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I watched New World last night. I'm not too familiar with Korean cinema (only seen Oldboy and The Host), but it was pretty drat good. I found some interesting things in the movie I want to discuss but it seems like no one here, except one guy, has even mentioned it.
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Jul 29, 2013 16:13
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:49 |
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Well, I'm going to put this all in spoilers cause I don't feel like determining what is or isn't a spoiler about New World: 2 of the things I found most interesting have just been touched on, somewhat. First was the whole Chinese/Chinese descendant aspect. It was pretty illuminating as to Koreans' views of Chinese, at least from the perspective of this director (I won't say all Korean's feel this way cause one director). Basically that the Chinese and those descended from then (which, as you said, I could not tell apart physically, but then again I'm just an American), where all portrayed as loud, brash, avuncular louts, minus the main protagonist and the other dude whose name I don't remember that is the other police mole that ja-sung whacks at the end. Both the moles were supposed Chinese descendant, and all of the other gang members kept on reminding of it. In a "positive" sense when they said they would be to control the other Chinese descended foot soldiers, and then negatively (most of the time) when they would refer to them as "loving chinks" (that's how the subtitles translated it). Probably the most potent illustration is the Yanban Hobos, who are actually from China (had to look it up), and are all drunken, loud, incredibly violent thugs. That interplay was very interesting. The second was the ending. Perhaps it was just my Western expectations, but it really caught me off guard. I did think for a second "well, if we kills the chief and his boss at the station, he could pretty much live the rest of his life as a certified gangster" but I didn't think he would actually do it. So I guess it was just surprising that he just decided to turn "full bad" instead of any real redemption. Is there a different take on the end among Korean audiences? Is it not so clear cut "bad"? I mean, I sincerely doubt it, but maybe i'm projecting my own cultural ideas on something erroneously. Also the very very end, I didn't quite understand what it meant to illustrate. The part where he and Cheong walk into some random seafood store and apparently murder a whole bunch of dudes. Was it meant to illustrate that he was a pretty bad/tough/violent/sociopathic dude to begin with? Didn't really get it.
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Aug 5, 2013 15:14
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zandert33 posted:This part took me a minute to process as well, I actually had the brief belief that perhaps that scene took place BEFORE he was recruited by the police, and that we were actually seeing that he put himself into the police as a mole in order to get put in as a double agent into the mob so he could take over. Then after I looked it up online I realized the timeline was off so this was completely wrong. Anyways, I think maybe it was to show the bond that the two guys had with each other, which is why, even though the one guy learned that the other was a mole he didn't have him killed right away. Yeah, if I remember correctly the scene took place 6 years earlier, whereas ja-sung had been a mole for almost 10 years or something. So its just a nice bonding scene, bonding over relentless, brutal murder of dozens of people? Thats nice. Really like the film.
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Aug 5, 2013 17:34
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