K-pop star T.O.P., aka Choi Seung-hyun, stars as a teenage assassin in COMMITMENT
KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: COMMITMENT (DONG-CHANG-SAENG) (Park Hong-soo, 2013)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, January 14, free, 7:00
212-759-9550
www.koreanculture.org
www.wellgousa.com
After their father (Park Sung-woong) is declared a traitor to North Korea and killed, Lee Myung-hoon (Choi Seung-hyun) and his younger sister, Lee Hye-in (Kim Yoo-jung), are placed in a forced labor camp. When Myung-hoon is nineteen, North Korean agent Moon Sang-chul (Jo Sung-ha) offers him a way out: if he agrees to be a spy/assassin for Kim Jong-Il’s regime, he and his sister will eventually be freed. Accepting the mission, Myung-hoon goes to Seoul, where he attends high school as a cover and makes friends with a loner girl (Han Ye-ri) with the same name as his sister. This Hye-in wants to be a dancer, which brings up memories of Myung-hoon’s childhood dreams of becoming a successful pianist — a long way from being an expert killer, as he carries out his jobs with pinpoint precision. But as Kim Jong-il suddenly falls ill and his son, Kim Jong-un, prepares to take over as supreme leader, all bets are off and it gets harder and harder to know who’s on which side. One day Myung-hoon is messing with a group of tough students who are bullying Hye-in, and the next he is in the middle of a complex plot involving drugs, laundered money, diamonds, and double crosses. Also known as Alumni, Park Hong-soo’s Commitment is an exciting if bumpy thriller about family, loyalty, and friendship. Choi, who is better known as K-pop star T.O.P. of Big Bang, is dark and moody as the teenage assassin who will do anything to protect his sister, while Kim’s character goes through a sudden, hard-to-believe change about halfway through the film. Things get far too convoluted in the final scenes, the plot heading off in all kinds of ridiculous directions, but Choi manages to make it all worthwhile. Commitment, which is playing in several New York City theaters right now, can be seen for free on January 14 at 7:00 at Tribeca Cinemas, kicking off the Korean Movie Night series “Wild Days: Coming of Age in 2014.” Presented by the Korean Cultural Service, the series continues on January 28 with Kwak Kyung-taek’s Friend: The Great Legacy and February 11 with Won Shin-eon’s The Suspect before concluding February 25 with Kang Yi-kwan’s Juvenile Offender.
A huge critical and popular hit in South Korea, Sunny is a delightful melodrama about a group of high school friends who attempt to reunite after twenty-five years when one of them becomes seriously ill. Taking its name from Bobby Hebb’s bright and cheery 1966 song (“Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain / Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain”), the film opens with Im Na-mi (Yoo Ho-jeong) discovering that the leader of their old high school gang, Ha Chun-hwa (Jin Hee-kyung), has only two months to live. Na-mi, a housewife who is seeking more out of her boring, less-than-satisfying existence, decides to track down the rest of the members, none of whom, it turns out, is really happy with how their life turned out. Cowriter and director Kang Hyeong-cheol (Speedy Scandal) seamlessly weaves between 1986 and 2011 as the modern-day Na-mi looks back at her first days at school as a transfer student (played as a teenager by Shim Eun-kyung) befriended by the tough Chun-hwa (Kang Sora). Teaming up with the goofy Kim Jang-mi (Go Soo-hee as an adult, Kim Min-yeong as a teen), the older Na-mi tries to find Hwang Jin-hee (Hong Jin-hee / Park Jin-joo), Seo Geum-ok (Lee Yun-kyung / Nam Bo-ra), Ryu Bok-hee (Kim Sun-kyung / Kim Bo-mi), and Jung Su-ji (Yoon Jung / Min Hyo-rin), each of whom has their own personality and story both as teens and as grown-ups. Although it often gets silly, the film deals with such serious topics as bullying, terminal cancer, extramarital affairs, and slave labor as the young girls’ hopes and dreams seemingly remain just out of reach, anchored by the honest relationship among the characters, particularly between Na-mi and Chun-hwa, with standout performances by the adorable Shim and the compelling Kang, who won numerous awards for the role. Sunny is screening for free May 28 at Tribeca Cinemas as part of the Korean Movie Night series “Laughter and Love at the Box Office!,” which continues June 11 with Lee Yong-joo’s Architecture 101 and June 25 with Jo Sung-hee’s A Werewolf Boy.
After his mother’s (Kil Hae-yeon) get-rich-quick scheme doesn’t quite work out as planned, she disappears, leaving her laconic son, Kwon Youn-ho (Um Tae-goo), to continually fight off her ever-more-crazed business partner, Seo-hee (Park Se-jin), a divorced mother desperate to get back the money she claims she is owed. Meanwhile, Youn-ho is trying to make a life for himself and his fiancée, Se-kyung (Yoon Che-yong), but her mother doesn’t approve of his job in reconstruction — he convinces people to leave their homes with small payments so that buildings can be knocked down and fancier residences put up in their place. But neither Youn-ho nor Seo-hee is evil; both have been cast in difficult situations that lead to extreme measures that they regret as they try to put their lives back together. Kim Joon-hyun’s first feature film is a patiently paced drama that subtly examines how the global financial crisis affects families in both large and small ways. Everyone in the film is seeking to maintain or renew a relationship with a loved one, be it a parent, a child, a sibling, or a lover, but money complicates their situations. Um is excellent as Youn-ho, a young man seemingly disinterested in his own existence, letting life just happen to him, a fine counterpart to Park’s Seo-hee, a woman willing to do just about anything to prevent her life from getting completely away from her. Choked is screening for free October 9 at 7:00 at Tribeca Cinemas as part of the Korean Cultural Service film series “Gems of Korean Cinema,” which looks at recent independent works from South Korea.