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Mr. Go (미스터 고 3D) – because the world needs another movie with Ape Baseball!

In a shock that will threaten your heart with breaking, the upcoming Korean gorilla playing baseball film Mr. Go 3D (미스터 고 3D) is not a remake of Ed, the best Matt LeBlanc movie ever. No, it is based on some sort of Korean comic (by Heo Yeong-man – 허영만) where a gorilla plays baseball. And they’ll be using the Rise of the Planet of the Apes motion capture technology to breath life to the gorilla. 200 Pounds Beauty director Kim Yong-hwa is helming, with Chinese actress Josie Xu Jiao (from CJ7 and Future X-Cops) starring. Expect it in 2013, the year of Gorilla Baseball! Now if only they make a film with an orangutan that plays baseball, and we’ll have the ape trifecta! Get on it, movie studios!

FilmBizAsia via Roast Pork

Mr Go
Mr Go Manga

Korean Terminator (Review)

Korean Terminator

aka 터미네이터와 형사 곰팽이

1992
Directed by ???

Korean Terminator
Terminator Beyond Thunderdome!

It’s time once again for a Korean kiddie comedy that will make you beg for a bullet to the brain to ease the pain. Korean Terminator is just as awful as you think a kids Terminator film would be. Like most of these Korean children’s films, there is a ridiculous fat guy who is supposed to be comedic. We saw one in Super Batman & Mazinger V, and there is one here. Though I am not 100% sure, I believe these are the spawn of D-War director Shim Hyung-rae’s character from the Wuroimae films, which were popular enough many of these similar films ganked from them just as much as these Korean kiddie films ganked from Japan and America. There are also often characters with some random stylized anime characteristics, most notably a red nose or drawn on freckles or eyebrows, which I think is an artifact of many of these films having their subjects stolen from anime/manga properties. Though other films will be a mix of live-action and cartoons, Korean Terminator is 100% live-action, so the anime people don’t really seem to belong and make the film much more surreal than it should be.

Korean Terminator
Lady, you ask me about my salvation again, and I’ll Terminate you!

It looks like you can thank Jademan Comics Co. for this travesty, as that is the only thing in English in the “FBI” warning before the picture. Which is sort of funny because of the blatant copyright infringement going on in the actual movie. But do not steal this movie that steals so much from so many! If you are a time travel fan, you will be sad to know there is no time travel in this Terminator! There is only a guy who is turned into a Terminator by a crazy scientist who does stuff like that. Every once in a while there is an action sequence befitting a Korean children’s film, the rest of the time is mostly unfunny comedy. But we won’t get anywhere without knowing who we’re facing! I have no clue who any of the actors are or who even directed this. It was a minor miracle finding the Korean name of this film, which doesn’t seem to have an English translation beyond Korean Terminator (which is only the first part of the actual title!) There is also at least one other Korean Terminator ripoff film made around the same time, with a completely different cast.

Korean Terminator
The true story of Real Doll vaginas!

Terminator (???) – Terminator was just your average guy who like Paula Abdul until he’s murdered by goons, then he’s rebuilt into Terminator. The pre-Terminator guy doesn’t exist long enough to even get a character name! He spends most of the film wandering around until commanded to be good by Professor.
Professor (???) – Professor has a device the bad guys want. He also rebuilds people into cyborgs instead of taking them to the hospital. Never get a paper cut near Professor, or you will have robot arms before you can scream!
Photographer Girl (???) – A lady photographer who was going to talk to Professor right before he was kidnapped. Gets involved in the attempts to rescue him and stop the bad guys.
Yeong (???) – A goofy cop who spends most of his screen time making ugly faces and falling over himself. It’s hard to tell some times who is more annoying, Yeong or the Fat Evil Sibling!
The Evil Siblings (??? and ???) – The most annoying bad guys ever! The fat guy in the cowboy hat stutters and spends most of the film talking tough and then getting blown over by a gentle breeze. His sister is the whiniest woman in the world. Thankfully they both die.
Korean Terminator
I won’t be back! *SOB!*

Sector 7 (Review)

Sector 7

aka 7 gwanggu aka 7광구

2011
Written by Yun Je-gyun
Directed by Kim Ji-hun

Sector 7
Okay, team, we’re going to get to the bottom of the question “Does this film have phallic and vaginal symbolisms, or is it just stupid?”

Sector 7 is so by-the-numbers that if you squint really hard, you’ll learn how to count in Korean! Sector 7 decided that it wanted to take all the goodwill that The Host generated for Korean monster movies and throw it all away into the pit of despair, instead giving us a grab bag of scenes ganked from some of the most famous alien monster films of all time. Each scene is a roulette wheel spin random landing on what film they’re stealing from this time. Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Predator, Leviathan, Lethal Weapon 3, probably other films I just didn’t care enough to remember. Oddly enough, I don’t recall any scene ripped directly from Alien 4. It’s almost as if Alien 4 is so bad no one should copy it…

Sector 7
Wait, am I a penis or a vagina? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??

But enough of what this films steals from, let’s go over what this film is. Sector 7 is Korea’s first 3D film, and was obviously filmed on a soundstage with the outside backgrounds CGIed in, giving it a weird visual nature. That combined with me watching a 2D transfer of the 3D film probably caused it to look less visually stunning than it is supposed to. But since there wasn’t really any iconic cinematography in the first place, it’s no big deal.

Sector 7
Shoot to kill any and all phallic references!

