What's Korean Cinema? (Podcast on Fire Network) · Kenny B, Paul Quinn, Various

Podcast On Fire Network Bonus Episode 44: Three more Korean shorts!

·1 hr 5 min·4 clips

Park Chan-wook opens Cut with a vampire film set, then turns the director’s own home into the trap.

Bonus episode time, with three shorts left on the table. After the main What's Korean Cinema episode worked through six smaller Korean shorts, this website-only chat keeps things relaxed while edging toward bigger director names. The setup is a little odd, and the host knows it. He points out the funny choice to leave those larger shorts outside episode 43, while Paul Quinn drops in from Hangover Celluloid and settles into an easy back-and-forth. Doggy Poo is still hanging around the edges, too. The main episode matters because some of those earlier shorts meant something personal to Paul, so this bonus batch feels less like leftovers and more like a side trip. Park Chang Wook gives the conversation its center. Cut gets placed near the Vengeance Trilogy, with Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, and Lady Vengeance used as handy markers rather than trivia bait. Paul sees Park as the rare director who can make a segment film feel like his own while working around major features. Cut has the craft: the home invasion hook, polished spaces, inventive images, revenge threads, and that uneasy comic violence. Even so, Paul does not fully buy the mix. The silly and sinister tones rub against each other, and not in the sharper way Park's stronger work usually manages. It is watchable, sure, but not a must. Its length gets dinged as well, since it is the longest piece in Three Extremes and sometimes feels like it. Shaking Tokyo comes off better. By the end, Paul says the selection was fun and picks out Shaking Tokyo as the surprise, even though he only knew it existed before watching. The close stays casual: the host signs off, Paul jokes about tracking the host's running gags, and the bonus episode slips out like an after-hours add-on to the main show.

As heard by us

Three Korean shorts from big directors, with the strongest interest coming from how the discussion places them in context.

The bonus keeps the Korean shorts discussion moving, and it lands best once the setup has time to breathe. Tony Leung's workhorse turn in Dumplings, the Vengeance trilogy timing around Park Chan-wook's Cut, and the surprise of Shaking Tokyo each get enough room to stick.

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