I'm a big fan of Asian and South Korean cinema and I really dug some of their eccentric and humorous movies such as "Save The Green Planet!" or "Quick". "My Wife Is A Gangster" is though neither a good comedy nor a good gangster flick. The movie is quite overrated and had two unnecessary sequals. 

I must admit that the initial idea of the movie sounded promising. There were a couple of very good South Korean movies where a wife had some sort of a double identity and secret life as a special agent for example. "Shiri" is a great example and "My Girlfriend Is An Agent" also has its moments. That's why I have watched this movie. But the idea doesn't work very well on here. The two main actors don't have any chemistry. The weird situation of a female gangster married to a shy bourgeois husband could have been funny but the scenes in here are boring, the scenario isn't credible and the humour is very childish, predictable and superficial. 

The gangster side of the movie isn't any better. It feels as if it had been inspired by a few serious Yakuza movies by Takashi Miike or Takeshi Kitano and desperately wants to parody the genre. The whole thing doesn't work for two reasons. The actors are annoying, mostly bad and not credible at all. A naked gangster running after a punk through half a city isn't funny but more embarrassing than any bad Jackie Chan movie. Second, the characters are boring and you simply don't care about them. 

Then, there is the story of the movie. Well, what story? The gangster woman fulfills all wishes of her dying sisters and goes through a weird relationship with her husband. Meanwhile, her gangster clan beats up a few punks for any reason. When one of her guys gets killed, his friend suspects the wrong guy and his revenge fails horribly. When the gangster wife comes to save her gang, she loses but her life is spared. She later recovers from her injuries and her husband is ready to avenge her and become a gangster himself. That's it. 

The viewers have to accept that the stiff husband changed his mind and became a cool bad boy from one instant to the other because he loved his egoistic wife that never showed him any kind of appreciation so much. This rushed and silly story simply doesn't carry a film of almost two hours of running time. 

Is this scenario credible or original? No. Are there any surprising elements? No. Is there a coherent and gripping story line from the beginning to the end? Not really. 

Two or three scenes were at least a little bit interesting and slightly funny. That's why I gave three very generous points for this. 

I recommend you to avoid this movie if you are looking for intelligent humour, a few good gangster movie sequences and an original story. If you just feel like switching your brain off and enjoy some childish slapstick humour inspired by stereotypical Hongkong action comedy flicks and generic Japanese gangster films, go and waste your time. 

"Death Bell" is a South Korean high school horror movie released in 2008. It includes lots of slasher elements, a few minor mystery passages that can be seen as a nod to many popular Asian ghost movies but also several twisted enigmas that the surviving pupils and teachers have to resolve to save those who are kidnapped one by one by a vengeful mind. Imagine a mixture of the "Yeogo Goedam" series and "Saw".

The problem I have with this movie is not that it doesn't introduce anything new to the genre. A solid high school slasher flick like "4th Period Mystery" can be quite entertaining without being innovative. This movie takes too much time to kick the story off. The first twenty minutes don't even introduce you adequately to the story. The real reasons behind what happens in this movie are shown later in a few rushed flashbacks. The opening minutes introduce you to many unimportant secondary characters.

In fact, there are so many pupils running around that it's a little bit hard to realize who is who. After twenty lame minutes, pupils are suddenly kidnapped and murdered at such a high speed that you might soon feel confused about who is still alive, who has been kidnapped and who is about to be murdered.

Then we have the enigmas. Each time a pupil is about to be tortured to death, a madman presents the surviving crowd an enigma they have to solve at time to save their kidnapped colleagues. Sometimes the survivors even solve the enigmas but that doesn't keep the killer from continuing his slaughter which is pretty lame as the challenges feel somewhat useless. No matter if you solve the enigmas or not, the killer continues to spread death and terror until the very end of the movie.

The enigmas are also rather hard to follow. The first enigma has something to do with mathematics but the solution is never shown to the viewers. For the second enigma, the survivors have to create a sentence which is very hard to understand. I neither understand the sense behind the sentence nor the way the survivors manage to compose it in the end. The other enigmas are a little bit easier to understand but not very interesting as well. The movie should have spent some more time on explaining the enigmas and their more or less associated traps as it is the case in movies like "Mindhunters". 

The ending of the movie is rather intriguing and includes a minor twist. Some people felt disappointed by it, others thought it was great and to me it was just okay. At least, it ended this short movie on a rather high note. 

Fans of high school horror movies or slasher films can try this movie out. It's nothing groundbreaking but surely entertaining enough if you don't want to watch your "Scream" movies over and over again. It's decently entertaining but only an average horror movie, especially if we compare this to other unique and stunning South Korean horror movies like "A Tale Of Two Sisters", "Bedevilled" or "I Saw The Devil" for example. But for what it is, it's an acceptable fast food horror flicks with a few Korean pop stars acting in here. 

"Shiri" has been the biggest blockbuster in South Korea when it was released back in 1999 and is still regarded as one of the country's most popular movies ever. It even had some minor success abroad and opened the gates for many other great South Korean movies. The true success story of the unique high quality South Korean cinema owes a lot to this movie. 

The movie doesn't seem to be that original at first sight as it is clearly inspired by Hollywood and Hongkong action cinema and in particular by movies made by John Woo or John McTiernan. The movie features solid but not outstanding action scenes, a few crime investigation elements, a romantic love story and a tension filled showdown in the key of movies like "Sudden Death". The explosive and entertaining mixture works very well but there is more to this movie. 

While the story itself is fictional, it has a much more authentic touch than any American or Hongkong movie. This is due to the fact that Korea is still a separated country and that the tension is still high on the peninsula. The idea that a special elite force of North Korean soldiers could infiltrate South Korea and hijack a stadium or kill important politicians or scientists is quite realistic. This movie tells you a lot about the Korean psyche. People from both countries desire reunification and could be brothers, friends or lovers but political issues have shattered that dream. The fated main relationship in this movie underlines this dilemma. The final speech of the outstanding actor Choi Min-Sik who portrays one of the North Korean terrorists explains the situation very well and in a highly emotional way. As a viewer, you even develop sympathies for the villains who might be too radical in their actions but who are led by a strong dream just as in the similar "Typhoon" movie. That's where the movie gets very dramatic and philosophical and much more profound than a simple action film.  

The film does have a few lengths and in the beginning one gets a little bit confused about who is who but overall this is not only an entertaining action-thriller but also a philosophical drama that gives you some food for thoughts and ends as a true tearjerker. This is where successful South Korean mainstream cinema started and even though I have seen way better movies from that country, this quality film makes you understand why this country has made the best movies world wide of the last decade.