Kim Byung-Woo's TAKE POINT: action, betrayal and international naughtiness via South Korea

Don't get involved if you want to stay alive -- the moral of this new film would seem to be -- with either mercenaries nor the governments of the USA, China, North Korea or South Korea. That's what happens to the two heroes of TAKE POINT, written and directed by Kim Byung-Woo, an ever-so-lightly-political action/adventure thriller in which betrayal is epidemic.

It doesn't matter whose side you imagine you may be on, you're still as good as dead.

Our heroes here (one of them takes a rather long time revealing himself) are a South Korean mercenary, now-residing in America with his pregnant wife, nicknamed Ahab (played by Ha Jung-woo, above and on poster, top), and a North Korean doctor (played by Lee Sun-kyun, below) whose job is to tend to the well-being of North Korea's premier, known here as "King."

The two men refer to each other as "Northie" and "Southie"(or so the English subtitles would have it) and eventually, if slowly, begin to bond and grow to respect their opponent for very good reasons. Mr. Lee played the lead role in that crackerjack South Korean crime thriller A Hard Day, and he is every bit as good (with much less to do) in this new film. Mr. Ha -- a staple of more first-rate South Korean films than you can shake a stick at -- is hugely impressive all over again. (That's Jennifer Ehle, below, right, who plays Ahab's American operative.)

The movie itself is manufactured to within an inch of its life, and yet it moves fast enough and is so filled with exciting twists and turns that it should more than keep fans of action, assassination, politics, explosions, and mistrust more than satisfied. The plot has to do with the mercenaries' need to kidnap and keep alive the North Korean head-of-state, and much of the action is seen via visual monitors located all over the place (including different countries) that show only one side of the action. Consequently, it is rare for more than than even a few cast members to share the screen in any particular scene.

So much is always happening simultaneously -- our Southie has to save the life of the North Korean President via everything from CPR to a blood transfusion at the same time as he is directing his team of mercenaries how to get out of ever more dangerous situations -- that the viewer barely has a chance to draw a breath. This makes the movie move like gangbusters. On the down side, however, is the heavily accented English spoken by both our heroes, which is difficult enough to understand that you may wish for the English subtitles to translate, not just the Korean dialog, but the English portion, too.

Yes, the movie is in many ways beyond ridiculous, with the events we see requiring super-human strength, skill and smarts from (and luck for) our two heroes. But if you can so easily accept the sanitized silliness of the latest Mission Impossible nonsense (which, clearly, most of the world did), then Take Point should prove a cakewalk of unusually piquant delight for most action fans. And if the film's finale offers up a nice nod toward a possible united Korea, it's too bad the filmmaker could not have allowed the emphasis to remain on the two men at the closing moment, rather than only on our heroic "Southie."

The film opened this past Friday in California in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, and will expand eastward across the country in the days to come. To find the theaters nearest you, click here and then click on Find a Theater and then just keep clicking on View More until you've exhausted either the list or yourself.

LIBERATION DAY: North Korea again, from an unusual angle, in Olte/Traavik's new rock doc

I'm not sure why but, so far at least, nearly every movie I've viewed about North Korea -- mostly documentaries but also even the sometimes-comic The Interview -- have proven too long, repetitive and a little too boring for their own good. Finally, here comes a documentary to do with North Korea that, despite its being -- yes, again -- too long, repetitive and a little too boring for its own good, is still more enjoyable and thought-provoking than the usual. If not as much fun as the winner (so far) in this genre, The Lovers & the Despot, the 2016 documentary, LIBERATION DAY provides enough intelligence and eye-opening food-for-thought-and-view that it slips just barely into the realm of acceptability.

As co-directed by Uģis Olte and Morten Traavik (the latter of whom is shown at right), the movie's most interesting moment occurs immediately, as this quote from the rock band Laibach appears onscreen:

All art is subject 

to political manipulation 

except that which speaks 

the language of 

the same manipulation. 

