Audience Member
Surprisingly intriguing.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I mainly watched this for Min-ski Choi. He plays an unemployed father who starts doing household chores and his wife is the primary breadwinner. She is having an affair, and he slowly amasses evidence and then reacts rather harshly. The final 20 minutes has some good moments, but this drama is very slow.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The plot was coherent until the bloodfest started, the whole murder felt like a very abrupt change from the pace the film had had until then
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
Full Review
Audience Member
[b][size=4]'Happy End'[/size][/b]
[i]Chung Ji-Woo, 1999[/i]
[img]http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss218/Jedimoonshyne9/1-16.jpg[/img]
The new wave of Korean films that has swept world cinema since the beginning of the nineties has been driven forward by a school of original and daring filmmakers. Auteurs such as Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho represent the later, fresher, whiter tips of this wave, and both have recently found success in the west unlike any have done so before. Despite the fact that Korean cinema is these days looked upon by many as a breath of fresh air, the foundation of this new wave was built around the squeezing of well-trodden genres such as the romance/drama film. Nineties titles such as Hur Jin-ho's '[b]Christmas in August[/b]' and Chung Ji-Woo's '[b]Happy End[/b]' are important takes on this genre that have helped contribute to the success of Korean cinema in recent years. '[b]Happy End[/b]' centers around a man between jobs, alienated with life at home and using his unhealthy amount of free time to purge the local bookstore for romance novels - allowing his imagination to run wild in search of a perfect ending. His quest to find this "happy end" in his literature is reflected in his life, but made impossible by certain responsibilities and the adulterous actions of his wife.
[img]http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss218/Jedimoonshyne9/2-15.jpg[/img]
The affair is usually central to these romance-driven Korean plots, and with '[b]Happy End[/b]' it plays an important part. The wife, played by Jeon Do-yeon (seen recently in Lee Chang-dong's '[b]Secret Sunshine[/b]') seeks her own happiness in a very sexual relationship with an ex-flame. Her passionate nights with this gentle lover are shown in contrast to her drab encounters at home. The husband, played by Choi Min-sik (famous for his leading role in Park Chan-wook's '[b]Oldboy[/b]') chooses to escape this home life by diving headlong into his books, and it is this vivid imagination of his that profoundly influences the direction our plot proceeds to take. Up until this point the director seems only too happy to bow to convention, making it all-the-more surprising then when things are turned upon their head - leaving us scratching our own - for the third and final act of '[b]Happy End[/b]'. Ultimately it is Choi Min-sik's husband that finds his happy end, but feels tormented inside as a result. His literal awakening as '[b]Happy End[/b]' closes is the strongest in a number of hints that suggest most of our blood-spattered third act was dreamt up by his own fruitful imagination, though we are never told for sure.
[b]7/10 [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/statusicon/forum_new.gif[/img][/b]
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Wow, how I love this paid summer break. I've been watching DVDs with the hormonal bitch ans so far I've only used up one point (*the deal -I get to pick two of every five movies, she get to choose three -unfair? yes, but this is the best deal I can ever negotiate for) on The Hidden Fortress.
This is not much of a review.
I've seen three movies about relationships, betrayal, etc.
[img]http://www.hancinema.net/photos/miniphoto49.jpg[/img]
An Affair 7/10 :fresh:
Happy End and An Affair are two stories about bored wives who found love/ lust/ comfort from another man. In An Affair, the wife fell for the man her sister was supposed to marry. Her husband is a successful architect who sees the fishes in their aquarium as a bunch of happy beings -swimming around and fed, with nothing to worry about -a subtext not too difficult to miss.
[img]http://www.stradanove.net/news/images/cinema/h/happy_end1.jpg[/img]
Happy End
In Happy End, wife fell (or maintained) her relationship with an ex boyfriend. Her husband is an older guy who's out of job and spends his time buying romance novels from used books shop and staying in the park. The husband though is very devoted to their baby (who turns out isn't his, but the the other guy's).
Then there's sex scenes in both movies to make viewers happier. Let's comapre the sex scenes. The actress in An Affair, although older, is more beautiful than the lead actress in Happy End. But, the actress in An Affair used body double. Every nakedness you'll see isn't her body. They only showed close ups of breasts, but not with her face in the frame. So, it must not be hers. Maybe she's one of those actresses who never shows their naked body in the films they make. In Happy End there's no body double. The sex scenes here are steamier and longer than that in An Affair. Male viewers who want to skip the drama and fast forward it to the sex scenes can now make a better choice.
[img]http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/columbia_pictures/closer/closer_bigposter.jpg[/img]
Closer
No sex scenes shown here even if everybody gets into heterosexual sex with everybody. They just talked about it. Jude and Natalie, Jude and Julia, Clive and Julia and Clive and Natalie. Oh yeah... Jude and Clive had sex in cyber space here. I wanted Julia and Natalie to realize that men are pigs and decide to try lesbianism. Nothing. All you get are kissing scenes. But there's some Natalie Portman stuff to be seen here. She's wearing skimpy underwear when she went back to stripping.
[img]http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/twentieth_century_fox/dodgeball__a_true_underdog_story/_group_photos/ben_stiller9.jpg[/img]
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
If you want lesbian kissing turn into Dodgeball instead.
My favorite scenes are one with Patches.
"If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!"
"If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball!"
[img]http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/pix/hidden_fortress_p.jpg[/img]
The Hidden Fortress
There's no sex in The Hidden Fortress either -only legshot of the Princess.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
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