Click images for desktop size: "Invisible" by Stag I was awakened in the middle of the night by something slimy crawling over my face.
Maybe it was death but probably it was a cat.
My valiant dogs did nothing to protect me. The giant dog jumped up on the bed just to make sure I was completely awake. A couple of hours later I managed to fall back asleep.
In those groggy hours I thought about stuff. I thought about why I like Korean films so much. I almost consider South Korean films their own genre.
I watched a movie last night, "Santa Maria". The sub titles were duff but I could follow it well enough. It looked like it was going to be a light comedy. The first half was.
A Seoul Homicide detective transfers back to his home town as a traffic cop. He does this so he can spend more time with his son. Before he even hots town he has a run in with his old childhood friend/enemy, now a cab driver. They had a huge falling out over a girl Yon Hee as teens. When they were doing their military service (compulsory in Korea) the cab driver was his superior and he made the cop suffer.
So now the cop uses his traffic job to totally harass his old friend. The cop moved into his childhood home and the cab driver is his next door neighbor. Of course the two sons become best friends and the cab driver's orphaned niece develops a crush on the cop.
There's plenty of amusing banter going on and it was a slight but pleasant little story.
Then it got ugly real, near heartbreaking. The cops son tells everyone his mother is dead. The cab driver thinks some ugly thoughts abut the woman he doesn't think he knows.
The mom isn't dead. She's in a vegetive state from a degenerative disease. The cop borrowed 100,000 from a loan shark to keep her on life support. She's been on life support for five years.

Click images for desktop size: "President Bush" by Sports Illustrated The loan sharks show up in the small town. They want their money. They seem inept and they are comical. They are also dead serious. They kidnap the cop's son.
At the urging of the cabbie's son and with his own concerns over the kid's well being the cabbie goes with the cop and mets up with the loan shark.
There is a brutal and savage fight. Shockingly tough. The cabbie is pummeled mercilessly. The cop can fight and does his best but there are too many of the enemy.
They are at a dock. The loan shark stands on the cop's head so he has to look as one of the henchmen ties the kid to an anchor off a boat prow. The henchman throws the anchor overboard.
As the anchor winch unwinds the cabbie freaks and starts to scream that he'll pay the debt. He'll pay, just don't hurt the kid.
Of course , later that night, he is shocked to discover how large a sum he has agreed to pay. But he doesn't back down from his promise, even when the cop tells him not to worry about it.
There's a touching scene where he is in the yard talking to his son. The cabbie is heavily bandaged but lies extravagantly to his son about the big fight and the honour of his wounds. Combined with earlier scenes and later the film takes on a serious weight. Villains and cardboard are replaced with real breathing people. No bad guys, no good guys just people trying to survive in a world that sometimes threatens to overwhelm them. Surviving it with pride, dignity and innate beauty.
There's still some amusing moments. The cabbie has been saving to buy a new cab so he has the 100 k. They go to the bank to get the money only to discover that his wife has changed the password on their account!
Consoling the cop he drives with him and the cop's son to visit his wife. The cabbie is shocked to discover that the cop's wife is Yon Hee, the woman he and the cop had their huge falling out over.
What follows is heartbreaking.
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Unknown Some of it for personal reasons. The young son sits with his comatose mom and pours out his heart. He tells her she has to let his dad go. His dad loves her but its all too much for him now.
Its accentuated by the cop telling the cabbie that Yon Hee broke up with him when she discovered she had the disease. He found her again and told her that any time they had together would be worth it to him, so she married him and for 4 years they were blissfully happy.
The two of them go back into her hospital room as the kid is finishing his monologue. Then there's that sound that I've heard 3 times in my life. Its the ugliest cruelest sound in the world. Its the sound of the ekg machine's flat line alarm.
The mother dies. Some might think it a bit much that she died with a tear in her eye and a breathing tube down her throat. I didn't.
That night the cabbie goes to his wife and asks her for the password to their account and explains in full honesty what he wants it for and why it is important to him. She, tearfully, tells him how she feels and about how she feels that he married her only because he was mad with grief about losing Yon Hee.
They talk and the talk is real.
In the hallway the kids and the funny father eavesdrop.
The next day the cop and the cabby get the money. And that ends it. The movie becomes just a window onto an episode into a group of people's lives. With laughing crying and all that's in between.
The bad guys aren't seen again. The presumption is that they're still out there loaning money and threatening people. But not these people.
I like Korean movies. Even the slight films contain elements of humanity. That they know that in drama their are moments of comedy and wry cynicism, and that in comedies there are moments that make us sad and sad reasons that make us laugh.
Jacques Tati and Chaplain were hailed as geniuses for trying to turn those same themes into movies. Just the attempt got them hailed.
"Santa Maria" is not a great film by any stretch, but I enjoyed it like it was a great movie. I enjoyed it the same way I enjoyed movies when i was a kid. Movies could reaffirm things I already knew and show me things I never imagined. From giant dinosaurs that squashed people underfoot to loves that burned as bright and true as hope in a child's heart.
I like Korean movies.