Stumbling like a cyber-drunk around the nerdosphere, I recently discovered a cool little blog called The Trailer Trashers. They had a pretty inspired format wherein they reviewed the promotional trailers of upcoming films to determine how likely they were to see said films upon release. Unfortunately, by my next visit they had already abandoned that approach and were reviewing films that hadn’t even started shooting (which is still pretty cool.) So I decided to combine/steal their ideas and start reviewing films I hadn’t seen based solely on their trailers.
Then I realized, wait a minute, I was doing that shit back in 2007! For all I know, they could have stolen that idea from me! Maybe that’s why I liked the format so much. Either way, I’m heralding the return of the prophetic film review here at the jabber. With the trailer as my crystal ball, I shall gaze into the future and judge a film’s cinematic worth. If I actually wind up seeing a film I “review,” I’ll revisit that review in an effort to gauge the accuracy of my prognostication. My past predictions has been eerily prescient, so I’m quite confident in my abilities.
So without further ado, I present our inaugural return review- Park Chan-wook’s short film, Night Fishing, which was shot completely on the Apple iPhone. BOOSH!
Night Fishing (Paranmanjang) is a fun little flick, combining a traditional Korean ghost story with the expressionistic aesthetic of Canada’s Guy Maddin. The film is decidedly lacking in both sissy boys and slap parties, but it does deliver in the befuddled-Asian-guy-confronts-spirits department.
Not only that, the film itself is actually a long-form phone commercial, and is rife with telecommunications subtext. It is a amalgam of high-tech and low-fi with a dash of east-meets-west cultural relativism thrown in for good measure. Frankly, it’s a funny way to sell phones, but is a welcome addition to the cinematic canon from one of fandom’s most beloved directors.