Hmmmm, we think to ourselves and immediately begin applying that idea to the movie, country and band at hand, the first of which details the would-be momentous event of this band's surprising invitation -- the first ever for a rock band -- to perform inside the highly closed state of North Korea. That the band's accouterments, from costumes to appearance to performance and much else -- fairly drip of fascistic images (coupled to conscious and consistent irony) makes the invitation even more bizarre.

Unaccountably, a couple of Laibach's songs became hugely popular in North Korea, perhaps because these were "cover" versions of songs from, yes, The Sound of Music, which the North Korean populace probably heard without benefit of any accompanying visuals, thus making them near-completely lose both the sense of Laibach's irony and (most likely made-fun-of) overt fascism.

So here we are as the band arrives in North Korea for what is perhaps the most unwelcoming "welcome dinner" in history, and then we watch and listen as the band's program is consistently undercut by the North Korean censors, even as Laibach tries its level best to abide by the hugely curtailed "freedom" that country allows. Early on, one of the retinue decides to go for an unscheduled walk-around-town, despite the fact that the group has been warned not to go anywhere alone and/or without prior permission.

Undoubtedly because the freedom-to-film is every bit as subject to censor and "permission" as all the other freedoms in this self-titled democracy, what we end up watching for a too-long 100 minutes is often repetitive and not at all what might be the best or most apt visual for us to see. Still, over time, things come together, as does the concert itself, and we're finally treated to a small portion of this, as well as to the absolutely bizarre response from its seemingly baffled audience.

Along the way, yet another stand-off between the Koreas, North and South, occurs and various provocations continue to arise. All this happened before our own nutcase/liar-in-chief rose to the Presidency, but it certainly would have been even more interesting had Laibach's performance come a couple of years later.

In the press quotes for the film, as well as in the actual film itself, we are treated to reactions from HBO Emmy-winning John Oliver and everyone's favorite (mine, at least) Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek as to the importance of the band's visit. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian calls this "a genuinely historic event."  Indeed, historic the visit may be, but the movie about it surely ain't. Instead, it keeps promising so much more intelligence, laughs, music, surprise, wonder and/or irony that it can possibly, under these constrained circumstances, ever deliver.

And so we come back to that above quote and what it says/means. The art/language of Laibach (wherever did the band get its name, I wonder? It always makes me think of that famous sexual direction, "Lie bach and spread your legs") is so full of irony, as well as politics, history, pretense and fantasy, while the art/language of its host (is there "art" in North Korea? Isn't real art individually created rather than collectively?) is something real, chilling, provocative and hugely damaging to its citizenry. Or perhaps Laibach is saying that its own art is above such manipulation because -- ah-hah! -- it already understands/speaks in that same manipulative manner.

Well, figure it all out for yourself. The movie, disappointing as it is, is still worth seeing for the questions it raises and for the event it covers. Released by Sundance Now, the documentary receives its U.S. theatrical premiere at New York City's Film Forum this Wednesday, October 18. Elsewhere? No idea, but one would imagine the film will see the light of day (or the light of a movie-house disc player) in a few more cities around the country.

A North Korea we've never seen -- in Cannan & Adam's fun doc, THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT

How strange that the most enjoyable (and bizarre) film about North Korea so far -- and this would include even The Interview -- would be a documentary that pairs North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il with a South Korea film director and his actress wife that the little dictator first has kidnapped and then "persuades" to make movies up north instead of down south. THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT takes us back to the 1970s and 80s, while giving us a view of Kim Jong-il that is not quite like anything we've heard or seen.

