Change Your Image
gerrandr
Reviews
Won Deo Umeon (2021)
Superb acting by Le Ha Nee
Le Ha Nee steals the show. Her comedy is impeccable, and it's worth watching for her alone. She plays two roles: an ostensibly corrupt Prosecutor plus the victimised daughter-in-law of a corrupt Chaebol family. She is hit by a car and loses her memory, with the family believing she is their daughter-in-law. Her personality as the Prosecutor is fiery, blunt and commanding, whereas her personality as the daughter-in-law is timid and long-suffering. Le Ha Nee plays both superbly.
The 16 part series is an intricate story of the events that stem from the arson murder of the father of Le's love interest many years earlier, and the implications both personal and for the business, and for politics.
The rest of the cast, the writing, cinematography and direction are excellent, too.
K-dramas can be addictive, and this is one of them.
The Contract (2006)
Intelligent thriller
I saw this last night on cable TV, and having read Bruce Beresford's comments about it in his recent amusing book, I expected a bad film. But not so. I thoroughly enjoyed it. All the negative reviewers here seem to have seen a different movie to the one I saw last night (and the one seen by all the positive reviewers). Maybe because it was witty and the characters had a semblance of reality to them, unlike the last thriller I saw, Quantum of Solace, which was laughably ridiculous. I recommend this movie, and predict that in ten years it will be seen as a cult classic.
Beresford had the finances pulled out from under him two-third's through the shoot, so he had to improvise around the fact that he couldn't do some of the stunts he had expected to do. Yet you wouldn't know it from seeing the film. The helicopter scenes look OK (maybe on really close inspection they might not) and ditto the limo wreck.
Both Morgan Freeman and John Cusack are great, and the reason Cusack's character decides to take Freeman's character in is because he is a former cop, and thinks he can and should do so.
Me Myself & I (2004)
An excellent alternate life movie
In this Australian/French co-production directed and written by Pip Karmel, Rachel Griffiths (6 Feet Under) excels as a 30 something single journalist with a string of disastrous brief relationships, who after hilariously attempting suicide numerous ways finds herself in an alternate life where she married to her schooldays sweetheart (David Roberts) and has three children. The movie shows how she learns to cope with her new life; it's a bit like Sliding Doors, but Griffiths is much better than Paltrow. The pressures of suddenly being a mother to difficult children is handled with comic timing by Griffiths, and a beau from her former life (Sandy Winton) adds complications when she has to work out whether she prefers him or her 'new' husband. Tightly directed, with great energy, it's a fine movie.