andjel

Hallelujah

the movie is more of the first one, but it hits stronger since the cycle of crime, double crossings and death continues and has a deeper meaning knowing the context. this movie on its own offers a look to the past movie and past events so watching the first movie is not necessary. The characters were very brutal and charismatic, they are both monsters and humans.
but i wonder about the title "Believer". yes we have one gangster who is a believer and knows his bible so that he can quote it in certain situations but that is more of an example what it means to sin against the second commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
ultimately, is there belief and God in this movie? and what is death or justice if there is no God? I would have wanted more hints at that from the movie but i did get a lot to think about. so if you want to look into the soul of some criminals, this movie is for you.

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Remember the Underground Heroes

This is a brave and important movie. It has high artistic as well as social value. I say it is brave because it honours controversial people as heroes, while some may call them terrorists. In my country of Croatia we have people who fought for independence, and history remembers them as terrorists and criminals. But I deeply believe that in the difficult historical circumstances they did the best they could and contributed to the freedom we have today. That’s why I am impressed by how Korea honours her history through this movie and promotes the underground heroes who dedicated everything they had to a higher purpose. We can always debate whether the means were justified, and this movie gives us the chance to evaluate it once again.

From the production side this is a great achievement. I liked the tone of the movie. The nature shots are all very beautiful and memorable, while the majority of the movie is spent behind closed doors in dark spaces filled with cigarette smoke and high-tension conversations about how to face the challenging situations. We don’t learn a lot about the characters, but we learn enough to appreciate them. There is also a clever use of black-and-white scenes when the movie shows past events. But this movie is certainly not black and white. It invites us to draw our own conclusions about the actions of the main characters and to learn more about the history behind it.

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Almost Last Supper

School reunions are always a bit messy. It’s nice to see your old friends, but it can also be awkward to talk to someone based on fragmented memories, without really knowing what has happened in their lives over the last 5, 10, or 20 years. I recently met my primary school classmates for the first time in 25 years, at the anniversary of our graduation and there were some awkward moments.

In this movie, the characters meet regularly, so this is their 23rd reunion, and the title suggests it might be their last. Maybe that is the whole purpose of the film: to show how precious every gathering is, despite all the nonsense. It’s important to make time for friends and with them, anything can happen.

For me, this movie is watchable but it doesn’t have any special value. The actors were engaging in their roles, but the film felt a bit clumsy. The dialogue was mostly unoriginal and the comedy didn’t really work. At least I practiced my Korean while watching, so I won’t complain.

Cheers to all those who still meet up with their old school friends!

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Death of Movies

30 movies in under 2 hours! I didn’t actually count them, and it was hard to stay fully concentrated, so I watched this omnibus film over four sittings. Still, I can say there are a lot of short films here, each one unique, even though they share some similarities.

The first thing that stands out is that most of the shorts, feature two people in conversation and interaction. Many of them also mention or show the number 30, and they are directly or indirectly connected to movies. Each of the 30 short films speaks about the art of cinema — either directly or in an allegorical way through symbols and different filmmaking techniques. They highlight both the challenges of making and watching movies, as well as the reasons to give them another chance.

I liked how each segment feels different and original. The actors were very good, but there’s only so much they can do in under three minutes. Such short stories can have an impact, but they are just too short. In a collection this large (30 films one after another), many of them tend to blend together and lose their individual strength.

Is there any special segment I will remember? Writing this a month after watching i can say that I remember the first short with the woman writing a movie script, the priest chewing gum for three seconds, and the one with the woman with a sword. I can recall a couple more, but many of the shorts were simply too experimental and confusing to remember in the long run.

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Dangerous Family

The Korean title of this film, 가화만死성, means "Blessing of a Harmonious Family," but the Chinese character in the middle (死) means "death." I think the English title Home Sweet Home is quite overused, so they could have chosen something more original.

After watching all three stories, I was wondering what connects them. Is it the religious elements that appear in the first two stories, or revenge, which seems to link the second and third? In the end, I realized the unifying theme is family relationships and how terrifying it becomes when someone you trust turns out to be your enemy. Each story has its own distinct unsettling atmosphere, and all of them are quite interesting.

핏줄 (Bloodline) — This is a real horror story. I would have liked to watch a full-length feature film of this. It was dynamic and scary, but everything felt a bit rushed and ended too quickly.

체크메이트 (Checkmate) — This one is strange. It feels more like a social drama and uses chess as a central analogy. The main character is in constant danger of being put into "checkmate" in his life, yet he desperately tries to make moves that will help him escape his fate.