Granted, as viewed in this dishy and often delightful documentary directed by Rob Cannan (shown below) and Ross Adam (shown at left), little Jong-il comes off nothing much like the man his better (or was it worse?) father, Kim Il-sung, but maybe slightly better (worse?) than his own son, successor and current ruler, Kim Jong-un. Because what we outsiders can learn and understand about this little country that has for decades been shrouded in secrecy remains so paltry -- also so uncertain:

how do we know much of anything we hear is even true? -- North Korea has taken on something of a mystical nature in our minds. It's weird and awful, of course, but -- come on now -- it's kind of fascinating, too. And because most docs we've so far seen about this country have had their filmmaker's access restrained to the point of why bother? -- while the one narrative movie to tackle the subject, The Interview, proved much more successful as a satire of the American media and our drive for success at any cost than of North Korea itself -- The Lovers and the Despot immediately takes its place at the forefront of reality, despite its pretty loony-tunes content.

To get  right to it, that content tells the tale of a Kim Jong-il so besotted with love of movies -- and of the Hollywood and South Korean variety, rather than that of his stodgy, home-grown product -- that he (or maybe someone on his staff) comes up with the idea of kidnapping South Korea's leading actress, Choi Eun-hee (pictured above, in one of her roles) and maybe getting her to make movies for him.

Ms Choi had been married to one of South Korea's leading filmmakers, Shin Sang-ok (above), though the two, I think, were already divorced by now (turns out that Mr. Shin was an unfaithful hubby), and the couple had two adopted children (whom we see and hear from throughout the doc). Shin, bereft at the loss of his leading lady (and maybe still his love), gets depressed and can't find work at home, so when rumors arise of this possible North Korean kidnapping of Choi, he somehow arranges for himself to be "kidnapped," too, so he can join his woman.

Initially, Ms Choi is kept under a kind of easy-going house arrest, with periodic meetings with dictator Kim, while Mr Shin is shoved into a real prison and spends several years there. Eventually the little dictator reunites the pair, apologizes for their previous and not-so-hot circumstances, and the creative duo begin making movies for him. When these films becomes successful enough to find their way into film festivals in the east and finally the west, escape seems like a real possibility,

We see all this via what look like surprisingly well-done re-enactments that adhere to the look and feel of the the time period (grainy film stock, in-period fashions, cars and the like). Much of the North Korean footage could easily be real, taken by the folk who did the kidnapping (Kim and his henchmen seems very camera-oriented). Verbally, we get much of our remembrances from Ms Choi and her two children, as well as from a few "critics" of that day, and finally from some of the folk involved with the western powers. (Yes, the U.S, was part of all of this, too. Aren't we always?). Mr. Shin, for reasons we later learn, is not present verbally.

Turns out that, while credence is generally given to Ms Choi's story, disbelief is mostly the case where Shin is concerned. Whether he was kidnapped or "defected" is still up for grabs in both South Korea and in the west. (And yet his defection, after all, would have been in search of his wife.) All told, what we see and hear here makes about as much sense as anything else to come out the blinkered and hidden world of North Korea. Interestingly, what takes place in the old North Korean footage in this film often mimics what we've seen in other recent docs (such as Under the Sun and Songs From the North) about this hidden little country: parades, awards, ballet classes, and the ever-conforming populace involved in group displays of pride, joy or grief when the dictator dies. (We're told here that, if one's grief did not seem real enough, one could be "disappeared.") All of which underscores the sense that nothing -- not now, not then -- comes out of North Korea that is not micro-managed.

The most fascinating piece of this new doc is the look we get at Kim Jong-il, who, for all the horror that he, his dad and his son have inflicted on this sad country, would seem to be a fellow who genuinely loved movies and was affected/afflicted by them. Under his hand, Shin and Choi made some 17 features films, including the first actual love story to come from North Korea. (Shin remarks at some point about how wonderful it is not to have any more "money problems" while directing a movie. Take that, Capitalism!) These three had what appears to be a "real" relationship, so one also wonders about the betrayal, even sadness, Kim must have felt when his prize possessions suddenly hi-tailed it back to the south.

