MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*
Though a fair number of American giant-monster movies are subcombative-- not least the one that started the deluge in the 1950s-- Asian kaiju flicks tend to be combative, following the GODZILLA model in one way or another. But such is not the case with this ultra-obscure Korean monster-flick-- though the reason for this development is less aesthetic than budgtary.
In short, none of the giant monsters in WAR were created for the film but were derived from clips taken from tokasatsu TV shows, mostly from one ULTRAMAN serial or another. Of course none of the various Ultramen appear, so all the clips just show five monsters-- none of whom appear together-- appearing to menace cityscapes or refineries and getting shot at by jet fighters. This ephemeral activity doesn't move the movie into the combative realm, and at movie's end the monsters just go away, since the main characters of WAR have no budget with which to get rid of the invading beasties.
Yet I enjoyed WAR for the three central characters-- Doctor Kim, a widower whose scientific reputation was ruined for predicting monsters would be spawned by climate change, his little daughter Sohee, and Kang, a young female reporter who infiltrates Kim's house for a news story by pretending to be a housekeeper. The climate change idea is silly and not supported by even horror-movie logic, but the human story-- that of father and daughter mourning the loss of Kim's late wife-- kept me interested because of the skill of the three actors involved.
Though I've not seen all the films directed by Jeong-yong Kim, the sensitivity and light humor he contributes to the setup could not be more different from my impression of him as a maker of chopwacky kung-fu films, like BRUCE LEE'S WAYS OF KUNG FU. I still can't rate the mythicity highly, but the human drama is at least passable.
No comments:
Post a Comment