Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 22nd, 2010
In 1993, three of the most influential executives in the entertainment industry decided to pool their talent, resources, and connections into the power company called Dreamworks. It was Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and music mogul David Geffen who formed the studio, at first to contribute to other films in production by other studios. It's no surprise that the studio's first impact was in contributing special effects. In 1997, the studio decided to begin creating their own brand of films. The first of those efforts was the Nicole Kidman/George Clooney post-Cold-War thriller, The Peacemaker.
In many ways the film itself became a victim of the milestone that it represented. It wouldn't be long before Dreamworks would start to live up to those expectations and in a huge way. But in 1997, films like Shrek, Gladiator, and Saving Private Ryan were still a couple of years away. So all of the massive expectations that came with such a powerhouse venture fell on The Peacemaker. And those expectations fell hard. The movie cost over $50 million to make and pulled in only $41 million in its domestic box office run. A mere speed bump in the upwardly mobile future of Dreamworks; a disaster for a film that deserved more attention for its own merits.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2006
Synopsis
Mu-ju is trying to adjust to life again after surviving a terrible accident. Life is still hard, as her eldest daughter suffers from something like autism, and she is having trouble landing a permanent position as a teacher at a music school (plus, a former student has it in for her). The aforementioned eldest daughter becomes obsessed with a cello, and a mute housekeeper moves in, and terrible things begin to happen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 27th, 2006
Synopsis
Private Kang (Jan Dong-kun) is a coast guard – i.e. a soldier tasked with watching the South Korean coast for spies from North Korea. He is obsessed with shooting one, even though it is extremely unlikely that he will encounter any. One night, he sees movement and opens fire, killing not a spy, but a teenager having a tryst with his girlfriend. The boy isn’t just shot – he’s riddled with bullets and then blown to pieces with a grenade. No surprise, then, that the girl is traumatized to the p...int of insanity. When Kang realizes what he has done, his mental state disintegrates rapidly as well.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 14th, 2005
Let’s face it. Hollywood isn’t taking enough chances these days. In the era of film franchises, sequels and remakes, Hollywood has become too predictable, leading to mediocre reviews for most big releases and even worse box office returns. Many film goers have looked to independent and foreign films to challenge them, and for good reason. Foreign films march to the beat of their own drum, use complex themes and imagery to tell their story, and they usually keep you guessing until the very end. The same can be said f...r Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
Sympathy hails from Korea, a country not known for its movie making abilities until Chan Wook Park’s Oldboy showed up on the radar last year. Being that Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is part of the “Vengeance Trilogy” that includes Park’s Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, Sympathy is surely going to gain some late momentum as curious fans of Oldboy start digging beneath its surface and find this 2002 film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 19th, 2005
Phone director Byeong-ki Ahn admits he wanted to take the premise of Ringu and incorporate cell phones as the primary transmitter of terror instead of VHS tapes. (Just when these vengeful spirits will make the jump to DVD is uncertain -- and when they do, will it be Blu-Ray or… oh, I’ll save it for another time.) Anyway, he puts together an impressive-looking package with this horror tale, but unfortunately, the film itself falls flat on the wings of derivative, copycat storytelling.
Ji-Won H... is a hard-nosed journalist, who, we soon learn, has blown a sex scandal wide open and made a slew of enemies in the process. Does she care? Of course not. But someone has a mind to make her, as a series of harassing phone calls from a deep-voiced male leads her to believe someone wants her real dead, real soon.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 4th, 2005
Synopsis
A serial murderer is at large, burning his victims’ bodies down to the bone with acid. In order to identify the victims, the police must turn to reluctant forensic sculptor Hyun-min. He has no heart for the job, concerned as he is with this daughter, whose body seems to be rejecting its heart transplant. But he does go to work, even as he and his daughter have visions of a female ghost.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2005
East Meets West
I don’t know a great deal about Korean cinema, but I imagine that H must have been a milestone in the Korean film industry – a distinctly Korean interpretation of a Western tradition. H is a dark psychological murder mystery, thriller, and suspense film, best compared to The Silence of the Lambs, or Kiss the Girls - not what one expects from the other side of the Pacific. There’s no martial arts to be found, and no running through trees, and pseudo-mystical mum...o-jumbo is just as Western as Se7en. Never once does a sword fight break out, and no wise, old monastic sages are ever consulted.
![The Peacemaker [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-peacemaker-blu-ray-large.jpg)
