113 minutes, 35mm, in Korean with English subtitles
Directed by: Lee Myung-Se
Starring: Ha Ji-Won, Kang Dong-Won, Ahn Sung-Ki

Showtimes: June 23, 9:15pm at the ImaginAsian [SOLD OUT!]; June 28, 6:00pm at the ImaginAsian [Buy Tickets].

Korean director Lee Myung-Se (NOWHERE TO HIDE) returns to filmmaking after 6 years with a whirlwind of movement, a ballet of bloodshed and a candy-colored carnival of clashing characters but it is most definitely not an action film: it's a romance. Set in the Joseon Dynasty, it's the story of a female cop and the assassin she pursues through chaotic marketplaces, winter snowstorms, and elaborate birthday parties, but when they cross swords you can't tell if they're fighting or dancing. A mutagenic masterpiece that rejects every convention of filmmaking and insists on rebuilding the language of cinema from the ground up, there are barely 10 pages of dialogue in the whole film, but every shift in emotion, mood, and thought is conveyed visually, zapped into your brain via your eyes at 24 frames per second.

The flick starts as a chaotic Korean action comedy full of kooky kineticism but slowly the film peels the protective shells off its characters reveals just how screwed up you have to be if you're running after thieves or running from the cops all your life. How do you fall in love when violence is all you know? What kind of adult comes from a kid who was given weapons for toys? As expected, the movie ends in tragedy but Lee Myung-Se uses his directorial prerogative to wrest a happy ending from the jaws of defeat and allows his characters a final, spectral pas de deux before the credits roll and their world ends. It's the kindest moment in movies this year, and for a director who thinks that Korean cinema is currently obsessed with violence and brutality, it feels like a third alternative, and maybe even a manifesto for a return to romance.