BURNING is another Korean thriller with arthouse sensibilities that falls down due to the basic premise. What we have here is a mystery focused around the psychology of the main characters but with only 5 or 6 main plot points. The yes is all about mood-building with lots of landscape shots and slow, drawn-out dialogue scenes. After the first hour I was getting restless, and by the end I realised how tedious I was finding all this. For those about to suggest I have a short attention span, I'm a fan of arthouse cinema made by auteurs injecting meaning into their work; Herzog and Ki-duk in particular. This just feels like padding and is twice the length it needs to be. It looks wonderful and the performances are excellent, but in the end it really doesn't have much to say.

"Beoning", probably more known as "Burning", is a South Korean movie from 2018. The version I watched at the theater, which is the most common I think, ran for approximately 2.5 hours, slightly under, but apparently there is also a television version that runs for 1.5 hours? That does surprise me a bit honestly because it means that the film got cut down to 60% of its original size. I mean, of course we always hear that there are basic versions (like for Malick) that are really long and get cut down to a pretty low percentage, but as for this one here I struggle to see how the short version can be a success because it works so well as a character study honestly and I would not want to miss anything from it. On the contrary: It did not drag one bit and for all I care it could have gone on for another half hour or maybe even hour. That is how good it was. But back to the basics first of all. The director and one of the writers is Chang-dong Lee, a really experienced Asian filmmaker, who has been active in the industry for a long time. Still it is kinda surprising that despite this long activity, he really is not the most prolific filmmaker with the number of movies he made still being in single-digit territory. But if this still results in high-quality movies like the one we got here, I won't mind a bit other than it being quite a shame I cannot watch more from him. As for the cast, simple is the key here. There are really only 3 people at the center of this movie and everybody beyond that has virtually no screen time at all. And that is maybe the reason why the film works so well. The focus on these three was just really good. Ah-in Yoo is the lead actor and has benn pretty successful in Asia for a while. For Jong-seo Jun, it was the first performance of her career actually and boy what a start to get going, even if admittedly the way her character was written really helped. (I certainly would list her second.) And then there is Steven Yeun, perhaps the main reason why this film was also a huge success outside Asia. People all around the globe know him of course for his role in The Walking Dead and I have seen 3 or 4 seasons of that I believe and honestly I did not make the connection it is him. The reason may be that on his trademark show he plays a rather beta male character next to all these alpha males, who is not even the dominant and path-shaping person in his romance relationship and in this film here he plays a really wealthy man who does great with women and knows exactly how to behave to get what he wants. And one thing the actor behind said character certainly wanted, but really did not expect to happen, was the gigantic awards recognition he received, some of it by really prestigious bodies. I mean he was dominating the critics circuit last season for the most part, even if, just like his lead actor counterpart Ethan Hawke, he did not get the Oscar nomination. But who would have thought that it would be the one from Walking Dead to makes waves second to none.

Now as for the movie itself, the premise is as simple as the number of key actors. We have a young man, who meets a girl, a former fellow student and falls for her. She is off to a trip to Africa soon though and when she returns, she brings another (also Korean) man she met there before eventually disappearing without a trace, so it is not clear what happened or at least not 100% certain. I must say this movie, the longer it went, even felt like a modern film noir to me. It is Lee's marvellous attention to detail here that defines the film really from beginning to end. The sun shining into the room for that brief moment could have felt very pretentious if not handled right, but the way they used it for that sex scene was so tastefully done that I was in awe. The two have never been closer to each other. Another would be how for a really brief moment the potential killer cannot hide how much he is bored by the attractive girls he is with. Or the cat they catch outside in the parking lot. Or the greenhouse metaphor that most likely stands for the girls he kills. He clearly enjoys the power and bragging about his deeds without admitting anything. Or the ending that is as shocking as unexpected really and makes a nice reference to the title as well as the aforementioned greenhouse reference. A good title. But even if everything looks so obvious, we should not rule out other possibilities such as the Asian Gatsby (another excellent reference) being just a show-off who is indeed innocent. Perhaps the cat just listens to voices or needed these seconds to be ready to move towards him and get caught. We never know. Nonetheless explaining the contents of this drawer is a bit difficult. So overall, yeah well I think the message is clear, even if the writers enjoyed playing with our minds. Lets look at the inclusion early on that the female protagonist was treated pretty badly by the male protagonist in her earlier years, the talk about her having something done etc. There could be a reason for revenge. And then also the words on how there never was a cat, there never was the well, but even all of this is somewhat corrected for example when the main character's mother says there was a fountain or when the cat reappears. Speaking of the main character's mother, this was also an area where they did really well. They did not try to include any story line about his broken childhood just for the sake of it. The mother was there only to let us know the well existed. Nothing more, nothing less. The father courtroom part is also just mere neutral observation. The main character observes. We observe him. But it was never handled in a way where the director wanted us to care for the father or hope for an acquittal even.

I said a lot about Yeun already, but one more scene in which he really rocked my world was his reaction when the main character told him he is in love with the girl. By the way, his last words are also really interesting when he is confused that the protagonist did not bring the girl. Was he playing more psychological games or is he really clueless to where she ended up eventually? But now I also want to want to say a few words about Jong-seo Jun. She was so good, so mesmerizing and stunning that it was almost impossible for me not to fall in love with her. Also she felt on the one hand as such an inspiring character, but on the other also as a bit tragic and with that I am talking mostly about these two scenes when she starts crying out of nowhere and talks about how she prefers not ever having existed basically over a failed existence. We also find out indirectly there is no contact between her and her parents anymore and she has no friends. Maybe that explains her longing partially also to see other parts of the world and get away from it all for a while. And even if she ends up with the rich guy then, which initially did not seem 100% obvious to me, there are words as we also find out from hearsay about who was her true number one and that it caused some kind of jealousy to Yeun's character and that he finally lost his coolness, indifference and absolute control over everything and everybody (including himself) for a moment, which could have been the situation in which he killed her. Okay I made the cross at spoilers, so you should not be surprised. I also want to say I am not only happy about Yeun's awards recognition, but also about the film's in general. It really is deserving that it was successful at Cannes and that it also managed to get on the shortlist of potential Oscar nominees. Shame it did not make the final cut though. It would have been a deserving nominee for sure. I liked Shoplifters for example too and I am kinda glad it got nominated, but this one here is even better. So yeah, I would have liked Burning to get in over the German entry perhaps and I am saying this as a huuuuge Lives of Others fan. This one we have here is an excellent movie, a definite contender for top5 of 2018 and you should very much check it out. If anybody thinks that the glory days of Asian cinema were over with the demise of Kurosawa and the best and most known Korean films also lying a bit in the past now, then you will perhaps change your mind after seeing this one. Or at least understand that, if a few more good films from Korea are being released in the coming months, this country is still producing quality (high one) on a really regular basis. Burning is a triumph. Do not miss out under any circumstance.

Korean cinema produces highlights that quite a lot of people are not aware of. Landing Steven Yeun (who's internationally known) in one of the lead roles might help change that. But just because there is "Hollywood" star in this, does not make this a Hollywood movie or a movie that is easy to digest. And I'm not trying to make a judgement here.

If you want to, you can call it a "warning". A warning because the pacing here is quite slow. And it is rather character driven with a difficult to define goal or theme. The latter is only really true in the beginning and of course the director has a clear idea of where he wants to go or where the characters have to be. Very low key, but still high on drama and mystery. The movie dares you to make your own conclusions but also gives you hints, not facts. And we are left wondering a couple of things. Very weird indeed, but also very good