A Company Man (2013)

 

Hyeong Do, an assassin who look just like a company worker. He wants to stop but things doesn't go easy like he thought.

I put off this movie for a while. Can't say why. It sounded good, but I was just never in the mood for it.

The Cast: 

• A dedicated hitman who is a rising star in his company of secret assassins.
• Middle Management
• The rest of the company

The Situation:

Losing interest in his work, a top hitman makes a few career altering decisions, (finding love, leaving people alive, etc.) that can't go ignored in his industry. And they don't due to his meddling middle manager who has had it in for our hero since his star had begun to rise.

A Company Man was a pretty good film overall. A lot of action, a lot of gun fights and unfortunately drama. But in reality, the story is about a conflicted hitman who is losing his zeal for the job, so you kinda have to expect drama. In exchange for putting up with that however, the climactic scene sees a pissed off Hyeong Do return to the company and engage in  gun battles with all the current employees as he makes his way to his former boss. 

Violence? Yes
Explosions? No
Nudity? No

Read More

The Thieves (2012)

This slick caper finds Korean and Chinese personal thieves joining forces to pinch a $20 million diamond from an impenetrable casino vault.

Two competing teams of thieves (Team China and Team Korea) Team up to do a  job worth a potential $20 million. Their task is to steal a necklace which belongs to notorious Chinese gangster, Wei Hong and sell it back to him. They have a very well thought out plan, but as they've said numerous times, they are thieves and none of them should be trusted.

---------------------

I would describe The Thieves as Ocean's Thirteen meets Smoking Aces. A slick crime caper that starts as a slow burn heist thriller and becomes a convoluted tale of revenge and misperceptions after a botched casino robbery.

You know what's crazy about these movies? They almost always pull off improbable heists, in broad daylight and somehow no one ever sees anything or notice anything astray. It's ridiculous, and as cheesy as they are though, I think I just like heist flicks.

Violence? Yes
Explosions? No
Nudity? No

Read More

The Tower (2012)

A Christmas party at a luxury high rise in Seoul turns into a nightmare when two helicopters collide over the building, starting a deadly fire.

Tower Sky is the largest residential skyscraper in south Korea. 110ft twin towers with a sky bridge at the 70th floor. On the night of their big xmas party, two helicopters, carrying artificial snow, hit an updraft, lose control and crash into the buildings. When the gas tank of the first plane explodes, the top half of the building is engulfed in flames. It was discovered that the sprinkler system has frozen pipes and as a result there is no water above the 60th floor. 

The Firefighters, who have worked quickly to extinguish the fires at its point of origin, and have evacuated most of the building,  are under pressure from their Commissioner to neglect the people trapped in a restaurant on the bottom floor and save the remaining important people first. Also, due to the intense heat, the building itself is fracturing and suffering structural damage which may cause it to collapse. To head that off, there are plans to blow it up, regardless of who is left inside.

//////////////

The Destruction was like 9/11 times 9/11

The Tower is a Korean version of The Towering Inferno and 9/11. People are trapped in a high rise that suddenly catches fire. It will collapse due to structural damage. Aside from that, the film is itself is dramatic, (so be prepared for that) but the action scenes and visual effects are dope and they secretly carry the film. (Only because some of the characters are terrible.)

If nothing else, The Tower is something to watch on a rainy day. Especially if you liked The Towering Inferno and/or want to relive 9/11.

 

Violence? Hot man on fire action
Explosions? Hot fire on concrete action
Nudity? Nope

Read More

The Man From Nowhere (2010)

***An iCheck Movies Listed Film***

 

 

 

A quiet pawnshop keeper with a violent past takes on a drug- and organ trafficking ring in hope of saving the child who is his only friend.

The Cast:

• Badass that just wants to be left alone
• Little girl who warms his heart
• Druggie mom who dances for dollars
• Korean gangsters who are tough guys until they eat a fist or two

The Situation:

After a woman steals a brick of heroin, Korean Gangsters track her down, cut her up and take her daughter. Their neighbor, a reluctant badass and friend of the little girl, gets caught up in the drama when the thugs knock over his shop and rushes out to save her from a grisly fate.

The Resolution:

Badass man goes full Taken and cleans house in route to save the girl. When he gets some bad news, his pissed off meter goes to over 9000(!!!) and he wrecks even more shop.

//////////////////////////////////////

The Man From Nowhere is one of the best crime thrillers to come from (South) Korea. As it starts off, it seems very similar to The Professional, but it quickly takes a different turn once the ball gets rolling and becomes more comparable to Taken. That's not to say it's the same, but Nowhere borrows from both films while guiding the film down a different path. 

It's a solid foreign flick that's action packed, fight filled and well acted. Here's the trailer so judge for yourself.

Violence? Yes
Explosions? Of fists to the face
Nudity? Itty bitty titty

Read More

Sector 7 (2011)

While searching for valuable petroleum deposits off the coast of Korea, an oil riff crew encounters a terrifying sea monster.

Not much goes down until the monster shows. Just a bunch of Koreans living on an oil ship, waiting to strike gold. A lot of the early stuff is just to establish characters and character relations, but it drags.

Having not found oil, They are ready to abandon the mission but resident tomboy and resident hardass, Cha Hae-Jun, stubbornly refuses to quit and actually manages to get a few more months tacked onto the project.

Things start to pick up after one of the crew members dies of an apparent suicide. Hae-Jun gets an uneasy feeling and begins to search the ship. Something leaps out of a cabinet and makes its way through the ship. Killing at random.

