Paradise Villa (2002)

O.k., where to begin? Oh, right...the premise. Considering what it is, it won't take long to set the stage. Paradise Villa opens in a gamers cafe (before gaming cafes were cool), filled to the brim with keyboard slapping teens. We settle on one kid, Sumusal, as his PC crashes. When he gets his game back online, his character has lost all of it's power and all of it's weapons. Or more precisely, they've been hijacked. This doesn't sit well with him.

The main stage is an apartment building packed with quite the strange array of tenants. We've got the building caretaker, the Parks, a young couple with a baby, an older couple that can't get along and the husband is apparently screwing around with another, younger tenant. We have a couple of porn-star wannabes, and many more. This is where our "protagonist" ends up later that day to look for the hijacker he only knows as Viagra. That's right, Viagra. The building's residents have turned their attention to the Soccer World Cup game between Japan and Korea, so they're completely oblivious as to what is roaming the hallways and stairwells.


** spoilers **

I can hardly fault Park for using such an attractive cast, but when one scene erupts into a full-blown, multi-position free-for-all, I wonder how seriously Park took the movie in the first place. Paradise Villa's owner, (also named Mr. Park) is summoned home by a couple of young peeping tom tipsters about his woman getting her freak on with another guy. Mr. Park busts in on them in mid crescendo and during a fray with the guy, Mr. Park gets crowned and dies. As this is going on, Sumusal is in some kind of trance as he's going from apartment to apartment looking for Viagra and also busts into a home and stabs a woman a few times in the stomach. That's only the beginning...

What's soon evident as the killing progresses is that all but the first couple can almost be attributed to his search for Viagra, Rather than being opportunistic, they're killing for the sake of killing...and it gets boring very fast. He begins to go to absurd lengths (as does the cheating couple) to perpetuate their respective courses of action. Here, it doesn't work at all. Instead of plot or character development (I'll acknowledge that there are too many characters to develop them), Park resorts with toilet shots and crude voyeurism to hold the viewer's attention . In one particularly confusing scene, Sumusal is well into his spree where he happens to kill one of the young residents who is retrieving a tiny camera that's been stashed to spy on his porn-star neighbor. As Sumusal sits there with the freshly dead kid, he asks it if he's Viagra. After he's dead! Then, through voyeuristic-style camera work on Park's behalf, proceeds to spoon the dead porn-star. You can't make that stuff up; nor would you want to. The movie wraps up as "Gamer Kid" hears a ring tone melody that snaps him out of 'serial killer mode'. He washes himself clean of all the blood and leaves.

** end spoilers **

Whatever message writer/director Park had in mind for Paradise Villa is completely buried by the sub-B Movie violence and sexual content. I can barely decipher what I construed to be a 'technology is corrupting youth' theme, but anyone would be hard pressed to believe Paradise Villa was trying to say anything at all. It does however receive good marks for a consistent time-line, generally decent camerawork and good marks for using the entire building as a set. That keeps things a bit fresher than they might otherwise be. The main problem is, again, that it's just "there". It takes itself too seriously to be considered a slasher, too dry to make it as camp (where it might have had a fighting chance), and too base to be considered drama. And it's not funny. It doesn't have a home. So I was left detached and unconvinced.

Infernal Affairs 2 (Wu jian dao 2, 2003)

Infernal Affairs II, the sequel (but actually a prequel) of Infernal Affairs, hits the ground running as we're given the untold story that precluded Infernal Affairs' 1997 beginning. It's the year 1991 and a young Officer Yan (played here by Shawn Yue) has been dispatched to more or less infiltrate his own family. You see, Yan's half-brother is Triad boss and all-around upstanding citizen, Ngai Wing-Hau (Francis Ng). Hau has been catapulted to head of the class because SP Wong (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang) has surreptitiously collaborated with a member of the Ngai Family's inner circle to have "retired" Triad Boss 'Uncle Kwan' murdered. After the assassination, the Triads are buzzing and the upper echelon bosses start to swarm and jockey for power. So to get everything back under control, Hau opens up a can of 'Michael Corleone' on the group, and one by one his problems go away. With the exception of Sam (again played deftly by Eric Tsang). Being one of Hau's closest compatriots, he barely escapes a meeting with some of Hau's associates while on a business trip for him in Thailand. Upon his return, Sam flips and talks to SP Wong about cooperating and the department puts him in a safe-house. This is where Sam has his first contact with an unfledged, but cagey officer named Lau Kin Ming. Ming (Edison Chen, A-1 Headline) makes the most of a few moments alone with Sam, at the safe-house with a team of officers, to create an opportunity for himself with Sam. And we see this come to fruition in Internal Affairs. There's plenty more than what's in this short recap, so don't be alarmed. It's not this cut and dry. The film ends on the cusp of the British hand-over of Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997. A powerful turning point for Hong Kong in the film and in reality, as well as a good transition point for the film's characters into Infernal Affairs.

With Infernal Affairs II though, a majority of the movie struck me as a tad melodramatic. That may be due to the fact that it is a prequel. I knew the outcome of most every crucial character story-line the movie had to offer, which took most, but not all of the surprise and tension away from the start. But that only applies to the one's that we knew already. Where the melodrama helps is within the inter-Triad confrontations. Reason being, since most of the characters are new to us, the added dramatics and weighty camera work allows us to not dwell on that fact. The first third of the film readily acquaints with the new characters with a fast pace that requires our attention. Furthermore, we have in-depth looks into old favorites from Infernal Affairs; the tough road SP Wong takes to get where he is, Sam's rise to Triad Boss, a brief but effective glimpse of Ming's wife Mary (Carina Lau) and where she came from, and a few other nice additions.

One negative was the sometimes overbearing soundtrack, which I was surprised to find was a bit too eager in several places. Long tracks of dialogue were minimized and obscured by music playing simultaneously. Also, without Tony Leung and Andy Lau, the movie doesn't hit with the same magnitude as part one. But because it's essentially a preamble to Internal Affairs and provokes the viewer to recollect how each character fits, there's a built in fail-safe for the lack of "star power" to lead us. Internal Affairs 2 is it's own movie though, for reasons I mentioned earlier and because it covers essentially new ground. I would almost recommend that it be watched first because I do think it does a great job telling the back-story of Infernal Affairs. But it's clear (from flashbacks in part two and how it opens) that it is intended for a post-Infernal Affairs viewing. That, I would hate to mess with the originals brilliance by something possibly being spoiled. All that being said, a damn good companion piece to the original that is worth the time. Just don't expect to be blown completely away.