전세, 역전 (Jeonse Reversal) — Out of the three stories, this one feels the most familiar. It reminds me of many other Korean revenge stories where the victim seeks justice in a cruel way.

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Priest and a Woman

If you see a priest with a woman, what will you think? Probably that something fishy is going on. But that is your problem, not the priest’s. This biographical movie about an important Buddhist monk, Kyung Heo/Gyeongheo, starts with exactly that issue — him accepting a woman into his room. Rumors quickly spread that a monk is with a woman, and so the drama begins.

Kyung Heo, as depicted here, was indeed unconventional, but he had a pure heart and pure intentions — and that is what truly matters, both in Buddhism and in Christianity. As a Catholic priest, I found many connections between our beliefs in this Buddhist movie, especially the message that the Buddha is in each of us, just as Christ is.

On the surface, this is a drama feature, but in reality it is a deeply religious movie with meditative and philosophical moments. Especially in the scenes that are occasionally interrupted by symbolic imagery and, I believe, actual quotes from the monk. We also witness a real temple ritual as the film gently draws us into meditation and reflection on our own hearts and minds.

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Mongolian sound

I don’t know if this can even be called a film. It is so experimental and complicated that it would fit better if it were screened somewhere in a museum accompanied by an explanatory note. The film shows close-ups of static things that feel more like photographs than cinema, accompanied by strange sounds.

The sounds are sometimes present, sometimes absent, sometimes just noise, sometimes a murmur, sometimes the sound of construction work, and sometimes a Mongolian song. I think the director’s intention was to place the emphasis on the sound, so that we listen to his film rather than watch it, but the problem is that the sounds also seem random and it is hard to connect them into any coherent whole or story.

A story can be vaguely discerned, yet it is still difficult to say what is reality and what is imagination. The film is abstract and somewhat depressing. I got a little refreshment from the audiovisual experience of Mongolia in the film. Watching this film is certainly a real experiment. I had a similar experience watching it as when I was renovating a room in our old house together with my father.

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Why God?

There is a famous old Korean movie with the same title from 1977, so this is some sort of remake or reimagining of the story. From the very beginning, it’s clear that this is an amateur film because none of the actors really know how to act, and there are a lot of them. That said, it’s commendable that they are dedicated to their roles and fully immersed in them. From a production standpoint, you can see that the people involved really tried to make everything look convincing. There are plenty of shots and a lot of details.

The child actors, who carry the main story, deserve special praise.

The story itself is beautiful and inspiring, but unfortunately it lacks a bit of tact in its narrative development. Some scenes are too long, some are unnecessary, and some are poorly integrated into the whole. The prayer scene and the conversation with the priest were particularly interesting to me. It doesn’t provide a solution, but it adds some depth to the story. What I liked most, however, was the music — both the melancholic instrumental pieces and the song about the mother who is no longer there.

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Rule the fallen world

After a devastating earthquake the likes of which the world had never seen, we first got Concrete Utopia (2023), a film about a world in the midst of catastrophe with interesting moral questions. Then we set out to explore the collapsed world in Badland Hunters (2024) with a bit more action, and now we have Concrete Market (2025), which takes a step back and returns us to the building that provides an oasis in the middle of the apocalypse, where a plan to take over the top position is taking place.

The only problem is that the film doesn’t really consider the fact that supplies are dwindling and that a market in this form has no long-term sustainability. While watching it, I kept being bothered by the question: what is the point of seizing power over the building when the entire society has no hope or future? We saw too little of the outside world for the setting to feel convincing.

I also missed a bit more action in the film, though at least we got some tension in the mind games between the protagonists, who form fake deals with hidden motives. Still, that wasn’t enough for me because the characters’ motivations aren’t sufficiently developed (perhaps the series version offers better character portrayals), so the film felt occasionally boring.

Nevertheless, I hope for more sequels in this cinematic universe so we can see whether humanity will disappear because of the earthquake or find some kind of new beginning.

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When Worlds Collide

The director is Italian (Giovanni Fumu), the setting is a sort of American small town, and the main characters are Korean. This creates an interesting mix of worlds in a story about a Korean couple who travel to a foreign land, only for something strange to happen. I really liked the story and, as a result, the movie itself.

As a low-budget Korean-American co-production, the film clearly operates with limited resources. This is, of course, a B-level movie with lower production values, and the American actors weren’t particularly strong. Still, the film delivers an uncomfortable sense of suspense and mystery that makes the viewing experience satisfying. From start to finish it keeps adding new layers and never becomes boring or repetitive. Even when the plot occasionally feels illogical, it redeems itself by the end, so I’m very glad to have discovered this movie.

