Burning [2018]

Burning [2018]
Original Title: Beoning
South Korea
Director: Chang-dong Lee
My Rating: 5/10

This is another movie that I like and don't like.  I generally like a lot of build up, but this movie is just too slow paced.  When nothing is revealed and what happened is up for interpretation, sometimes it works and sometimes it feels lazy.  Steven Yeun is fantastic in this movie, but the lead actor Ah-in Yoo is difficult to watch because he spends the entire movie with his mouth agape.  Something like that shouldn't reflect on the film as a whole, but it's so distracting.

I started watching this knowing nothing about it, but immediately recognized the idea adapted from the Murakami story, which is the most interesting part but seems to only serve as a  metaphor here.  With a half an hour edited out from the first act and some motivation given for all the characters, it could have been a really excellent story.  I don't think it would have taken away from the mystery.

Luck-Key [2016]

Luck-Key [2016]
Original Title: Leokki
South Korea
Director: Kae-Byeok Lee
My Rating: 5/10

I watched this on Netflix thinking it was an action movie, I was surprised but not disappointed to discover it is actually a comedy.  The premise is kind of stupid, as is almost anything involving amnesia.  This might be intentional as part of the plot involves a shitty soap opera type television drama, the type of show that would happily use the amnesia plot cliche. 

Despite the stupid premise, it is actually funny in a silly, feel good sort of way.  The good will it earned with me collapses in the end with an implausibly bad finale.  All logic goes out the window, and what would have been an otherwise decent comedy ends up being pretty average.  I simply don't want to watch a movie that takes place in the present, but also is in a universe without photo ID, and where everyone except business executives watch television dramas.

Neighbor No. 13 [2005]

Neighbor No. 13 [2005]
Original Title: Rinjin 13-gô
Japan
Director: Yasuo Inoue
My Rating: 5/10

I watched this because it was recommended as a good violent horror movie, but really it's more of a thriller.  Worse, it's a thriller with a very tired and overdone premise: bullied kid seeks violent revenge. This is the set up for a lot of the slasher films of the 80's.   I couldn't help being rather bored from the start.  I didn't really care for any of the characters, and I found it hard to believe that the bully in the film could go through life like he did without being horribly beaten himself by someone at some point.

I also didn't understand how the main character had no scars from the violence done to him as a child, yet his split personality has them.  Did he imagine the violence?  Did he just magically heal?  Did it not actually happen?  The movie just never addresses this.  The fact that he has a split personality is not a spoiler (despite the wikipedia page implying that it's some sort of revealed twist), it's right there on the poster and it never even occurred to me that it was anything other than overtly obvious.

Despite all of its problems, I liked the ending so I still give it 5.