A Dirty Carnival: deglamorizing the mob
Jun. 10th, 2007 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieJust got back from A Dirty Carnival, a 2006 Korean movie about rise and fall of a small-time gangster.
It was an amazing, bleak, unsentimental movie that made me depressed enough to almost want to slit my wrists.
And I am completely bowled over by Jo In Sung. The movie is all him almost all the time, and he is amazing. I loved him in Bali but this is something entirely else. He projects this mix of frightening crooked intensity, off-kilter violence always ready to erupt and puzzled vulnerability. He is unsaveable, irredeemable, but you care for him anyway. I ended up rooting for a man who is shown stabbing others on screen, terrorizing hard-working people etc etc.
He is evil, but he is not evil enough and that is the tragedy. There is something more in him than being a mere soulless gangster killer, or there could have been. He attempts (clumsily, yet somehow tenderly) to woo the girl he used to be in love with in school (the ticket was worth it just to see JIS kiss on the big screen :D). He tries to take care of his 'boys.' He stabs and kills but he is troubled by it. And that is why he must go, at the end. The next in line taking over (in the endless cycle, just as he took over earlier) has no such trouble at all,no emotional ambivalence.
The protagonist's existence is erased as completely as if he has never been, stabbed by his own men, buried nowhere, all the photos in his wallet burned, like his hopes and thoughts and past and future.
And it all goes on and on and on. The cycle starts again.
I've been depressed for hours.
Another thing that stuck with me is how deglammed it was. The big bossmight have a lot but the gangsters at JIS' level live a hard-scrabble, brutish, poor existence. Yeah.
But seriously, I can't believe JIS pulled it off. In that award speech, he is so (for lack of better terms) humble and meek and gentle. But here, he's half-beast, with so much desperation. I wonder if it's his own normal nice side peeking out that makes you care.
I really must watch something happy with him for once!
P.S. Oh man. I just looked up how old he is. He was 25 when he made this? That's psycho young to be this good. He looks older (his character is 29).
It was an amazing, bleak, unsentimental movie that made me depressed enough to almost want to slit my wrists.
And I am completely bowled over by Jo In Sung. The movie is all him almost all the time, and he is amazing. I loved him in Bali but this is something entirely else. He projects this mix of frightening crooked intensity, off-kilter violence always ready to erupt and puzzled vulnerability. He is unsaveable, irredeemable, but you care for him anyway. I ended up rooting for a man who is shown stabbing others on screen, terrorizing hard-working people etc etc.
He is evil, but he is not evil enough and that is the tragedy. There is something more in him than being a mere soulless gangster killer, or there could have been. He attempts (clumsily, yet somehow tenderly) to woo the girl he used to be in love with in school (the ticket was worth it just to see JIS kiss on the big screen :D). He tries to take care of his 'boys.' He stabs and kills but he is troubled by it. And that is why he must go, at the end. The next in line taking over (in the endless cycle, just as he took over earlier) has no such trouble at all,no emotional ambivalence.
The protagonist's existence is erased as completely as if he has never been, stabbed by his own men, buried nowhere, all the photos in his wallet burned, like his hopes and thoughts and past and future.
And it all goes on and on and on. The cycle starts again.
I've been depressed for hours.
Another thing that stuck with me is how deglammed it was. The big bossmight have a lot but the gangsters at JIS' level live a hard-scrabble, brutish, poor existence. Yeah.
But seriously, I can't believe JIS pulled it off. In that award speech, he is so (for lack of better terms) humble and meek and gentle. But here, he's half-beast, with so much desperation. I wonder if it's his own normal nice side peeking out that makes you care.
I really must watch something happy with him for once!
P.S. Oh man. I just looked up how old he is. He was 25 when he made this? That's psycho young to be this good. He looks older (his character is 29).
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 07:49 am (UTC)If so, you need, need, need, need (!) to hunt for those old "Non-stop" episodes (it's a sitcom; don't remember which seasons he had been in, though...I'll check for you)--if only to revel at this guy's versatility. :)
(P.S. Have you seen "The Classic?" Check it out, if you haven't. If you're in love enough with him to weather the small part, that is. :))
no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 08:05 am (UTC)I hope this is one of the Asian flicks on the international film festival next September.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 12:22 pm (UTC)Sadly realized that the Mika concert I was going to attend with Katrine is Tuesday evening, so I probably couldn't make the movie after all. But would still love to meet for dinner/lunch/to catch up. This week is pretty free for me right now, so just let me know when a good time for you would be!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-11 08:56 pm (UTC)I have that drama with him where he plays an actor. Is it any good? More importantly, any happy ending?
no subject
Date: 2007-06-12 05:43 am (UTC)I haven't seen that drama, and I don't know anything about it, but I'll let you know if and when I find out .
"Non-stop" is something of a Korean equivalent of...say, "Saved by the Bell." It takes place in schools and dormitories. Jo In-sung played a coed. He was in the 4th (?) season, called "New Non-stop." I have an un-subbed episode on my hard drive (where a young Yoon Eun-hye guest starred.) Interested? :)
"The Classic" is a movie. JIS played a small part where was an actor in a stage play (could this be the one you were asking me about?), in love with Son Ye-jin but couldn't express it. It also has something to do with umbrellas and running in the rain. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-12 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 09:48 pm (UTC)