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Watching Dragon, Hidden Growler

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Many Chinese and East Asian films are very successful due to their fantastic creativity and innovation.

Here are a selection that deserve your attention.

This article was also featured in Chinatown - The Magazine.

Rawle Austin presents...

Save the Green Planet

This is a Korean film by acclaimed director and writer Jang Jun-Hwan starring actor Shin Ha-Hyun in the lead role.

Produced by Tartan Films’ Asia Extreme line, I attended an advanced screening for Chinatown magazine.

Our protagonist, the self styled protector of the planet, Byung-Gu (Shin Ha-Hyun) starts off on a quest to save the Earth from invading aliens.

With the help of his alter ego, garbed in a very homemade costume, he is steadfastly resolute to complete his quest at all costs.

Running parallel to this is the study of one man’s mental breakdown and the factors leading up to it.

Byung-Gu’s actions are grotesquely comedic in places and torturingly macabre in others. His casual use of violence in order to achieve his aims is visually disturbing.

The director, Jang Jun-Hwan tries to balance the film’s dark overtones with surreal moments.

The most powerful of which is the allusion to the Wizard of Oz movie, with a haunting rendition of a classic song from that old film that will stay in your head for some time afterwards.

He also inserts snippets of comedy in the most unexpected places, toying with our emotions while at the same time leading us through his shocking cinematic creation to its conclusion.

Jang Jun-Hwan examines modern society through a fractured lens and asks uncomfortable questions with less than obvious answers.

The supporting characters all add major weight in their respective roles and add great depth to the story.

There’s the hard boiled detective who walks straight out of a film noir setting and stumbles into a sticky situation on a hunch too many.

To the kidnapped businessman and suspected alien invader, who serves as Byung-Gu’s frustrated nemesis, providing some excellent portrayals of human endurance through adversity.

Their individual interactions with Byung-Gu provide some memorable moments and the actors deserve praise for the conviction in which they give life to their characters.

The director has crafted a clever tale and has to be commended for his originality.

Jang Jun-Hwan subtly blends both sci-fi and superhero genres into his magnum opus while not overwhelming the human story he wanted to tell.

A story, very moving but also very challenging, that is full of suspense.