[Funny thing is, if she had allowed them to abort the mission, they wouldn't have ever faced the monster. They would have lived awesome stress free lives. But they stayed and you know what eventually revealed itself. Ah Well.] One of the crew survives an attack and alerts them to the fact that there's a monster on the ship. In the middle of a storm that seems to have knocked out their power, the remaining crew have no choice but to seek out and destroy the monster if they aim to live.

This monster looks like something out of Resident Evil

What we know (about this monster)

• It's a product of bad CGI
• It's sea based
• It has a whip like and barbed tongue
• It's blood is flammable but fire pisses it off.
• It can climb walls
• Super thick skin
• It may or may not be attracted to oil
• Although it was found in underwater, it was bred in a lab.

 

Sector 7 is a decent movie,  It's a popcorn flick. Something to throw on and watch when there's no other options. It's entertaining, but I'm really not a fan of the monster. It just looks wrong. And crappy.

I like sea monsters, but If I should ever run into one, you best believe I'm gonna make sure I'm carrying about tree fiddy

 

Violence? Yes
Explosions? No
Nudity? No

Read More

Killer Girl K (2011) [TV Series]

After her mother is kidnapped and killed, a young woman who was (already quite bad ass) joins a shadowy group to get the revenge training she needs. When she eventually accomplishes that task, she wants to retire. But to do so she'll have to fight her way out of the company.


Killer Girl K/Little Girl K is an action filled Korean series. It doesn't break new ground, but it does look good and the fight scenes are well done.

             

Sexy. Bad Ass. Women. They even did an their own stunts.

Here's a fight scene that I think you'll enjoy. Decide for yourself if it's worth checking out or not:

Violence? Yes
Explosions? No
Nudity? Yes

Read More

War of the Arrows (2012)

Set during the second Manchu invasion of Korea, Nam Yi, the best archer in Korea, goes up against the Qing Dynasty to save his younger sister Ja In - who was dragged away by Manchurians. 

After watching their father killed in a nighttime raid, two children escape to the countryside to live with his trusted friend. 13 years pass and the brother, Nam-Yi is set in his ways, resigned to the fact that he'll never be regarded as more than the child of a traitor. His sister, Ja-In however is very headstrong and proud. On the day of her wedding, the castle is attacked and ransacked by the Evil Manchu army, with both the bride and groom being taken among many others. Just how ruthless were the Manchurians? They ripped a baby from a woman's arms and casually tossed it down a well.

Mmm...Evil

After a short battle, Nam-Yi returns to the castle, only to find it in shambles. As he chases the Manchurians, seeking to free his sister, he draws the attention of their top general who will stop at nothing to see him dead.

Slow and confusing in the beginning, War of the Arrows picks up as the stakes get higher. I'm not a fan of archers, but this film gave them the bad ass treatment and I was definitely impressed.

Out of Ten? 7

Violence? Yes
Explosions? No
Nudity? No

Read More

Punished (2011)

Thirsting for vengeance after baddies kidnap and kill his daughter, über-rich real estate developer Wong Ho-chiu sends his ex-con bodyguard Chor after the killers with instructions to slay them mercilessly -- and to videotape each brutal murder.

After a fight with his drug addicted daughter, he learns that she's been kidnapped. Thinking she's behind it, he initially shrugs it off but he reluctantly agrees to pay the $50 million ransom. He finds her dead a day later and basically swears vengeance on those involved and pays his bodyguard another 50 to get it done.

Punished is not a horrible flick. It's just not terribly entertaining. It its more of a revenge drama as opposed to revenge action. Decent performances supported the film and the vengeance scenes themselves were good. (Especially because there's a sledgehammer.)

I understand that vengeance is methodical, so a slow burn is to be expected yet I felt that it moved a bit too slow.

Out of Ten? 5.5

Violence? Yes
Explosions? No
Nudity? No

Read More

Bestseller - 2010

After she is accused of plagiarism, a best-selling author retreats with her young daughter to a country villa that was once a war-time orphanage. Intending to work on a new book, she encounters the supernatural instead.

Within 20 min of moving into a remote location, the daughter talks to ghosts. They barely got to put their bags down.

Even in Asian cinema, a creepy little kid is still a creepy little kid.

At first she dismisses her daughters "friend" (naturally) then She intends to write a story about her. (for fun and profit). She writes and publishes the ghost's story and she is accused of plagarizing a story written 5 years ago. According to her, she couldn't have plagarised her story. She's never read the original book and she heard the story from her daughter. But she has a complete mental breakdown when faced with the truth that her daughter has been dead for quite some time.

So, How can two writers write the same exact story in the same exact way? She decides to go back to the house to discover the truth. The movie then becomes less of a ghost story and more of a murder mystery as she tries to figure out exactly who the killers are and why.

Man, this is like the 4th or fifth movie I've seen with writers who move to remote locations and encounter the supernatural. I'm starting to see a pattern. Ghosts love writers in remote locations.

I hate writing and remote locations. I think I'm safe...I hope...

Bestseller somehow develops both slowly and quickly at the same time. The ghost shit, voices, visions, messages happen fairly quickly and I mean within the first 30 min of the film. The shit getting real part and character development takes longer. the story takes it's sweet ass time moving forward. It's as if they were trying to get the ghost shit out of the way, so they could get to the mystery shit.

Speaking of mystery, why does this old lady keep showing up and how does she beat you in a foot race?

Man...that lady is like 100. Korean cardio is no joke.

Out of ten? 5.5

This movie drags. It felt like it took an hour to get through the last 30 minutes.

Violence? Yes
Explosions? No
Nudity? No

Read More

Oldboy

OldBoy is a solid Asian revenge flick.

The gist of the flick is this:

Kidnapped and Imprisoned for 15 years, Oh Dae-Su, trains himself to fight, escapes, and is hell bent on uncovering the identity of the one who put him away.

Read More