60-second cinema

3 out of 10 Even for a TFATF franchise job, this was pretty bloody dire stuff. Wilka hit it on the head as we left cinema, likening it to watching porn: a succession of badly-acted ‘story’ scenes that hook together the real action. And even part of the action was CGI . Poor show.

4 out of 10 Not a patch on Oldboy , the only other Park Chan-Wook film I’ve seen. Or maybe that says more about my more Hollywood-like expectations of cinema. Regardless, I felt the start of this tale was too disjointed to draw me in and the end too implausibly told and too protracted to win me over. Lee Yeong-Ae, mind, was pretty damned stunning, so it’s not all bad. :)

7 out of 10 Not quite the tale I was expecting from “the gay cowboy movie,” but quite a good one nonetheless. The story follows the very definition of a difficult relationship between two seasonal shepherds, from initial meeting to its conclusion many years down the road. Tinged with sadness, it probably didn’t deserve the amount of hype it got, but it’s not bad.