The Contact ( Cheob-sok / 접속 -1997)

Starring:
Suk-kyu Han - Dong-hyun
Do-yeon Jeon - Su-heon
Supporting Cast
Sang Mi Chu
Yong Soo Park
Cheol-ho Choi
Tae-woo Kim
Beom-su Lee

The debut feature of Jang Yoon-Hyun (Tell Me Something), The Contact explores the universal human need for connection. It’s just another take on the popular tale of alienation in the urban wasteland, but Jang’s ability to sponge viewers’ emotions adds beauty to an otherwise bleak and common story.

The film is about how a heavily wired society has changed the way people communicate. Unlike most technophobic films, though, Jang explores the way normal people try to overcome this and form real bonds.

Jang’s central characters start out as strangers, with no reason to meet.

Crossing paths countless times throughout the film, they are unaware of each other and how their lives are connected. Radio producer Dong-Hyun (Han Suk-Kyu) and home shopping telemarketer Su-Hyun (Jun Do-Yun) are too haunted by their past loves to notice how life is passing them by. Unable to untangle themselves from the past, they wander through life aimlessly, trapped in their personal bubble of loneliness.
Until they meet on the Internet.

The two are then drawn together by their common interest in Velvet Underground’s music, and what began as a casual electronic chat soon blooms into love. Such is the great mystery of modern life: how two people who have not met can fall in love. Admittedly, words can warm bare souls, but there’s just so much intimacy that can be achieved virtually. -- The Star

Wow! This was a slow movie but it wasn't the boring type of slow. You generally learned about the main characters and their lives. Again, another movie, sort of about fate.

So many times our main characters met each other but didn't really notice the other. You seem to sit there hoping that eventually one or the other will take notice. But the internet intervened and they met through a forum that was hosted by Dong-hyun's radio station. Romance? Not yet. Actually I wouldn't call this a romance. They talked online but never really connected. In the end, when you think snow will fall, romance will bloom. Well, I was a bit confused by the ending. They finally meet but that was it......I didn't feel the connection which really made me angry because I was hoping for some kind of declaration or something.

So, the movie was really good but the ending left me lifeless. For some this might hit the spot but not for me. So that was strange. The movie was sooooo good then came the ending.........

Shiri (Swiri/쉬리 -1999)

Starring:
Suk-kyu Han ... Yu, JongWon
Min-sik Choi ... Park, Mu-young
Yunjin Kim ... Lee, Myung-hyun (Lee, Bang-hee) (as Yoon-jin Kim)
Kang-ho Song ... Lee, Jang-gil
Johnny Kim ... Jung, Dae-Ho (as Derek Kim)
Jeong-min Hwang
Hyeong-seong Jang
Su-ro Kim
Jong-hyeok Lee
Seung-Shin Lee
Yong-woo Park ... Sik
Dae-han Ji
Ju-sang Yun


Locked in a fragile détente with its famine-wracked, communist neighbor to the North, South Korea lives in a state of constant national emergency. It is policed by a task force of special agents whose personal lives have withered and died as they root out infiltrators and sleeper agents, rush from crisis to calamity, pursue rumors of war and chase terrorists who vanish like ghosts. One particular phantom, a female North Korean sniper named Hee, has led agents Ryu (Han Suk-Gyu) and Lee (Song Kang-Ho) through a nightmare of burnt corpses and bloody crime scenes for ten years before suddenly vanishing. One year later she resurfaces, and with her comes a squad of North Korean commandos who have infiltrated Seoul and master-minded the theft of an experimental explosive.

A whirlwind of fear and paranoia engulfs the city as civilian targets are bombed and Agents Lee and Ryu chase an enemy who is always one charred and blackened step ahead of them. As Agent Lee is pulled in two directions by his fragile fiancée, Hyun, and the dead-eyed terrorist, Hee, the personal becomes the political and in the blink of an eye affairs of the political and in the blink of an eye affairs of the heart become affairs of state.

This was a freaking awesome movie!!! OMG! The action was unbelievable. The very beginning of the movie we witness the making of a female sniper in North Korea. It was the coolest thing. That tipped me off that this was going to be good!

I will admit withing the first 30 minutes of the movie I figured out some of the story on my own. I'm sure of you will figure it out...and some of you will still be beating your heads against the wall. Even figuring the plot, it was still an awesome movie.

The ending was perfect. Totally perfect in everyway! Which I can't divulge......

If you don't mind a bit of blood, lots of cool action, suspense, mystery, and drama.....this is the one for you. Add a sprinkle of romance...and voila!

The credits listed my man Lee Jong Hyuk but I saw him nowhere. This was made in 1999 so he was probably an extra. *sigh*

The Scarlet Letter (Juhong geulshi-2004)

This movie is in no way, shape, or form, relatively close to the classic book by Nathanial Hawthorne.



Starring:
Suk-kyu Han ... Ki-hoon
Eun-ju Lee ... Ga-hee
Hyeon-a Seong ... Kyeong-hie
Ji-won Uhm ... Su-hyeon

A detective, his 3 girls & a murder case!

Complex emotional relationships and human nature’s darker sides are explored in this captivating suspense drama about a cop whose lust for love threatens to get in the way of his professional life.

Ki-hoon is guy that doesn’t mind an erotic adventure. Even though he is married to charming and beautiful Soo-hyun, he engages in a passionate affair with his wife’s friend night club singer Ka-hee.

As if things weren’t complicated enough, he suddenly starts being attracted to murder suspect Kyung-hee whom he earlier believed to be involved in the killing of her husband.

Can Ki-hoon finally overcome all the irresistible temptations he encounters in his life ?



I don't know if I like this movie or not. This was one f***ed up movie. First off, Ki-yoon is an a**hole. His wife (Su-hyeon) is pregnant. He's doing her friend (Ga-hee). Then she gets pregnant. All of this while investigating a murder where a woman (Kyeong-hie supposedly killed her husband). And, yeah, he has the hots for her too.

I couldn't find any sympathy for Ki-yoon, Ga-hee, or Kyeong-hie. Su-hyeon was the only one terribly hurt in this terribly emotionally draining story. Watch it at your own risk is all I have to tell you.