Tag: chicken

Extreme Job (Geukhanjikeob)

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Radio voices. “Target in position.” “Unit 2 on roof.” Four criminals in a dimly lit apartment playing Mahjong. A knock at the window. A raid. But embarrassed lady cop Jang (f) (Lee Hanee) and her male boss Captain Ko (Ryu Seung-yong) can’t operate their window cleaning slings. The cliched, action packed raid by SWAT in which the criminals are swiftly arrested is visualised by the villain, but the actual police operation is a series of hilarious bungles, the criminals only “caught” when one of them is hit by a coach and the others are stopped by the resulting multiple car crash pile up. In a brutal debriefing with their chief, Captain Ko loses his position to young rising star Captain Choi, who’s just successfully caught a major criminal gang.

In order to save their reputation, Ko’s unit set up surveillance on the gang’s apartment where Hong and his men are awaiting the return of big boss Mubae (Shin Ha-kyun). There being a Chicken restaurant opposite, the cops take it over as a cover to watch the criminals’ premises. It turns out that one of their number Ma (Jin Sun-kyu) has an incredible family recipe for Suwon Rib Marinate Chicken which is an immediate success and overnight turns their fast food joint cover into a hugely profitable business. The team discover the joys of running a food emporium except for Young-ho (Lee Dong-hwai) who finds the others are becoming to busy too fulfil their police duties and back him up when needed.

Other memorable characters include merciless, ruthless and highly effective, female fighter Sun-hee (Jang Jin-hee) who uses a knife to put Hong on crutches on a whim from Mubae and rival gang leader Ted Chang (Oh Jung-se) who threaten to atart a turf war with Mubae.

Starting off as a lightweight caper, this is one of those movies that effortlessly shifts genre throughout, from caper to violent actioner to comedy to food porn and back again innumerable times. It’s aided no end by a clever soundtrack by a composer who understands the effect different pieces of music have on the audience, from the opening pizzicato caper strings to the closing titles which sounds like a spaghetti Western. Somewhere in the middle, a wounded character who may die is briefly underscored by the cantopop song from Asian mega-hit gangster outing A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, producer Tsui Hark, 1986).

As if this wasn’t already a huge crowd-pleaser, for the climactic fight sequence it reveals that Ko’s five man team are, for example, a Chinese national Judo champion (Ma), an Asian Muay Thai champion named Jang Bak after Ong Bak (Jang) while he himself has the nickname ‘Zombie’ because he’s sustained 12 stab wounds and just doesn’t die. These and other attributes are pressed into service with Ko taking bullet after bullet in pursuit of Mubae. This South Korean gem is proof positive, if it were needed, that even for the kind of entertaining movies on which it prides itself, Hollywood really isn’t the only game in town.

Extreme Job plays in LKFF, The London Korean Film Festival.

Thursday, November 6th, 20.35, Regent Street Cinema, London – book here.

Wednesday, November 20th, 18.20, Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast – book here.

Saturday, November 23rd, 15.30, Broadway Cinema, Nottingham – book here.

Watch the film trailer below:

Pecking Order

Posted on by mjbstaging

With New Zealand’s National Poultry Show coming up in July, the race is on to produce the perfect specimen and scoop the Show’s coveted first prize. For the competitors this is a lifelong obsession. “It’s like alcoholism”, says one of them: “you can’t give it up.” Indeed, if this documentary is anything to go by, these people spend their entire lives in pursuit of breeding bantams. In the doc Pecking Order, they farm dozens of birds in the hope that among their number will be that one creature that meets the textbook criteria and knocks the other contenders from their perches.

Meet a cast of extraordinary, real life characters who you really couldn’t make up. Their names come at you thick and fast as the film starts and it’s hard to keep up. Doug Bain washes a chicken in a grubby sink then puts it in a cage with a heater to dry it off. On another farm, his acolyte Mark Lilley and Mark’s pre-teen son Rhys discuss competing and winning. Elsewhere, young adult Sarah Bunton admits to dressing up chickens as a child and demonstrates the perils of getting a wing-flapping bird into a cardboard box for the night. And Graham Bessey, with a few missing teeth and a twinkle in his eye, proudly shows off his Barred Rock (a particular species) to camera.

However all is not well in the Christchurch Poultry And Bantam Club. Doug is currently in charge following the death of its much loved president but some members who are less than satisfied with his leadership are plotting to unseat him. The fearsome Marina Steinke is pushing Mark towards taking over, but having taken some potentially prize winning birds from Doug in the past, Mark is less than willing to go through with this unless Doug voluntarily steps down.

As the documentary switches between these two parallel main stories, red headings stamped on crate wood backgrounds demarcate certain sections of the intertwined stories within the whole. These comprise legends like “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched” and “You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette”. What’s fascinating is that while to an outsider the chicken breeding game seems parochial and inward-looking, to those involved it eclipses all else. As a study of obsessives who take their bizarre subculture very seriously indeed, it makes for compelling viewing even if you don’t think you’ve the slightest interest in its subject.

It helps that director Slavko Martinov injects the proceedings with just the right amount of wit to make you marvel at the ubiquity of human foibles, as prevalent here was in any other area of human endeavour. While the film is warm-hearted and loves its subjects, it doesn’t shy away from portraying the venomous sentiment lurking behind the attempt to unseat club leader Doug. You’ll be completely hooked by this strange world, its characters’ assorted antics and how everything turns out in the end. Without in any way demeaning its subjects, this film is an absolute hoot. You’ll leave the cinema with a wry smile on your face.

Pecking Order is out in the UK on Friday, September 29th.