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Privacy Attack

The Distributors (Drama Special episode turned into a feature film) is a solid, complete feature-length mystery-drama-thriller with strong production values and very good acting.

The story centers on the dangerous world of people who distribute private photos and videos online, and on one individual who will fight to unmask the distributor and put a stop to it. Getting your dirty secrets exposed to the public can lead to serious consequences, and the film leans into that premise effectively. If the concept appeals to you, this movie will serve you well.

The plot is straightforward but never boring. Tension builds steadily toward the finale, keeping the pace engaging throughout. While it is not a particularly memorable film that will linger long in the mind, it remains exciting, interesting, and genuinely instructive. It serves as a clear warning about the risks of private content being stolen, shared, and misused. Privacy is one of the defining issues of our time, and the film reinforces the sense that everyone’s privacy is under some form of attack.
Overall, The Distributors is a very solid example of a mystery drama-thriller that delivers on its premise.

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Cinema is something else

So this is certainly one of the movies of all time. I say that because the movie is unique but strange. This is a visual film that depicts several episodes in the life of a cinema, and which should be watched in a cinema, preferably while falling asleep in a comfortable armchair. And I literally fell asleep during the viewing twice, even though I was watching it over the internet on a monitor. The film has no specific plot with a setup and resolution, but only video associations on the theme of watching films.
It consists of 3 segments, or short films.

Chimpanzee (침판지) is about 3 chimpanzees and three friends who watch movies together in the cinema.
Naturally (자연스럽게) is about children whose play becomes a film.
Time of the Movie (영화의 시간) is about… I don’t really know, maybe exactly about how to fall asleep in the cinema.

This is an art film and it’s not really for the general audience, but for those who watch a lot of movies, often go to the cinema, and value film as art, it will certainly be interesting.

PS. In my 40 years of life, I’ve been to the cinema about 700 times. I most often go alone, and about 20 times I was the only viewer in the cinema hall. That’s the feeling I want to share here. Some people like watching movies in a packed cinema full of people, but for me it’s a special feeling when I have the cinema and the film all to myself.

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Conflicted Detectives

Great actors and characters, very intriguing and interesting mystery, but the realisation has its flaws. It feels as if the plot is being built on the spot without having been properly thought through from the beginning, so things don’t fall into place – instead, new details keep getting added on.

Still, the film works excellently as an action comedy with elements of mystery and crime, following detectives who have to solve a tricky case. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a very good choice for anyone looking for a relaxing and entertaining evening film. The laid-back atmosphere is only occasionally interrupted by short but intense scenes of violence.

At the beginning of the film it says it’s based on real events, but I assume most of it is made up, because it’s hard for me to imagine such a crime resolution and the way the criminals act in real life.

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Human Connection

A very lovely film about human relationships that begins with a chance encounter between a Korean man and a Japanese man in a bar, after which their life stories gradually become intertwined.

What I found particularly interesting was watching the Korean speak Japanese and the Japanese man speak Korean — but even more striking was how each of them fills certain needs in the other’s life, becoming a kind of temporary substitute for what is missing.

The actors are charming, and the characters they portray are somewhat unconventional. In fact, much of what happens in the film feels unusual, and in doing so it gently shows that life still has room for new people and unexpected meetings, and that sometimes we can stand in for one another in place of those who are absent. This is not a comedy, yet it will almost certainly put a smile on viewers’ faces and restore a little faith in the humanity and kindness of the people around us.

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Dangerous Hobby

This film has a distinctive atmosphere. It moves slowly, but that very pace heightens the tension in seemingly everyday encounters and situations in a village where everyone knows everything about everyone else, yet peace and justice remain hard to achieve. At the center of the story are two women, and both actresses deliver strong performances. Despite having completely different personalities, they form a connection and begin sharing hobbies that will have far-reaching consequences.

I’m not sure if this was the director’s intention or just my personal impression, but from the very beginning of the film I felt a certain aversion toward the new neighbor and her hobbies. She arrives like a foreign body, and it’s up to each viewer to decide whether her presence improved things or made them worse. In my view, while I liked the performance, I cannot morally agree with the film’s message—though I don’t want to go into spoilers here.

The subtlety in the way the story develops is what makes this film special, but also a bit less accessible to a general audience, while genre fans may find it enjoyable. Watching it, I noticed elements reminiscent of Korean classics such as Bedevilled, No Other Choice, Oldboy, and Parasite. Although the film cannot be directly compared to any of those specifically, it still shares certain connections with them, and fans of that kind of thriller will appreciate this one as well.

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