I Wish I Had A Wife (2001) @ 나도 아내가 있었으면 좋겠다

At a glance:

Park Heung-sik's I Wish I Had A Wife 나도 아내가 있었으면 좋겠다 is the worst Korean movie experience a man can get. Forget the wife, you’d sooner wish you had a life – instead of havin to spend time and money watchin this. While its advantages are few and far between, the problems abound shamelessly. Revolvin around a bank teller with serious personality issues, our man goes on a subdued panic attack after he realises the undeniable emptiness in his borin white-collar workin life gives him nobody to call when he is stuck on a subway train for an hour. Amazin then – he concludes that he needs a wife. Our hero-with-a-calculator Bong-soo (Sul Kyoung-gu) goes on a 100-minute meanderin moan about his solitude. His ponderings are so secular, self-indulgent and ridiculous that it becomes shockin to see somethin so uninterestin go up on screen for a feature-length movie. True to Korean cinema clichés (read: everythin is more important than it really is), there are hardly any movie messages to note when Mr. Need-A-Wife hunts his bride far and wide, illogically ignorin the cute school teacher who fancies him. This mouse of a woman, Won-Ju (Jeon Do-yeon), is so terribly cute, one is in danger of bleedin pumpkin pies from one’s ears whenever she graces the screen.

Bad news on the doorstep:
Peppered with Bong-soo’s random magic tricks (he can poke an invisible hole through a 1000-won note!) and other miscellaneous fillers like CCTV footage of what bored people do at the ATM booth, I Wish I Had A Wife has but one savin grace as defence - the awkward courtship between the lead pair is quirky enough to be screen-worthy at times because it is more realistic than the picture-perfect Hollywood plot devices we are used to. Is this enough for you to watch it?

Perennial wonderment:

One suspects that this is actually an ill-advised direct and unaltered adaptation from some writer’s own experience. This movie is too quiet without being poignant, too random without bein artsy, and perhaps too ‘real’ to make a movie out of. Even if you pardon the soppy music score, askin an audience to sit through a low-key drama about one man’s wife-hunt with so little reward is truly selfish on the filmmakers’ part.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

It refused to be a ‘good’ bad movie when it could – and worse, to end when it should. You couldn’t leave the cinema seat faster. ★1/2

Read My Lips (2001) @ Sur Mes Lèvres

At a glance:
Vince Cassel (pic) can't put a foot wrong since La Haine (1995) and doesn't seem to be turnin on his trademark villainous roles anytime soon. As he walks into the first scene with his prison scars and dishevelled hair, all the old movie charm of Parisian disenfranchisement comes crashin in, like waves of twisted energy he so often ebbs. Story follows that deaf social retard finds roguish convalescent ex-con. They meet, they talk and they have every reason to fall in love but never really do. Pretty well contained flick with careful cinematography and an excellent score to boot. Sexiest advantage lies in the reluctant yet real chemistry between its two stars, adversaries and friends in equal measures.
Bad news on the doorstep:
Could get slow for some but take consolation that this is a more universal type of French flick.
Perennial wonderment:
In perhaps 20 odd films I've seen Cassel in (count not the Hollywood by-products like Ocean's Thirteen) this movie is one of the few rare ones in which his female co-star actually matches his talent. As the uncomfortable secretary of a property development firm, Emmanuelle Devos (pic, you might remember her if you've seen The Beat That My Heart Skipped in 2005 who was directed by the same man) is at once urban ugly and yet awkwardly beautiful - the sort of uncomfortable character that drives a mystery-thriller like this to another level of entertainment. She won a Best Actress César for this performance.
Reminds me of:
The 1994 Captives situation where bad boy prisoner Tim Roth romanced nerdy dentist Julia Ormond on the toilet floor. Read My Lips explains why things will never be the same for people who cross paths this way.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Happy to give four stars for the stark and sometimes sensual. There's dirty love on decadent Parisian streets and escape for the two characters remain a romantic possibility for the entire duration of the film. In Read My Lips, the soundlessness of sex is louder than ever.

Poison (2001) @ Thy Neighbor's Wife

At a glance:
What, just one glance? You won't be able to take your masturbatatory eyes off Kari Wührer, star slut of this B-grade erotic thriller, styled like an oversexed version of The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992). She's got heat. More than Rebecca De Mornay in that movie, but admittedly less than, say, Liz Berkeley in Showgirls (1995).
Perennial wonderment:
Why this fine piece of MTV VJ booty never made it big beyond shyte TV movies like Eight Legged Freaks (2002) and The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003). Probably because her best asset is her body, as she herself concedes. Oh well, there's more to life than bein a big movie star. She's married with three kids now.
Reminds me of:
Any sort of sexual activity near a swimmin pool. That nude-coloured bikini is still in my head after all these years.
Watch out for:
The bit where she has sad sex with the cryin dad and also the bit where she straddles the stupid-lookin son on the bed and fucks him silly.
Most memorable line:
Wasn't payin attention to any.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
★★ 1/2  for some decent sleazy entertainment. For a more substantial movie starrin Kari Wührer, check out King Of The Ants (2003).