We get a prologue that is set in the long distant year of 1985, where a man investigating troubles with an underwater drill at the uncharted Sector 7 finds tiny floating jelly things, then horrible disaster strikes. But that horrible disaster factors nothing at all to the rest of the film, so ignore all that and let’s jump to 2011, where there is still an oil rig in Sector 7 and it is still uncharted despite the 16 years and the freaking oil rig that probably cost millions of dollars to build in the middle of nowhere. That logic continues into the rest of the film, but before that, let’s get to the cast…

Sector 7
You don’t look like my vagina to me!

Cha Hae-joon (Ha Ji-won) – A very driven oil hunter lady who searches Sector 7 desperately for oil because her father was the guy in the prologue and he died looking for oil. Sector 7 is desperate to let you know that Cha is driven and tough, between the scenes of her running around an averting oil rig disasters and the scenes of her running off to keep looking for oil after they’re ordered out, we learn that she’s driven to look for oil. She’s the Ripley of the film. Ha Ji-won can also be seen in Sex is Zero and Love So Divine.
Kim Dong-soo (Oh Ji-ho) – Cha’s boyfriend who is the handsome guy on the oil platform. He’s better than her in motorcycling, but not in surviving monster attacks. SPOILERS!
Lee Jeong-man (Ahn Seong-gi) – Lee Jeong-man is the Division Captain and also Cha’s uncle. He’s totally not involved in a conspiracy….
Hwang In-hyeok (Park Jeong-hak) – The oil rig captain who is a jerk, and will do jerkish things. Because he’s a jerk. So jerkish.
Park Hyeon-jeong (Cha Ye-ryeon) – The oil rig’s genetic researcher, because we need genetic researches on oil rigs. For some reason. Definitely not conspiracy reasons! Why do you keep thinking there is a conspiracy going on?
Jang Chi-soon (Park Yeong-soo) – a creepy guy who gets infected by one of the tiny underwater floating creatures when he tries to eat it. Also he does creepy stuff like perv on Park Heyon-jeong.
Monster (CGI) – The nameless monster is like a generic generic version of the Host monster, but with less distinguishing characteristics and a bunch of goofy tentacle things for extra grossness. And that’s not to mention the prehensile tongue. Is set on fire more often than Beavis’s bedroom.
Sector 7
I bet there are phallic references here!

D-War director Shim Hyung-rae has no money

If you were hoping for a sequel to D-War to materialize anytime soon, keep wishing on that star, because director/producer Shim Hyung-rae is all out of money, is being sued for money he says he doesn’t have, and has a batch of legal problems beyond the no money.

Shim Hyung-rae was a former comedian who made mad dough with his comic character Younggu – the namesake of his company Younggu-Art Entertainment. He also directed the Ureme series and the Yonggary remake. His latest attempt was the gigantic flop The Last Godfather. But by July of 2011, Younggu-Art Entertainment was broke and folded, with Shim claiming to be 41 billion won in debt (~$35 million) He’s now being sued by former employees for 890 million won ($760,000) in unpaid wages.

In addition, Shim faces weapons charges for having an illegally modified gas gun (what the frak??!) and is being alleged by his spurned ex-employees that he has a gambling problem and bribes politicians and businessmen with prostitutes.

What all this means, is no more D-War. A sad day for Korea, and a sad day for America.
Shim Hyung-rae
via

Miss Korea 1995 Han Sung-Ju 한성주 – the latest Korean Sex Scandal

There is a hilarious and confusion sex scandal happening in South Korea at the moment involving a bunch of alphabet letters, sex tapes, the mob, leaked medical records, abortions, urinating on laptops, and “he said, she said” tall tales. So here is what we know, as far as we can tell. Things may be wrong, but what are you going to do:

Han Sung-Ju (한성주 sometimes Han Sung-Joo), Miss Korea 1995, has turned that beauty queen prize into a career in media, namely being a tv star. She is totally not related to the person the Korean media are dubbing Celebrity A. So don’t get any ideas. Wink. There is also Individual B (Celebrity A’s ex-boyfriend) and Individual C (some dude uploading these things to the net)

At some point Celebrity A dated a Korean-American businessman named Individual B. They had a normal relationship where he gave her tons of money to buy all sorts of crap and new boobs, and also abortions. Then he dumped her, so she went nuts and had some mobsters beat him up and made him sign a NDA in his own blood. So Individual B is mad, and gives Individual C a bunch of stuff to release on the internet, including her passport, medical records, and photos and videos of A and B getting it on. The first video was short, but rumor has it more has hit the net. As you can guess, this has caused a media circus of hilarity, especially since everyone keeps using the Celebrity A name. We will all soon learn that ABC isn’t as easy as 123.

The Kick stunt trailer

The Kick (that Korean/Thai co-production we’ve devoted a few posts about) has a stunt trailer up, and it’s got some butt-kicking action. And Jija Yanin finally shows up in some of the media, which is good, and she’s kicking people, which is good. Some of the stunts are awesome, so I can’t wait for this one!

Click here for the stunt trailer

We’ll embed it when someone uploads it to YouTube. The plot again for those who missed it:

Moon is a Taekwondo master running an old Taekwondo gym in Bangkok. All five members of his family are also the masters of Taekwondo in different styles: his wife Yoon in cooking style, son Taeju in dancing style, daughter Taemi in soccer style, and the youngest Typhoon can break anything with his strong forehead.

Moon wants his children to be Taekwondo coaches to take over his gym in future. However, regardless of their father’s will, Taeju wants to be a famous pop singer and Taemi is only interested in her secret crush at school.

One day, Taekwon family encounters treasure robbers on the street by accident and happens to get caught into fight with them. With surprising martial art skills, TK family knocks down the robbers and takes back the stolen treasures. The head of the robbers Pom, who is notorious for many crimes, escapes alone and trembles with rage.

TK family becomes famous in public. But, They do not know that Pom is planning to get his revenge.

The Kick

The film delivers!

via Twitch