Deep Kimchi

So, let's forget about politics for a while. The world is going to hell, but the world has been going to hell for about 250,000 years. The first election following the emergence of Cro Magnon Man was a cynical affair; with Og impugning Toktok's hunting skills and general hygiene, and Toktok suggesting Og was infertile. It has been going steadily downhill ever since. Anyway, I like horror movies. Come to think of it, Sarah Palin would be great in a slasher flick as a comely but impurely experienced vixen who is chased, partially disrobed and has her larynx cut out and stuffed up her ass by a deranged Southern Baptist preacher on the rampage about halfway through the movie, but I'm getting way ahead of myself. I like Korean horror movies especially.

It must take a lot to scare a Korean. Koreans put cabbage in a pot and bury it and then dig it up and eat it. This could seem like a variation on the resurrection/transubstantiation theme to the uninitiated, or even some sort of a vegan zombie thing, but it is probably just one of those odd twists of fate where someone did something unusual once and everybody else picked up on it, even though it has the aroma of a septic tank and the consistency of phlegm. Nonetheless, they soldier on, as they do with all aspects of like. The Korean peninsula is sort of like a military base with cities in it. Virtually every square mile is covered with artillery and tank traps and is honeycombed with tunnels, both for burying cabbage and sneaking around unseen. There are more soldiers per capita in both halves of Korea than there were at Appomattox Court House in April, 1865.

The Koreans have been mistreated quite often in their history, most recently rather harshly by the Japanese during World War II, and then there was all that Korean War stuff and then a fragile, armed peace complete with kidnappings and axe murders and one of the world's biggest fruit-cake dictators with long-range missiles and (perhaps) nuclear weapons. However, Kim Jong-il does like action movies and breathtakingly attractive women, so he is perhaps not completely crazy. The point is, when Koreans want the shit scared out of them, all they have to do is read the newspaper or try and drive a car in Seoul or, in the North, breathe. When they go to the movies to be scared, they are not interested in any slow-paced, mounting psychological tension, no matter how excruciatingly wonderful it may be; they want a full-on freaky blood-puking fright-fest, which will either make you drop your skittles on the floor or at least not want to eat them.

It should be noted that no one should listen to me with respect to the quality of a movie, since my tastes in cinema are clearly out of step with the majority of civilized humans. Most those movies on Netflix that you have never heard of and which have an average viewer rating of one star are just delightful to me, and the less reverence, political correctness and emotional stability, the better. So, Korean horror movies, eh? "Oldboy" is a great movie, although some may not consider it a true horror movie because it lacks any element of the supernatural, but it is like Franz Kafka wrote the screenplay for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The violence is astoundingly brutal, but not at all gratuitous in the context of the plot. "The Host" is a cleverly disguised political satire concealed in a Godzilla theme which gives tremendous insight into the Americanization of South Korean society and proves that Industrial Light and Magic is not the only game in town. "R-Point" is a spooky and violent war-time ghost story which educates the average ignorant citizen about the role of Korean troops in the Vietnam War. It is an exploration of the power of guilt to distort reality and the unseen burden of the weight of history that bears down on us all.

On the more domestic side, "The Red Shoes" is a confusing but disturbing portrait of obsession which leaves you with a pleasantly itchy feeling of WTF just happened. "The Wig" is a classically creepy tale of possession and revenge which uses to excellent effect the Asian archetype of the female ghost with long, dark hair. "A Tale of Two Sisters" is a dark fairy-tale about a family in crisis and the harm keeping secrets can cause. It is genuinely dark and spooky, but moves too fast to be "creepy". You just have to hang on. I loved the movie "Cello", although most critics were lukewarm. You can keep quite a variety of things in a cello case, you know. "Hansel and Gretel" is visually stunning and deeply disturbing, as are all movies about children, especially the "Look Who's Talking" series. "Arang" is an excellent example of the police drama/ghost story combination that is so popular in Asian film. Don't watch it if you are squeamish.

I could go on, and often do, but suffice it to say that there are a plethora of wonderful Korean horror films out there and, if you like a good scare, do yourself a favor and check some out. Incidentally, I will be sending a copy of this blog to the Korean Film Board seeking reimbursement for the positive press. What is interesting about foreign horror films in general is that they have universal appeal, despite cultural representations that may be obscure or obtuse to the Western eye. When it comes to our fears of isolation, helplessness and death, we are definitely all one race and common fears probably imply common hopes as well. Art can help build bridges to understanding, even if it's the sort of art that builds bridges one festering corpse at a time.