RIFLE RANGE BOY

Revelations (Korean, 2025) Director:  Yeon Sang-ho Although the ratings for this one were not very encouraging, the storyline made its viewers think. No one knows the right course of action or what is contained in their recipe for good deeds. We merely drag our unfortunate selves along, clinging to straws, persuading ourselves that our actions are virtuous. No one can say whether our actions will lead to the best outcome in the grand scheme. The movie explores what goes through the minds of three individuals who are somehow involved in the killing of a young girl and the kidnapping of another. There is a possible paedophile out on parole, wearing an ankle monitor. He seems to be following a young girl who enters a church. The paedophile follows into the church. The pastor notices him as a newcomer to the church and tries to woo him to join the congregation. The pastor has a lot on his plate. He hopes to be promoted to a larger church, and he is troubled by his wife's infidelity. On...

Squid Games 2 (Korean; 2024) Miniseries, E1-E7. Continuing with  Season 1 ,  Squid Game (SqG) moves into a new set of games featuring a fresh group of players. Admittedly, SqG 2 is not as captivating as its predecessor. The storyline is predictable, and viewers can easily discern who will survive and which characters will likely be eliminated.   Nevertheless, while engrossed in the miniseries, I noticed that the entire storyline symbolises the challenges Malaysia's thinking voters face regarding democratic governance under their duly elected government. To provide context, the games in SqG2, much like those in SqG1, involve teamwork and lethal consequences for the losers. An amendment was made to the clause allowing players to vote on whether to proceed to the next game. After each match, the accumulated betting money increases. If the players, by majority, choose to discontinue, the funds would be divided equally, and the games would be halted. Humans, being inherently h...

Taxi Driver (Miniseries, S1E1-16; Korean; 2021) With the wisdom proffered by age and experiences learned from the School of Hard Knocks, I am convinced that life is convoluted. Nothing one does is 100% right or good; conversely, not doing is not always wrong. If one can justify his actions and give convincing rhetoric, he can be considered a do-gooder.  The miniseries is about this in sixteen episodes and more than 16 hours altogether. In the crooks-filled metropolitan city of Seoul, there is no shortage of murderers and serial killers. After the tedious process of investigating, collecting evidence and prosecuting, the victims and their relatives find that the courts are pretty docile. More often than not, the accused go scot-free. Sometimes, they get away with a slap on the wrist or technical issues. The feeling is that the perpetrators never feel the pain that the victims and their families endured. To add injury to insult, the wrongdoers mock the system, police and the accusers...

Passing through darkness.   (Miniseries, E1-E12, Korean; 2023) Director:  Park Ba-ram Over the centuries, humans have agreed on how they should live life. Compassion, tolerance, and acceptance have been the mantras to sail through the rough waves in the high seas of life. We respect the other with the adage 'Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you' and think that should suffice for all to mind their own business and lead meaningful lives. Life, as we know it, has been so easy. As if there is not enough of Nature's hostility towards over existence, there is danger from our own kind. Nature has dictated species protect their own kind. Still, violence and savagery are justified in the name of the continuity of species and territorial ambitions, which, in a way, also ensure the dissemination and dominance of species. Only in the human species do we humans kill another for the sheer pleasure of seeing someone die. Our inquisitive mind yearns to know what...

Past Lives (Korean/English; 2023) Director: Celine Song One thing that created the rift between two men who dared to venture into the crypt of our mind and try to explain why we act and react the way we do remains unresolved.  Sigmund Freud posited, in simpler terms, that our learnt experiences, together with unresolved pervasive sexual desires, are the main reasons for actions, inaction and maladies. His mentee, Karl Jung, thought some external events and forces might manifest as meaningful coincidences. The question is whether we have only one life, just here and now and then we die, or we come here again and again. The film is selling the Korean Buddhist idea of 'In Yun'. We are all somehow connected cosmologically through reincarnation. When we meet people and feel we know them, we may do. There may be some unsettled business that needed to be settled, left from our previous encounters, god knows when. This could be our umpteenth trans-birth meet. Or it could be a ruse to g...

Beef (Miniseries, S1E1-E10; 2023) Netflix This convoluted drama reveals the whole message behind its story only in the last two episodes of the season. Suddenly everything made sense. It tries to show how fragile we are as a society, to maintain peace and to fit in. We pull up a front to portray an image of Zen to the outside world, but deep inside, we hate the person beside us. We wish we could just wring their necks. Unfortunately, civil society does allow this. So we suppress that urge. As we did in our cavemen days, we yearn to be part of the pack to hunt together. Our strengths lie in our numbers. We exhibit specific behaviours in front of people but let our hair down and show our true inner demons under the cloak of anonymity. In public, we are expected to utter certain pre-ordained niceties. When somebody mentions death, the automatic response is, "I am sorry!" irrespective of whether he died as a national hero or OD'ed. We are expected to put a smiley face in publ...

Broker (South Korea; 2022) Written, Directed by  Hirokazu Kore-eda Maybe Nature has wired us that way. Whenever we see a baby, a stranger, for no reason, we start cooing and making strange noises or faces to entertain him. Put an adult in the baby's place; nobody will give it a second look. We may be wary of whether the adult would enter our safe zone. A baby, however, is no threat. Nature knows it is not kind to the living. Violence and destruction are everyday day-to-day occurrences. Imagine being left out in the wild overnight; chances are one would be pounced on or stung by a predator. If not, mere exposure may chance hypothermia or pneumonia. Hence, Nature tries to give the offspring, the harbinger of an improved 2.0 genetic mashup, a dig at life. That is why we get emotionally attached to a miniature version of ourselves, minus all the negativities and the evil thoughts lurking within. OK, it is OK that Nature wants to ensure the continuity of progeny, and this world is no pl...

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) Director: Park Chan-wook Koreans seem to have a tradition of feeding on white tofu, which is symbolic of starting all over again. It is symbolic of wanting to turn over a new leaf, leaving the lousy past behind and starting anew. This is much the same as when one confesses in a Roman Catholic booth. All his sins are purged, and he begins life on a new slate. Is it really that simple? To put your past behind you and move on as if nothing happened. I suppose that is why cultural practices and religion offer an olive branch to wrongdoers, assuring them they deserve a second chance in life. Devoid of these, if Man were to carry all the burden of guilt all his life without atonement. If Man were held responsible for all his actions without reprieve, he would probably end up dragging his past mistakes as a grinding mill around his neck to end up being a raving lunatic. Suicide would be their only outlet to relieve them from this misery. As mentioned in the ...