MEDIOCREMOVIE.CLUB
  • Reviews
  • Side Pieces
  • Shane of Thrones
  • Podcast
  • About
  • Archives
  • Game of Thrones Fantasy

Night in Paradise

5/13/2021

0 Comments

 

TBD

An enforcer in the Korean mob hides out on an island after attacking a rival boss.

Directed by Park Hoon-jung
Starring Uhm Tae-goo and Jeon Yeo-been
​Review by Jon Kissel

Picture
Chris Rock’s famous joke about his neighbors, wherein he lived next door to Shaq, Mary J. Blige, and a white dentist, has that crystal-clear quality one wants in an observation.  It illuminates so much about minority achievement and how far a group has to go, such that real equality is achieved when members of the group don’t have to be the greatest artist or athlete of their generation to live in a wealthy neighborhood.  The allowance of mediocrity providing wealth and comfort while not reflecting badly on the larger group is a good sign, which brings us to Night in Paradise.  While its existence is good for South Korean cinema, this white dentist equivalent of a movie does no one any favors in a vacuum.  Park Hoon-jung’s empty time waster of a gangster film proves that there’s room in this cinematic corner of the world for unimaginative garbage, and said garbage isn’t going to drag down the great South Korean directors.  Equality unlocked!

The effect of watching Night in Paradise is that of curdling expectations and dwindling patience.  The film opens with protagonist Park Tae-goo (Uhm Tae-goo) refusing a collaboration with another gangster, who tells him a parable about a noble mantis who tried in vain to stop a chariot.  Thematic foreshadowing about impossible causes and delusional optimism established, we then meet Park’s sister and niece, both of whom establish themselves as straightforward and adorable, respectively, so stakes are now also established.  From this early point, however, the theme is abandoned and Park’s family is disposed of, shifting the film towards a stock revenge story.  That revenge is immediately reaped on the gang boss that Park is pretty sure killed his sister and niece, so now we’re in an on-the-lam piece.  Despite Night in Paradise being 130 minutes long, these shifts happen quickly and outside of anything resembling an act structure.

​
If Park isn’t going to evenly space his film’s events out, balancing plot with character as movies are supposed to do, how does he achieve this bloated runtime?  By having his characters, such as they are, serve as walking advertisements for the tobacco industry, elongating dead conversations with pregnant pauses that are accompanied by a long drag from a cigarette or a vape pen or sometimes both.  This infuriating delay tactic strips Tae-goo of any rooting interest or sympathy, because he would be enraging to spend any time with.  Combined with his anti-charisma affect, this is a lead in search of human behavior, though he’s in good company with the other inhabitants of Jeju Island, where Tae-goo has to hide until he can flee to Russia.  Fatalistic, terminally ill Kim Jae-yeon (Jeon Yeo-been) is just as slow in her speech as Tae-goo, so scenes between these two become tortuous.  As painful as conversations are, action scenes are just as drawn out and interminable.  Tae-goo’s tragic death builds to several climactic killing blows, the score peaking over each one only to recede and re-peak on the next fatal stab wound.  I checked the time on Night in Paradise at the obvious climax, where all the characters have assembled in a confined space.  There was somehow thirty minutes left in a film that only had two locations left.  Why does Park Hoon-jung hate his audience so much?

Night in Paradise has no idea what kind of story it wants to tell, how to tell what is present, or a reason to exist.  It’s a bleak slog that skimps over vital relationship work in exchange for scenes that add nothing and repeat themselves.  This was an infuriating experience that would’ve been helped by watching it at 2x speed, or not at all.  We’ve recently seen several movies on the MMC main page who knew exactly what kind of water they were swimming in, and while none of them were great, at least they could provide some surface charms.  Night in Paradise has no sense of itself and deliberately deprives the viewer of anything that makes a movie worth watching in the first place.  This is banal anti-cinema that made me physically uncomfortable with its glacial pace, a pace that contains no insightful rewards for the patient viewer.  It’s the viewer who is the mantis of the opening parable.  They see this movie charging down the road and think to themselves, ‘yup, I can withstand this experience without losing interest,’ only to be run down by yet another pensive look over the ocean, a place I wanted to drown myself in while watching Night in Paradise.  D-
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Authors

    JUST SOME IDIOTS GIVING SURPRISINGLY AVERAGE MOVIE REVIEWS.

    Categories

    All
    2017 Catch Up Trio
    80s
    Action
    Adventure
    AI Trio
    Author - Blair
    Author - Bobby
    Author - Bryan
    Author - Chris
    Author - Cook
    Author - Drew
    Author - Joe
    Author - Jon
    Author - JR
    Author - Lane
    Author - Phil
    Author - Pierce
    Author - Sean
    Author - Shane
    Author - Tom
    Best Of 2016
    Best Of 2017
    Best Of 2018
    Best Of 2019
    Best Of 2020
    Best Of 2021
    Best Of 2022
    Comedy
    Culture Clash Trio
    Denzel Trio
    Documentary
    Drama
    Foreign
    Historical
    Horror
    Internet Docs Trio
    Mediocrities
    Movie Trios
    Musical
    Podcast
    Romance
    Round 3.1
    Round 3.2
    Round 3.3
    Round 4.1
    Round 4.2
    Round 4.3
    Sci Fi
    Season 10
    Season 2
    Season 3
    Season 4
    Season 5
    Season 6
    Season 7
    Season 8
    Season 9
    Shorts
    Sports
    Thriller
    Western
    Women In Men's Worlds

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014

    Click to set custom HTML