Kim Kiduk, most controversial of the hot young South Korean filmmakers, is best known in the U.S. for the pastoral “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter,” his lyrical study of the lives of two monks on a floating island in the mountains. “Bad Guy,” Kim’s biggest Korean hit, now getting its U.S. premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center, is a very different affair: a violent, sexy, angst-ridden and tremendously disturbing study of obsessive love in the Seoul underworld of crime and prostitution.
The main characters are a glowering, near-animalistic gangster (played by Brandoesque Korean TV star Jo Jae-Hyeon), who barely speaks a word in the entire film, and the pretty young middle class college student (Seo Won) whom he accosts in a park and tricks into slavery in a brothel. Their affair is voyeuristic and brutal. The characters around them are mostly amoral psychopaths. The atmosphere is hellish. But out of it comes a genuine, twisted love story that, at the end, may make the hair rise on your neck. “Bad Guy,” which won Kim the best director prize at the Berlin Film Festival, is a work by a hard-core artist working with raw candor, deeply personal themes, no brakes and masterly style. It will rock and shock you as few recent Asian movies have or can. (In Korean, with English subtitles.)
“Bad Guy” (star)(star)(star)1/2 (South Korea; Kim Ki-duk, 2001). 6:15, 8:15 p.m. Fri., Mon.-Thur.; 3:15, 7:45 p.m. Sat.; 3:15, 5:15 p. m. Sun. The Gene Siskel Film Center is at 164 N. State St. Call 312-846-2600 or visit www.siskel filmcenter.org.
– Other special film screenings; indicates capsules from past Wilmington reviews.
The Gene Siskel Center
`The Story of Floating Weeds’ (star)(star)(star)(star)(Japan; Yasujiro Ozu, 1934). The first of Ozu’s two versions of his gentle, poignant rural family drama about a troupe of traveling theater players who return to a provincial mountain city where their director/star (Takeshi Sakamoto) renews ties with his old mistress (Choko Iida) and meets their young son. Full of fresh sunlit location imagery, this beautifully shot tale expertly mixes comedy and pathos. Though it was exquisitely remade in color in 1959 as “Floating Weeds,” this is the better of the two films, one of Ozu’s six Kinema Jumpo “Best One” winners. (Silent, with English intertitles and David Drazin piano accompaniment.) 3 p.m. Sun.
`The Only Son’ (star)(star)(star)(star)(Japan: Yasujiro Ozu, 1936). One of Ozu’s lesser-known works, but also one of his greatest films. This devastating drama of a rural mother who sacrifices everything for her son’s education and, years later, revisits him in the city to find a series of disappointments, is obviously a precursor to “Tokyo Story,” and equally as moving. A superbly wrought, heartfelt film: “Ozu’s supreme achievement,” according to film scholar Noel Burch. (Silent, with English intertitles.) 5:30 p.m. Sat., 6:15 p.m. Thur.
`Late Autumn’ (star)(star)(star)1/2 (Japan; Yasujiro Ozu; 1960). A very late Ozu work in color that, with deceptive amiability, reworks the sad theme of family breakup in “Late Spring.” Here, Setsuko Hara, who played the daughter of the earlier film, reappears as a 40-ish single mother, who, like Chishu Ryu in “Spring,” is about to lose her stay-at-home grown daughter (Yoko Tsukasa) to a genial marital conspiracy. Not as sad as the first film, it buries its bittersweet resignation in smiles and good fellowship, concealing the aftershock for later. With Ryu and Shin Saburi. (In Japanese, with English subtitles.) 3 p.m. Sat.; 6 p.m. Wed.
– `Metropolis’ (star)(star)(star)(star) (Germany; Fritz Lang, 1926). Fritz Lang’s silent film about a futuristic, ultra-mechanized society that descends into chaos and revolution was cut almost in half for its 1927 U.S. release; now brilliantly restored and lengthened, in the most faithful version since, it’s even more a great, mad film. With Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frohlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge. (German silent, subtitled, with original orchestral score.) 6 p.m. Tues.
Block Cinema
– “Goldfinger” (star)(star)(star)1/2 (Guy Hamilton; 1964) Best of all the James Bond thrillers, with the spiffiest titles (Shirley Bassey belting out the brassy song), the most genial villain (Gert Frobe as Auric Goldfinger), the lewdest heroines, the funniest gadgets and Sean Connery’s all-time top suave killer spy performance. With Shirley Eaton as the golden girl, Harold Sakata as Oddjob and Honor Blackman as villainess/heroine Pussy Galore. 8 p.m. Thur., Block Cinema, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston. Call 847-491-4000 or visit www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.
Doc Films
– “Bob le Flambeur” (star)(star)(star)1/2 (France; Jean-Pierre Melville, 1955). Melville’s crime classic is one of the most pleasing of all great French film noirs. Starring Roger Duchesne, it takes place in the murky Parisian underworld. It’s a heist thriller without a real heist, a crime movie in which the detective and main criminal are old pals, a noir with a sunny disposition. The gloom and fatalism of the other ’50s heist classics and other Melvilles are almost wholly absent here. (French, subtitled.) 7 p.m. Tues., Doc Films, Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago, 1212 E. 59th St. Call 773-702-8575 or visit www.docfilms.uchicago.edu.
LaSalle Bank Cinema
-`Top Hat’ (star)(star)(star)(star) (Mark Sandrich; 1935). “Swing Time” has a greater score, director and dances. But the gossamer, screwball “Top Hat” is still the most typical (and funniest) of the classic Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals. Among its unbeatable elements: Ginger and Fred at their “Cheek to Cheek” peak, Irving Berlin songs, a delightful supporting cast of fussbudgets and battle-axes (Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes and Helen Broderick) and a top plot about love, lunacy and mistaken identity among the rich, fey and footloose. 8 p.m. Sat., LaSalle Bank Cinema, 4901 W. Irving Park Rd. Call 312-904-9442.
Music Box Theatre
-`The Usual Suspects’ (star)(star)(star)(star)(U.S.; Bryan Singer, 1995.) The modern film noir of your dreams, “Suspects” takes its title from “Casablanca,” its setup from “Reservoir Dogs” and its nervy dialogue and spirit from the whole hard-boiled Dashiell Hammett-Raymond Chandler-Elmore Leonard-George V. Higgins tradition. Directed by Bryan Singer and written by Chris McQuarrie, with Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Chazz Palminteri and Kevin Spacey. Midnight Fri.-Sat., The Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave. Call 773-871-6604 or visit www.musicboxtheatre.com.
– `Angels With Dirty Faces’ (star)(star)(star)1/2 (U.S.; Michael Curtiz, 1938). This is the one about the two Irish street kids, one of whom becomes a flashy bootlegger, the other a priest. James Cagney and Pat O’Brien are the chums, waging a war for the souls of the Dead End Kids. It’s preachy, contrived, with an ending that seems certifiably crazy–but you’ll never see it done better. 11:30 a.m. Sat.-Sun.
