STREAMING REVIEWS: Love and war

A scene from 'Kill Bok-soon'

Today we have an engaging Rom-Com from the UK that’s youthful, smart, and wonderfully filmed; and a Korean action film that plays with the genre, and debuted in the 2023 Berlin Film Festival.
Rye Lane (Disney+) - This was a crowd darling during the recently held 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Set in present-day South London, it’s staged as a rom-com that’s meant to update the genre, and make it relevant for the young kids of today. It stars David Jonsson as Dom, who when we first meet him is crying over his recent break-up in a gender-free public toilet. The character played by Vivian Oparah is Yas, who walks into the same toilet, and runs into him later in an art gallery. Directed by Raine Allen-Miller, what’s fresh and energizing about the film is the snappy dialogue, the smart use of colors, the strategic placement of flashbacks, and the imaginative cinematography. They all come together in striking fashion.
The comedy keeps the film moving along; and the earnest acting and chemistry of the two lead stars truly work. Dom dreams of being an accountant, and Yas wants to be a costume designer; and as the two comment, it makes a big difference from all their peer groups who either want to be rap stars or social influencers. What’s really hilarious is the scene where Dom meets up with his ex and his former best friend who’s now the new steady, and Yas gatecrashes said lunch to provide moral and immoral support to Dom. Then there’s a reciprocal sequence when Dom assists Yas, breaking into the flat of her ex to retrieve a vinyl record. If there will be an issue with this film, it’s the thick accents and slang, that makes the dialogue a bit hard to follow in full. Kill Boksoon (Netflix - South Korea) - The premise of some secret agent/for-hire assassin leading a double life, and keeping said shadow life under wraps from their loved one is an old premise. Usually, it’s the spouse who’s kept in the dark, as what we’ve witnessed in countless films dating back to True Lies. Coming from Korea, this film tries to put something different into the formula. Gil Bok-soon (Jeon Do-Yeon) is a single mother, with a daughter in her early teenage years, but when we first meet her, she’s placed a Japanese gang member on an abandoned bridge, and we learn that she’s notoriously known within the underground world as one of the most proficient of assassins. Company killers who meet like a fraternity, a troubled high school life, a career in MK Enterprises; these are all elements that come into play as the film unravels. And when the daughter, played by Kim Si-a, gets into deep trouble in school for stabbing a fellow student, the issue of ‘like mother, like daughter’ surfaces. Flashbacks also help us understand what drove Bok-soon to this kind of life, being the daughter of a stern, hard-boiled military man. And you’ll be treated to several revelatory scenes that take your breath away. The fight sequences are impressively choreographed, and the film work is stellar. One early action sequence is shot from behind a fast moving train, that runs between the camera and the fight scene. Some may find the drama too insistent, but it does add texture to the proceedings.