LoveHKFilm — one of my favorite sources for all things Asian cinema — recently posted reviews of arguably the two biggest Korean film releases of the year, Bong Joon-Ho’s Mother and Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst.
As strong as the script is, the strongest aspect of Mother is the continuing maturation in Bong’s directorial style. Every shot and every camera movement is well-calculated, with no shot ever staying with a single frame for too long. Bong avoids the showy long-takes of his previous films, though the camera movements remain impressive at drawing attention to themselves. He also amps up the tension in a brilliant, Hitchcockian manner, often opting for extreme close-ups on specific actions or his actors’ faces. The result is an often intense film by a confident filmmaker who doesn’t need to resort to cheap loud scares to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
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Like his friend and fellow filmmaker Kim Ji-Woon, Bong takes genre conventions and twists them to fit his own brand of storytelling. While Kim simply gives conventional genres new visual aesthetics, Bong pushes his genres to extremes. Just like using a true-life murder case in Memories of Murder for social commentary, Bong uses the murder mystery in Mother to push maternal sacrifice at a primitive level. Naturally, the film isn’t as audience-pleasing as The Host (despite moments of dark humor), but what’s lost in entertainment value is compensated plenty by superb storytelling. The Host may be a better commercial movie, but Mother is the better film.
Despite its extreme elements and packed plot, Thirst does drag a bit in the middle, when Sang-Hyun’s search for new sources of blood without committing murder eventually becomes a little repetitive. However, Park uses his strength as a visual-oriented director to keep the film engaging. The exquisite camerawork and art direction (including a room with completely white walls that plays a major role in the film’s third act) are easily the strongest seen in Korean cinema all year, making the film’s absence from the Grand Bell Nominations all the more confusing. Even though some of the special effects could be stronger — especially considering the film’s partial Hollywood funding — Park’s camerawork alone makes the film consistently intriguing to watch.
Nevertheless, it is time to wonder if Park has any other tricks up his sleeve. Even through Park has proven himself to be capable of more, since Oldboy his visual style has become so distinctive that it’s become something he can fall back on to cover up shortcomings in pace or storytelling. As spectacular visually as Thirst is, the tiredness of Park’s style is beginning to show. Then again, even if Park does intend on changing his style, there’s no reason for his audiences not to have a little fun along the way, and that’s exactly what Thirst is — classier-than-usual genre fun.