A United Kingdom production, released in the U.S, via Magnolia Pictures, The Lovers and the Despot -- in Korean, Japanese and English, with English subtitles when needed -- runs 98 minutes. It opens this Friday, September 23, in New York City, Washington DC, the Los Angeles area, Boston, and Philadephia, with further expansion across the country in the weeks to come. Click here and then click on GET TICKETS to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed. 

Vitaly Mansky's UNDER THE SUN attempts -- with great beauty -- to reveal North Korea...

...but as usual with documentaries about this most foreign of foreign countries (I wonder if even North Koreans find it pretty strange: probably not, as they appear to have been brainwashed into a kind of near-lobotomization by now), we get pretty much the same old thing. Yes, once again (as in last year's Songs From the North), the state and its minions control everything the documentary filmmaker sees, hears and shoots (they even write the goddamned script!), so that everything the viewer sees and hears in, UNDER THE SUN, the latest attempt to show us North Korea, is... pretense. And pretense -- especially when it is handled as obviously as it is in this "kingdom" -- soon becomes downright boring.

How can it not? And how can a filmmaker begin to tell the truth when the powers-that-be are looking over his shoulder and telling him what to do, 24/7? Well, there is the editing process, once you've left the country. So documentarian Vitaly Mansky (shown at right, and clearly suffering from a North Korean-induced migraine) seems to have confined some of that "fake" script to voice-over and then let his visuals tell a bit different story from what those in power might want. Also, in his finished film, he explains via supertitles that introduce some of the scenes, how the state consistently changed reality into whatever scenario it would rather have us see and hear.

The result of all this is more beautiful visually than we've seen before. The colors are often eye-popping, particularly in scenes such as one in what looks like a soy milk factory, and later at some sort of a group sing-along in which the women are attired in simply gorgeous, colorful costumes. Visually, the movie is much more stunning than the obviously lower-budgeted Songs From the North (hell, it's even more so than that of the much higher-budgeted Hollywood narrative comedy The Interview).

And the scenes Mr. Mansky managed to capture (I am guessing surreptitiously) of everyday North Koreans show a populace in which anything approaching normal behavior has been commandeered by the state. No wonder the people seem to walk around like zombies. (There's a scene in which one after another twosome or threesome poses in front of bright red flowers and murals of the "great leaders" that is hugely sad, as are other scenes in which Mansky's camera captures subway and escalator riders.  These visuals take us so far before repetition and boredom set in.

How many times must be watch the Korean "director" coach his subjects to do and say the scripted stuff,  smile more, and act more joyful before we get the point? A little of this goes a long way, and Under the Sun lasts 105 minutes, during which we even have to sit through some "reshoots."

And while we do get so fun and sadness out of the leading threesome (shown at left) that is forced to portray the "typical" family in the documentary, with a little girl who is particularly sweet and charming, seeing her and her parents in all these faked situations -- at school, joining a political children's group, working in a garment factory, listening to an old military man drone on, watching a dance class, in hospital, and performing in the would-be spectacular finale number -- everything here combines to tell us what we already know. Or at least think we know. And nothing we see or hear here is likely to disabuse us of these notions. (Also, the thought does arise: What happened to this family after the film was released at film festivals around the world, much to the displeasure of the North Korean government?)

So Under the Sun joins the collection of movies, books, news reports, and all else about North Korea that we already have. If there is a way to show the real thing, nobody's found it yet. Instead we get the pretense (and sidelong glances that indicate something more). Over and over again. I'm not sure what is left for us to learn from all this.

The documentary -- released via Icarus Films, in Korean with English subtitles -- opens this Wednesday, July 6, in its U.S. theatrical premiere for a one-week engagement at Film Forum in New York City. Elsewhere? Yes, and you can see all nine, currently-scheduled cities and theaters in which the film will screen by clicking here.

