Part 8 of our report on the always-outstanding 2007 Subway Cinema New York Asian Film Festival, which runs until July 8 (schedule here):

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The Show Must Go On
AKA: Uahan Segye
Country and Year: South Korea (2007)
Director: Han Jae-rim
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)
Review by: David Austin

In The Show Must Go On, Song Kang-ho, possibly the most enjoyable Korean film actor today, plays a middle-aged, middle-management gangster named In-gu. The set-up finds In-gu caught between the escalating demands of his wife and daughter, and his increasingly hazardous racketeering activities, including a stupendous brawl between construction workers and mobsters, and a semi-comical botched assassination attempt in a convenience store. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Korean gangster movies like A Bittersweet Life, The Show Must Go On, and Cruel Winter Blues, it’s that Korean gangsters, like Shakespearean characters, can get a lot done even after receiving massive puncture wounds.

Throughout, director Han Jae-rim (Rules of Dating) plays In-gu’s situation for dark comedy, but as the film continues, audiences will note that the darkness increases while the comedy begins to fade away. Song’s In-gu is the guy who would get offed by the hero without a second thought in the typical film – in fact, The Show Must Go On plays like an antidote to the badder-than-bad, cooler-than-cool Korean screen gangsters. In-gu and his fellows are more akin to the losers in Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor Or Humanity series, there is no art to their violence only brawling. Ultimately, The Show Must Go On, with an excellent performance at its center, serves to deglamorize that which it depicts.

Check back for our interview with director Han Jae-rim, to be posted soon.

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Hula Girls
Country and Year: Japan (2006)
Director: Lee Sang-il
Rating: 2 ½ out of 4 stars (above average)
Review by: Jeff

Over the past few years, there have been several Japanese movies about girls who form a performing arts ensemble, thereby defying the disapproval and suspicion of their families and friends. Linda Linda Linda and Swing Girls both squarely fit into this category. These two films both transcended the tired “underdog” subgenre by telling very intimate, finely observed stories devoid of any forced melodrama or unrealistic “big” emotional moments. Not so Hula Girls, which, although very charming, is an undeniably slick product and an example of Japanese cinema at its most commercial.

Purportedly based on actual events, Hula Girls tells the story of a desolate mining town in 1960s Japan that is launched into despair following the announcement that the town’s mine will be closed. To make up for some of the jobs that will be lost, the commercial
interests that run the town announce that they will be opening a Hawaiian-style resort, utilizing the town’s hot springs to provide “tropical” heat and its young women to provide entertainment as hula dancers. Although most of the town is horrified by this idea, a few
uncoordinated girls who have never previously danced agree to learn how to hula dance under the tutelage of a washed-up, alcoholic dancer from Tokyo.

Of course, the girls will learn to become amazing hula dancers, but not before lessons are learned, hugs are exchanged, and prejudices are overcome. But, as clichéd as these events might be, they proceed in a quite entertaining fashion that had large segments of the audience audibly and visibly laughing one minute and crying the next. The film has other positive attributes as well. The period detail is consistently fascinating, from the farm animals who wander around the mining town to the dance teacher’s stunning Jackie Kennedy-style outfits and flip hairdos. The performances are memorable as well. In particular, Yû Aoi is charming as the lead student, and gets another chance to show off the dancing skills she demonstrated in Shunji Iwaii’s Hana and Alice. Indeed, all of the women who play the titular characters appear to be fine dancers. As I watched Hula Girls, I realized I have never previously seen real hula dancing. It’s pretty amazing stuff — athletic, percussive, and less kitschy than one would think.

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Additional Links:
::: The official Subway Cinema NYAFF 2007 website
::: CSB Coverage of NYAFF 2006
::: CSB Coverage of NYAFF 2005