Hello peoples :)
I’m starting to get my shit together a little here at RMO and I’m starting to set up some regular segments (mostly so that I have something to fall back on when writers block hits). I started earlier with the new segment “Movies to Grow Up On” and now I’m starting “Actors FTW”. In this segment I plan to outline an actor that I have recently been impressed with and the movies that acquainted me with said actor. Today is Song Kang-ho.
Song Kang-ho is a South Korean actor that I first saw in The Host. I really enjoyed that film and the simple yet utterly devoted father played by Song is one of the reasons. His goofiness is perfectly balanced, as is his desperate need to find his daughter. This was actually the very South Korean film I had ever seen. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was onto a good thing.
From there, I found him again in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Considered the calmer of Parks Vengeance Trilogy (see my review here) I enjoyed this film nonetheless. His part wasn’t spectacularly huge though so I’ll move on. Straight after watching Sympathy for Lady Vengeance I watched Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, which is backwards but I’m glad I watched it in that order. Song’s performance in that film is just brilliant. He demonstrates the lengths a father will go to to have his child returned to him, and the actions he might take if that doesn’t happen. 
At this point, I started my 4 Week Subtitle Sensation and was really pleased that a few of the films I watched in that time had Song Kang-ho in them. I won’t go through all of them, but the titles and the order I watched was JSA: Joint Security Area, Thirst, Memories of Murder, and Shiri. All of those titles are brilliant, but I feel the need to draw attention to Memories of Murder. Not only are the performances fantastic, but it’s as Coffin Jon of the VCinema Podcast pointed out to me, its an awesome retelling of Moby Dick.
So if you haven’t seen any of Song Kang-ho’s work, I strongly suggest you go looking. Meanwhile, I’m going to continue to hunt down the rest of his films :)
He not too shabby on the eyes either. Just sayin’…
He is nothing short of fantastic and I love him in every film I have seen him in. Another great movie with him in it is The Good, The Bad, The Weird and he plays the Weird with comedic brilliance! Definitely a recommend!
ReplyDeleteI've only seen him in one film, but thought he was pretty good. I'll have to make a point to check out some more films with him.
ReplyDeletea bit of a plug for myself, but more a "you may be interested"
ReplyDeletei covered quite a few of his films on my blog a couple months ago. if you're interested, check out November's posts of last year
http://pickleloaf.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
i may have snuck one or two into december also
love me some Song!
Cheers Pickleloaf!
ReplyDeleteSeriously people. Check out Loafs link above for some much more in-depth reviews of the movies I've listed above (and a couple I haven't seen yet).
It's encouraging to know I'm not the only one totally impressed with this gentleman :D