Soon-Mi Yoo's SONGS FROM THE NORTH: Exploring North Korea--with the usual caveats

SONGS FROM THE NORTH indeed! You will not have seen in a long, long while a movie in which songs and singing play this large a part in the character of the land and its people (and its dictators and their power to brainwash). As the filmmaker, Soon-Mi Yoo, tells us via titles cards early on, "This longing all my life for a place I was not permitted to go until recently. How do you explain it? It was a land of evil and yet as sacred as your mother's womb." Wow. And just where is this fabled place? Ah: North Korea.

With this poetic opening, as well as via the combo of music, light show and space travel that actually begins her film, Ms Yoo (shown at left) has pretty well trashed most of The Interview, which was trash anyway (the part set in North Korea, at least; the early section of the movie was quite original and funny). The filmmaker was at last able to visit that strange, lopped-off land (Korea's official division took place in 1948) to the north of her birthplace in South Korea -- first in 2010, and then again in 2011 and 2012.

So: Has Ms Yoo been able to crack the facade and find out more about the enigma that has long been North Korea? After all, its dictator family has seen to it that the outside world stays out, while the populace inside remains thoroughly brainwashed into a rather frightening first-family fealty. And even when a representative or two from that outside world gets inside, they are faced with silence from the populace, no chance at asking questions or getting answers, and kept under strict control by the "guides" who accompany them everywhere. Ms Yoo tell us that that, as usual, she, too, was unable to ask probing questions.

In her Director's Statement in the press notes that we critics received, the filmmaker admits that she was unable to ask a single person the question she most wanted to: How do you manage to survive? (See Francine M. Storey's great poem, Instructions for Search to experience the full strength of that simple but profound question.) Instead, Ms Yoo had to look for answers in the footage she brought back of the people she'd photographed and also in the songs, publications, archival footage and examples of North Korean cinema she researched. "The longer I stared at the images, the longer I listened to their voices," she explains, "I no longer saw the propaganda. What remained were the beauty of their faces and the melodies of the songs which carried a genuine emotion that I found consoling."

Well, I'm sorry, but I found all this pretty paltry, offering little more than I've seen before in the few docs to have come out of North Korea. And while her images are often poetic, I find Ms Yoo's explanation more sentimental than anything else. When she adds that she has come to understand that these are people who would rather die than be humiliated and subjugated, we are again pulled up short. Plenty of North Koreans have already died, but those left are surely subjugated still, and might very well be humiliated, were they not brainwashed into constantly singing about how they revere their great leader.

If this sounds like a dyed-in-the-wool Capitalist speaking, let me demolish that idea completely. I have no love for Capitalism as it has been practiced in the USA or most of the western world, but I am not a Communist, either, since no country has ever been able to make that philosophy work in practice. (I'm a Socialist, sure, but who in his right mind in these days of ever-expanding inequality would not be?)

So much of what we see in this film looks like "planned hagiography," beginning with footage of the populace, grieving at the death of their great leader. Ms Yoo's camera concentrates for quite a spell on a seemingly grieving male citizen, above (maybe her guide), who is saddened --- but by what?. He won't say so we never know. The most interesting part of the film is her interview with her father (he's a South Korean and thus allowed to speak), who tells us of the history of his family, friends and country.

Visually, we move from pools hall to skyscraper, while mostly concentrating on the faces and voices of the people. The little real information we get comes via more title cards that tell us things such as, "For the North Korean elite, Germany is a cautionary tale. Above all, they want to know what happened to their East German counterparts." For good reason, too, as the East Germans have now been pretty much swallowed up by West Germany and its preoccupations, just as North Korea would surely be, once North and South eventuallly reunite.

Our filmmaker is told that she is "filming too long," or simply asked to "Go away" or "Get out of here." The archival footage she finds seems to make clear that the west's two most important "gifts" to the east, so far as North Korea is concerned, have been movies and nuclear testing. Toward the end we watch what looks like a school program being performed for officials and full of song and tears and propaganda -- all at the service of the state.

