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 t's uncanny how much Korean director Je-gyu Kang's career
has paralleled that of American director Michael Bay, for better or worst. Kang's first movie, "Gingko
Bed", is Michael Bay's "Bad Boys". It's dumb, lacks common sense,
and is absurd to the nth degree. Kang's second movie "Shiri"
is louder, has a lot more style, but is still relatively simplistic -- much like
Bay's second outing, "The Rock". Not coincidentally, Kang claims to
have derived inspiration for "Shiri"
from Bay's second directorial effort, and it shows.
Upon its release, "Gingko Bed" was heralded as a
new step in international prestige for South Korean films. The film was a big
hit in its native land, most likely because it's a relatively big budget movie
(by South Korea circa 1996 standards) and the screenplay is cheesy enough,
manipulative enough, and dumbed down enough that even the most intellectually
challenged moviegoer could "get" it without having to work too hard.
If you think the movie is too "confusing", as I've heard some
reviewers call it, you need to try harder. This is by-the-numbers plotting and
it doesn't get any lazier than this.
The film stars Suk-kyu Han ("Christmas
in August") as Su-hyun, a art professor who stumbles onto an old bed
carved out of a gingko tree in what looks like an alley flea market (?). No
sooner does Su-hyun take the bed home does a large man clad in black leather
breaks into his studio apartment, apparently drawn to the bed. Before said large
man can break the wimpy Su-hyun into two pieces without breaking a sweat, the
mysterious and beautiful Princess Midan (Hee-kyung Jin) appears and whisks
Su-hyun away to safety. Oh, and after a rather cruel usage of one of her
patients by Midan, Su-hyun's work-obsessed doctor girlfriend starts to take a
lot of valuable time to indulge in silly "doctor banter".
It seems that both Midan and General Hwang (Hyun-joon Shin,
"Soul Guardians"),
the large fellow, are spirits trapped on Earth and doomed to repeat their little
love-death drama over and over again. The third party in this macabre love
triangle is Su-hyun, who has been re-born after being killed by Hwang in a
previous life. But Midan and Hwang hasn't been so lucky, and are forced to take
on the lifeforces of living people in order to take corporeal form, which they
need to communicate with the living. Although this doesn't quite explain how
Hwang manages to stick his hand into a guy's chest and pull out his heart, thus
taking over the man's lifeforce in the first place, but that's neither here nor
there.
Taking its cue mostly from "Ghost", the movie
starring Patrick Swayze as a dead guy who refuses to leave his beloved
girlfriend, "Gingko Bed" establishes and breaks its own rules as the
need arises. For instance, despite the fact that both Hwang and Midan are
supposed to be spirits with no physicality (people just walk right through
them), apparently gravity still matters because they can still run up and down
stairs and walk across solid ground. Also, even though Hwang has gained physical
form, he can still do groovy things like walk through solid wall and apparently
also levitate up and down because at one point he appears on the roof of
Su-hyun's studio by phasing through the solid foundation.
But forgive me. I'm trying to make sense of a movie based
on fantasy. The whole notion behind "Gingko Bed" is silly enough that
writer/director Je-gyu Kang doesn't need me to point out every little
nonsensical thing about his screenplay. (Even though there are a lot of
nonsensical things about his screenplay, natch.) I mean, if I were to even
mention that after getting his head chopped off by Hwang, Su-hyun and his
beloved Midan are reincarnated as gingko trees... Well, I guess I won't.
Even for 1996 standards, the special effects in
"Gingko Bed" are quite (as the kids like to say) lame. We get a lot of
morphing scenes and people (mostly Hwang) phasing through solid walls and
whatnot. There's even a fake hawk flying through a matte painting of the
countryside at one point. The acting by all involve is atrocious, and even the
usually reliable Suk-kyu Han looks unbelievably dense as he races to and fro,
sweating profusely the whole time, and showing as much intelligence as that hard
block that is the gingko bed. And the chemistry between the characters?
Laughable at best; terribly uninspired and inept at worst.
There's a lot of hackneyed melodrama in "Gingko
Bed" that will no doubt appeal to a lot of people. The movie goes out of
its way to provide us with "uplifting" music at all the appropriate
moments (mostly during the unconvincing romantic scenes), although I'm still not
entirely sure why the lovely Princess Midan shows up wearing a nice white gown
ensemble and General Hwang looks like a rejected extra from "The Road
Warrior". And man, General Hwang didn't cheap out on the eye mascara. Way
to be tough and feminine at the same time, General.
If you absolutely must see a movie about a gingko tree
(hey, who wouldn't?), the questionable sequel, "Legend
of Gingko", is actually a much better film.
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