Title: Portrait of a Beauty
Directed by Jeon Yoon-soo
Screenplay by Han Soon-ryeon

Alternative title : “Beauty Island”

Synopsis borrowed from HanCinema: Born to a family of established court painters, seven-year-old Yun-jeong is a young girl gifted at painting. However, the pressure is on her brother to carry on the proud family tradition, as women aren’t allowed to become professional painters. While her brother trains to take his place in the court, Yun-jeong helps him out by secretly painting for him. The little girl’s life is turned upside down when her brother kills himself. In order to preserve the family honor, she is forced to take her brother’s name and lives as a man. Yun-bok’s genius and talent captures the heart of another great master of the time, Kim Hong-do. But her daring depictions of women are condemned by the royal institute as obscene. Yun-bok meets Kang-mu and falls deeply in love. For the first time, she feels the strong desire to abandon everything she has built and simply be a woman in front of the man she loves. Kang-mu sacrifices all for his love as well. Kim Hong-do, who loved the genius of his best student, ends up loving everything about her, and Seol-hwa, a Gisaeng at the courtesan house, possesses a love for Hong-do that turns into fatal jealousy. The secret behind Shin Yun-bok’s masterpiece, Portrait of a Beauty, is finally revealed after 250 years of silence.

Okay, so this was a movie that I really wanted to see and was very excited about. You would not believe how long I waited to be able to see it and how happy I was to get a hold of a copy.

I put it on and started the movie… then afterward wished I could go back in time … Read the rest “RE MOVIE: Portrait of a Beauty [Korean]”

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"I Saw the Devil"

Title: I Saw the Devil
Genre: serial killer, horror
Rated: R for graphic depictions of violence
Director: Jee-woon Kim
Writer: Hoon-hung Park (screenplay)
Starring: Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik choi, and Gook-hwan Jeon

Summary borrowed from IMDB: When his pregnant fiancee becomes the latest victim of a serial killer, a secret agent blurs the line between good and evil in his pursuit of revenge.

aStore: DVD, Blu-Ray, digital


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Wow. I don’t even really know where to start with this one. I’m not even sure if I even liked it or not, and I highly doubt that I’ll ever watch it again. But that’s just my personal preference.

This is a revenge movie ala “Oldboy” or “Otis,” though this movie keeps it real.

Starts off with a woman having a flat tire and being stuck on the side of a mountain road. While she waits for the tow truck, she calls her fiance. His advisement: “Lock the doors and stay put. Wait for the tow truck.”

While she’s waiting, a van drives up and a man gets out. He taps on her window — she’s smart enough not to open the door — and offers to check things out. She tells him she’s waiting for the tow truck, but he insists.

Creepy guy fiddles around near the tire while she’s still talking to her fiance. She tells her fiance goodbye and hangs up, then settles in to wait for the tow truck. Which is about the point that creepy guy pops up and tells her to open the door. She says no… and things get serious.

He busts in her car window with a hammer, thumps her with it on the head, then roughly drags her body to his van. At this point, I thought that she was dead … Read the rest “RE MOVIE: I Saw the Devil [Korean]”

Title: The Monster a.k.a. Home Sweet Home
Starring: Shu Qi and Alex Fong, Tam Chun-Ho
Genre: horror, psychological

Summary: A young family moves into a nice Hong Kong high rise and things immediately begin to go badly for them. They’re only there for a short time–maybe a week–when their three year old son Chi Lo is abducted. The mother frantically searches for her son after the police have given up after only a few weeks. Some of her actions during her search–falling through the ceiling, buying a big rottweiler, etc–have some of the other inhabitants of her building thinking that she’s just some crazy woman. But she is certain that some strange, rag-wearing woman has taken her son and she’s not going to stop until she gets him back.

Opinion: Though this movie is classed as a “horror” movie, it would be a mistake to try and judge it by the same criteria as the usual Chinese horror movies (“The Eye,” “Gu-On,” etc.) And even though some parts were a tad overdramatic, it was still very interesting and I actually became very sympathetic of “the monster.”

I would recommend watching this movie, just don’t rate it on the basis of the usual horror movies. Don’t go into it blind and prepare yourself to be moved to tears over the plight of the supposed villain.

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Title: Returner (2002)
Genre: sci-fi, action
Directed by: Takashi Yamazaki
Written by: Takashi Yamazaki, Kenya Hirata
Starring: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Anne Suzuki, and Goro Kishitani

Summary from IMDB: A young woman from the future forces a local gunman to help her stop an impending alien invasion which will wipe out the human race.

aStore: DVD

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Okay, so this movie is basically ET, The Matrix, Transformers, and Terminator all rolled up into one. And it was pretty awesome, if I must say.

The lead guy is pretty hot. The girl is kind of cute in a very normal girl kind of way. The story is somewhat nonsensical and you have to wonder why the heck they would do some of the things they do. The dialogue is sometimes incredibly stupid and you’re left wondering what kind of people they really are. It was pretty juvenile sci-fi fan service in some of its scenes. But it was also a truly awesome movie.

It will never be my favorite movie, I would never go that far, but it was very good and I was left with that soaring heart feeling you only get from movies that have in some way effected the way your brain thinks of something, even if you don’t know what the effect could mean. This movie had some personal significance to me, though all I really know is that it made me happy to watch it.

The lead guy is seeking vengeance on this crazy guy over the death of his childhood friend, and he doesn’t seem to care if he dies to do it. So he becomes a paid assassin. His bad guy is the bad guy, which gives the good guy a double reason to go after the jerk and rip out his pound of flesh.… Read the rest “RE MOVIE: Returner [Japanese]”

I make wishes on the stars all the time. It doesn't seem like a waste to me. Because in the forming of a wish--an idea--a concept of what can be is created. And until a wish is formulated, it's nothing but stardust and fantasy.