Songs From the North is a highly personal movie, for which Ms Yoo did the writing, directing, cinematography and editing. Whether or not it will translate to you is questionable, I think. It worked for me only in fits and starts, and even then, what it left me thinking and feeling seems to go counter to what the filmmaker herself thought and felt. You can sympathize, maybe even empathize with these North Koreans, certainly. But getting a clue to what might be going through their minds?
Sorry. No can do.

The documentary, from Kino Lorber, opens this coming Friday, September 18, in New York at Anthology Film Archives and in Los Angeles at RedCat on November 23.

Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg/James Franco's THE INTERVIEW: Relax, it's worth the $6 stream

The first maybe 25 minutes of the much-bandied-about movie, THE INTERVIEW, is so on-target and funny that you're going to be shocked that the comedy didn't get better reviews. Most audiences, it seems, are going to the film -- in theaters, at least -- to help champion freedom of speech. Or, in this case, freedom of watch. That's commen-dable -- though one might wish for this kind of support in turning back climate change. Still, this new movie, with a screenplay by Dan Sterling, is certainly the "film of the year," so far as making news is concerned.

What with its distributor, Sony, doing back flips and pretzel twists in order to somehow "make everything all right," the fact that the film has ended up on theaters screens and digital streaming for the holidays seems a major accomplishment, considering all that has gone before (much of it for which Sony itself can take credit). After initially blaming North Korea for the hacking, it now seems more likely that Sony insiders (or ex-insiders) might be responsible for the hacking and leakage. Whatever eventually comes out, the movie, co-directed by Evan Goldberg (shown at right) and its co-star Seth Rogen (below, right) begins on such a fast-paced, funny and high note that you will fear it cannot possibly maintain this pace and humor for its full length. And you'd be right.

The reason for this, from what I can ascertain, is that its co-directors, writer, and co-star/co-executive producer (James Franco, above, left, and below, right) know and care a hell of a lot more about celebrity, success and the Hollywood life than they do about North Korea. Consequently, when the movie concentrates on satirizing the former, it is riotous and on the mark. When it reaches North Korea, about half an hour in, it relies mostly on the usual blather about that sad, dictatorial little country and, plot-wise, offers up the usual coincidence, cliche, and mostly silly nonsense of every other ordinary, tired, would-be action comedy.

Don't get me entirely wrong: There are some funny moments that take place in the Korean section. But these are too few and far between to count for much overall. Plus, the humor here relies so flagrantly on fart, poop and butthole references that one does begin to wonder, after a time, how not-so-wide-ranging are the interests of these filmmakers. What they care about most seems to concern what comes out of (and goes into) the male anus. To each his own, as they say.

The North Korea section is funniest, again, when Franco and filmmakers stick to the travails of celebrity, in which the pudgy little dictator, Kim Jong-un (played quite charmingly/nastily by Randall Park, above, center) appears to find himself enmeshed. Otherwise the movie relies on the obvious and usual: women as sex objects (more like beards for the over-the-top homo-eroticism between our boys) and blowing things up. There's even a cutesy dog (below) used for cuddly irony.

One wonders, after awhile, why the writer could not have spent a tad more time trying to come up with even a remotely believable scenario. Instead, our twosome gets into North Korea so easily and manages to outwit its rather small cadre of dictator-protectors with no problem whatsoever. (Even the expected cavity search of the Rogen character -- he's carrying a small missile up his ass -- is not done at the moment when it obviously should be. Then, rather stupidly, that search is mentioned after the fact.)

If Rogen merely does his usual good work, Mr. Franco comes through with flying colors. The actor is sensationally good at kidding his own image, calling to question the reality of each situation by milking it for every bizarre layer. He is getting to be a master at this sort of thing -- while entertaining us like crazy. So, if you miss its Christmas theatrical run, you can stream The Interview online as we did (via YouTube) for just six bucks. That's a hell of a lot cheaper than paying $23 (the typical price for two senior tickets here in NYC), and you can cuddle on the couch while you view.