2005 / Oh Seok-geun > Mismarketed as a romantic comedy, Love is a Crazy Thing follows the journey of a downtrodden woman with an incompetent husband (whose face we never see), two young sons and a stackload of debt into the wonderful world of Korean “karaoke.” Oh does a good job in not getting carried away with sex industry cliches, balancing properly the woman’s inner emotions with her outside influences. Played impeccably by Jeon Mi-seon, there’s a subtle radiance that grows on her throughout the film. It successfully builds multiple layers around her character and then peels them away. Moreover, the script grounds itself in reality until the climax, so the plausibility of the storyline is not questioned until it needs to be. By the end, there is little doubt that the title of the film, unlike its marketing, was indeed on the spot.

2006 / Moon Seung-wook > Talk about disappointing: Maybe the reason the film fails to grab a genre (or fuse multiple genres) is because it has four scriptwriters behind it, including the penwoman behind the blockbuster Silmido. Or maybe it’s because I expected quite a bit more from newly famed actress Kim Ji-soo and her follow-up to the quiet but engaging This Charming Girl. Whatever it may be, it brings forth the ridiculously annoying trend in Korean cinema where there’s a 180° turn smackdab in the middle of the film. Is this really necessary? Can you not be a little more skillful in pacing your film and story development? I could understand doing this once in a while if it wasn’t so common in an industry, but the technique runs rampant in the land of kimchi. And that’s just rotten, as Kim and Kim Ki-duk veteran Jo Jae-hyeon were putting on quite a show until the lights went out.

2006 / Oh Ki-hyun > There’s a very interesting concept hidden in this otherwise cliche’d film about blackmail. In a way it’s a gimmick, but one that could be utilized to perfection by a director with a different approach. Moreover, don’t avoid watching this film because of its posters: They’re deceivingly comic and unfitting to the feel and sense of the film.