickers up for long, the
mother of the family goes about her business with dignity, trying to keep the
family structure together, despite the constant problems surrounding her.
Again, this isn't anything that hasn't been done before, with the characters
quite stereotypical within family-orientated films: the black sheep; the
favoured, yet flawed son; the easy sister.
Where 'Boomerang Family' is a little different is in its slightly more
intense violence, though still not going as far as others; and some at times
interesting slow motion shots while chaos is all around. With cast and crew on
offer to take questions, it was clear that a lot of alcohol was consumed during
the making of this film. This is clearly a film that was fun for them to make,
and in the end, it's fun to watch.
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