Hello, and welcome once again to another “Five Cool Things and…,” the biweekly article where I talk about all the cool and interesting things I’ve discovered since the last time. This time I’m talking about the 1970s disaster movie that started them all, a couple of terrific South Korean serial-killer films, a very goofy science fiction film from Hong Kong, a pretty great revival of a horror franchise from the 2000s, and a rare excursion for me into the actual movie theaters.
Let’s get started.
Airport
The 1970s were a great time for movies. The studio system was dying, giving rise to more risk-taking independent films. Young directors who had been raised on classic cinema were taking the helm, creating a new sort of Hollywood. A ratings system had been implemented, destroying the old Hays Code, allowing for more mature films to be made. Looking back, the ’70s were one of the greatest decades for movies to ever exist. Also, they made a lot of disaster movies.
Buy Airport 4K UHDAirport (1970) started it all and set the template for the genre for the rest of the decade. Sporting a large cast of both old and young actors (including Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, and Van Heflin), Airport has a relatively small-scale disaster that involves a snowstorm wreaking havoc and a man with a small bomb on board one of the airplanes.
But what it lacks in size it more than makes up for in good storytelling. Disaster movies would go off the rails pretty quickly afterward, bringing in bigger and bigger (and more unrealistic) disasters while sacrificing things like characters and good writing, but Airport keeps things grounded and the film is all the better for it.
Kino Lorber is releasing all four films in the Airport franchise in 4K UHD. I’ll be reviewing all of them soon.
The Chaser
Joong-ho (Kim Yoon-seok) is a former cop turned pimp who is coming to realize that pimp life isn’t all that easy. A few of his girls have recently gone missing, and now one of his other girls has called in sick. With a client waiting, he pressures her to get to work. She reluctantly agrees, leaving her young daughter at home alone. After she’s met the john, Joong-ho realizes that it was this client, Yeong-min (Ha Jung-woo), who was the last person to see the missing girls before they disappeared. He’s sure this man is selling the girls into sex slavery.
In fact, what he’s doing is much worse. Yeong-min is a depraved serial killer.
Buy The ChaserJoong-ho uses some of his old police connections to start looking for Yeong-min. A normal movie would turn this into a cat-and-mouse game, but The Chaser is not a normal movie. They actually catch Yeong-min pretty quickly. He tells them that his latest victim is probably still alive, but he won’t say where she is. Also, there isn’t exactly a lot of real evidence to convict him.
The film takes lots of interesting twists and turns, always doing what you least expect. For example, Joong-ho eventually finds that young daughter, and not knowing what to do with her, he winds up taking her with him as he searches for the killer. This allows him to see how his own treatment of women is rather morally bankrupt.
The film is dark and violent, but also really good.
The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil
I don’t know about you, but often I’ll watch a movie and really like it, then turn to something similar for my next viewing. Sometimes that means a film by the same director, or producer, or actor, and sometimes that means returning to the same genre. After watching The Chaser, I was in the mood for another dark South Korean serial killer tale, and this film hit that bill precisely.
Buy The Gangster, The Cop, The DevilThis one finds Jung Tae-suk (Kim Mu-yeol) a police detective convinced that a recent murder is the work of a serial killer. The culprit rear-ended another vehicle and then stabbed the driver to death when he got out of the car. Something similar had happened several times in other districts, leading to his serial-killing conclusion. But the higher-ups aren’t having it. They don’t need that kind of publicity.
But then the killer picks on the wrong guy. Jang Dong-soo (Ma Dong-seok) is a hulking figure and a crime boss. When the killer attacks him, he attacks back. They both get stabbed, but the killer escapes. Learning this, Jung Tae-Suk realizes Jang Dong-soo will also want to catch the killer. Together, they can pull their resources and catch him quick. The Gangster and The Cop team up to catch The Devil.
The juxtaposition between the straight-laced but determined cop and the brooding, violent gangster is so much fun. But the film also points to how the cop often abuses innocent people to get what he wants and the gangster can be kind, blurring the lines between who is good and who is not.
It is a stylish, smart and slick film and I highly recommend it.
Final Destination Bloodlines
Everything old is new again, or at least being rehashed, rebooted, or reborn again and again in theaters and on television. Final Destination was one of the better horror franchises that came out of the 2000s.
Buy Final Destination BloodlinesThe plots were simple. In the beginning of the film, a character would have a premonition about a terrible disaster in which they would die a horrible (and surprisingly complicated) death. They then find a way to save the day only to realize that Death will not be deterred, and it comes after everybody that was saved.
But the plots aren’t what anybody watches these films for. We come for the kills, and they are often awesome. The films set up these complicated Rube Goldberg mechanizations in which to kill the characters. But they will also throw in red herrings, things that look like they will become deadly only to prove to be benign. It is great fun trying to figure out what will kill them and how, and then to be proved wrong.
Not all the films are good; in fact, some of them are pretty bad, and by the time the fifth film hit theaters, it was clear to everyone that the franchise needed a break. And now it’s back. The nice thing about these films is that there is no real through line in terms of plot or characters. Each film more or less resets itself. The sequels do often mention the other films, but only in terms of understanding this type of thing has happened before. The only returning character is the late, great Tony Todd, who basically just gives the character exposition and points them towards a solution to their problem.
Which means this new film isn’t a legacy sequel. It doesn’t try to bring in old characters alongside new ones. It doesn’t have to expand the mythology. It does what it always does – find inventive ways to kill its characters – and it does that really well.
The Cat
The Cat is an utterly ridiculous but kind of awesome, science-fiction film from director Lam Nai-Choi. Three space aliens flee their planet and land on Earth. There, they take the form of two humans and a cat for some reason. The villainous aliens they are running away from don’t bother with disguises. They look like goopy blobs from an old 1950s flick.
The story is utter nonsense, but it has that “go-for-broke, we know this movie is ridiculous, but we’re gonna make-it-anyway” bit to it, and it is so much fun to watch. 88 Films has just released a great-looking Blu-ray of the film, and you can read my review.
The Roses
This remake of The War of the Roses (1989) stars Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch as a British couple living in America. They have a meet-cute, get married, and have twins. Time passes. His dreams of becoming a successful architect fail when his first big project collapses during a storm. Shortly after, she becomes a huge success as a chef. Tension rises, and they begin fighting, which leads to a heated divorce. This is a pitch-black comedy.
It works quite well when Colman and Cumberbatch are trading incisive barbs. At one point he quips, “Sometimes Ivy’s mad at me and I can’t even tell,” to which she responds, “Sometimes he’s got his cock in me and I can’t even tell!” It works less well when it is doing…well, almost anything else. Luckily. those two spend most of the film sparring and that’s great fun.
