Moss (이끼) - 2010

Another decent thriller/mystery from last year. This time it involves a dude (played by Park Hae-il who was in The Host) who goes to a small town to bury his father. However, there's some strange circumstances surrounding his father's death, and soon our hero discovers that there's some conspiracy to cover up the cause of the father's death. The leader of the conspiracy has apparently taken control of the whole goddamn town, and the townspeople pretty much grovel at his feet. This director, Kang Woo-suk, is a huge box office draw over here. He's responsible for one of the highest grossing films ever in Korea (Silmido), and also one of the worst movies I've ever seen over here (Hanbando), which I think was a box office failure, as it should have been. This time he has scaled back a bit, and, for the most part, it works in his favor. The problem with most of his movies is the running time, and Moss is no exception. At 2 hours and 40 minutes, probably about 30 minutes could have easily been shaved off if not more. It's still a good movie, and I recommend it. For the most part, it's a straight story, and not too convoluted like some Korean mysteries can be. There's also some great acting, and for the most part, the characters don't seem to lose control and slaughter everything like in The Man From Nowhere. Catharsis is great, but, it's good to see some characters with some self control. It also builds up fairly nicely. Anyway, a good comeback for this director after that shithole called Hanbando exploded all over his face. (Incidentally, Hanbando means Korean peninsula, and by saying Hanbando blew up in his face, I meant only the movie, and definitely not Korea, so....)