Fantasia Festival: Volume 1

by Ari

Everyone who follows Asian cinema knows that gritty crime films exploded onto the scene in the late 80’s and early 90’s because of filmmakers like John Woo and Ringo Lam.  Many of these films, most notably Woo’s The Killer and Hard-Boiled, brought an energetic new spin on the Melvillian concept of cool, sophisticated violence amongst societies more brutally inclined characters.  These filmmakers influentially pushed the limits of what could be accomplished within the genre, and their passion and bravura changed the way people saw how violence could be treated on film.  Okay, obvious preamble out of the way:

The Hong Kong wave of that period has suddenly been reinvigorated by new and exciting filmmakers.....in Korea.

A Bittersweet Life is the most impressive re-imagining of the Hong Kong crime film since it unfortunately fizzled away a few years ago, using the established formula to create something refreshingly entertaining and confident.  This is an edgy and grisly picture that breathes new life into the more outrageous representation of cinematic brutality and chaos.  As one character states, “In this business, you can do 100 things right, but one tiny mistake and everything changes”.  Writer-Director Kim Ji-Woon (A Tale of Two Sisters), takes common thematic threads such as loyalty, revenge, love, and retribution, and structures a taut and suspenseful thriller that feels like an extension of those blood-soaked, feverish extravaganzas that have now become legend.

A Bittersweet Life marks the beginning of my coverage of the Fantasia International Film Festival.  Based in lovely Montreal, Fantasia focuses exclusively on genre cinema from all around the world (hence, International).  What appeals to me most, and why I’ve made this trip from Los Angeles for three years in a row, is the always spectacular line-up of Asian film, especially from Japan and Korea.  While Fantasia screens a fair amount of horror movies, I usually stick with comedy, drama, crime, and science-fiction, just to give you an idea of the material I’ll be reviewing in the next eleven days.

Discovering obscure masterpieces is what this festival is about, and for the last two years I’ve had the privilege of seeing some exceptional work.  In 2004, it was the joyous comedy, Ping Pong, that wound up being my absolute favorite movie of that year.  In 2005, Fantasia  floored me with films like the subversive Japanese epic Karaoke Terror and the eloquent family drama The Taste of Tea.  This festival is about discovering the unknown, which is exactly what every cineaste loves most.  This year they have an interesting line-up, and with A Bittersweet Life, they started with a thunderous bang.

Actor Lee Byung-Hyun (Joint Security Area) stars as Sun-Woo, a well-dressed, stoic enforcer for a powerful gangster who operates out of a high-class hotel. These characters give organized crime its name. They’re organized, distinguished, professional.  These traits make the characters believable and dangerous, creating a genuine sense of unpredictable intensity to their actions.  That tension is extremely important in sustaining suspense throughout the film, especially since the story's standard plotting is fairly easy to anticipate.  Director Kim Ji-Woon mixes ideas from many seminal achievements of the crime genre (Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, even Korea’s Oldboy, among others), and the story follows them closely.

When Sun-Woo’s boss gives him an assignment to follow his young girlfriend and report any secret affair she may be having, you know exactly where the film will go.  It’s no surprise Sun-Woo becomes affectionate towards her, and it’s even less surprising that his emotion begins a chain of incredibly violent events. However, what Ji-Woon does well with this formula is keep everything centered on the violent repercussions, without delving into meaningless subplots, thematic grandeur, or any other predictable distractions.

Once everything explodes, A Bittersweet Life shows exactly what that explosion entails.  These are violent characters, and Ji-Woon focuses the story on just how dangerous they can be.  What grounds the series of brutal encounters in A Bittersweet Life is the sense of humor Ji-Woon injects into the story.  It gives the characters the heart they need in order to care about their destructive sensibilities.  Because A Bittersweet Life works as a drama, it works effortlessly well as a thriller.

And by thrills, I mean some of the most impressively staged sequences of violence since Oldboy’s hallway melee.  In a genre that has most recently lent itself to useless kinetic energy, Ji-Woon demonstrates why smooth, coherent, expertly constructed and paced mayhem can be so damn cinematic.  There’s a particular set-piece about halfway through the film that garnered cheers and applause from the audience.  It’s an epic showdown, the kind of prolonged display of carnage that separates Asian film from the rest of the world. Korea is redefining this type of cinematic thrill, and Kim Ji-Woon is quickly becoming one of the most inspired and exciting filmmakers to watch.

A Bittersweet Life goes on my short list of fantastic movies I’ve seen so far in 2006.  Fantasia is off to a mighty fine start....