The films of South Korean director Lee Chang-dong have won acclaim and awards all over the world for their intelligence, compassion and emotional power. This week his two most celebrated films arrive on DVD and Blu-ray: "Secret Sunshine" (Criterion), a devastating drama of anger and grace that won the Best Actress award at Cannes 2007, and the sublime "Poetry" (Kino), which earned Lee the Best Screenplay award at Cannes 2010.

 

So why isn't Lee considered in the same company as Hong Sang-soo or Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wook? Perhaps because he came to film from prose (he was a respected novelist before making his first film) and is more attuned to words than images. Fair enough. Lee's unadorned images are rarely more than functional (though they are often graceful and evocative) and he's a more judicious writer than an editor, but he is a superb screenwriter and a magnificent director of actors and he brings an insight to the complexities of emotional lives and anxieties and frustrated ideals of ordinary humans in his films. You can see it back in his 2002 "Oasis," which took home a shelf-full of awards from the the Venice Film Festival.

 

"Secret Sunshine" (2007), which received only a limited release in the U.S. years after its debut, confronts a potentially controversial issue – one woman's feelings of betrayal when the Christian faith that consoled her in a time of terrible tragedy now fails her – with both intelligence and an understanding of the furious emotional storm of the fragile woman's response. While the film can be seen as critical of religion (the evangelical brand of Christianity is quite popular in South Korea), it is more about the personal than the scriptural and Jeon Do-yeon's portrait of rage and betrayal, one of the great performances of the past decade, fuels the devastating journey. "Lee makes lengthy, expansive, unpredictable movies always gripped by emotional tribulation, and the red-eyed Jeon… goes to hell and back," writes Michael Atkinson in The Village Voice.

"Poetry" (2010), an enthralling drama of an aging woman whose compassion is tested when she learns that her teenage grandson is guilty of a terrible act, is just as intimate and resonant. Yoon Jeong-hee, the respected Korean actress he coaxed out of retirement to play his lead, creates a human portrait in unquestioning self-sacrifice who only starts to question it when she's faced with her grandson's crime at the same time she's diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's. In many ways it is also a portrait of a woman betrayed, this time by the family she has covered for all her life and the culture that made her what she is, and she's determined to express herself while she's still lucid. She is the only fully realized character in the film (a trait it shares with "Secret Sunshine") but Yoon's performance is so delicate and evocative that it suggests an entire life hidden behind her impassive face (she learned long ago to guard herself). It only makes the conflicts roiling behind her sad eyes, and her compassionate resolve, all the more evocative. For more, read my in-depth review at Parallax View here.

Both films arrive on DVD and Blu-ray. Criterion's "Secret Sunshine" features a new interview with director Lee Chang-dong and the featurette "On the Set of Secret Sunshine," plus a booklet with an essay by Dennis Lim (you can read it on the Criterion website here). Kino's "Poetry" featuring an interview with actor Ahn Nae-sang and a making-of documentary.

"Poetry" is also available through Fandor as a streaming video, and for a limited time you can stream it for free when you log in through Facebook.

Fandor also presents a visual essay (co-presented by the Press Play blog at indieWIRE) on the film based on Manohla Dargis' review in The New York Times.

 

 

"The Warped World Of Koreyoshi Kurahara (Eclipse Series 28)" (Criterion) is an introduction to another of the lively directors who flourished making crime thrillers, youth dramas and other genre films as new generation of young, ambitious filmmakers hit the studios in the late 1950s. This set, from Criterion's budget-minded line Eclipse, presents five jumped-up pictures made for Nikkatsu through the 1960s by Koreyoshi Kurahara.

 

"Intimidation" (1959), a tightly-wound crime thriller about a predatory bank manager, a meek, submissive assistant and a blackmail scheme, serves as kind of a prologue to the films to come. It opens on a train barreling through the screen to deposit a flamboyant urban gangster in a sleepy rural town but the rest of the film slows to a more classically controlled piece of filmmaking, a quietly oppressive psychological drama with the obsessive dementia of a Patricia Highsmith novel. It's a well-tempered piece of genre filmmaking -- the corruption and mind-games all play out behind the façade of social decorum -- and Kurahara shows he has the chops, but it's with the subsequent films that he breaks out of conventions and into unpredictable territory.

 

With "The Warped Ones" (1960), his world has become completely unstable. His contribution to the juvenile delinquent genre (called the "Sun Tribe" films in Japan) is more like a piece of jazz than a traditional story, like a Japanese "Breathless" with a sociopath at the center. Tamio Kawaji's jazz-loving Akira is an angry and reckless petty thief who walks out of juvenile detention with a new partner in crime (Eiji Gô) and a contempt and arrogance that has built up during his incarceration. He's not a rebel without a cause, he's id unleashed, bouncing from one brutal antic to another without a glimmer of self-awareness or moral twinge. Kurahara directs it like a series of riffs and meandering solos, as when he follows the characters on drive to the beach as if it were an extended improvisation, and rides Akira's feral drive right to the end, where a twisted bit a dark humor leaves us with characters more self-absorbed and undisciplined than ever. Call this Kurahara's story of cruel youth.

 

 

The DVD editions came out in June. Now it's on Blu-ray: Pam Grier made her first bid for B-movie stardom in the exploitation films for Roger Corman. "The Women in Cages Collection: The Big Bird Cage / The Big Doll House / Women in Cages" (Shout! Factory) is a trio of women in prison films, all of them featuring Grier, all of them knocked out in the Philippines. Videodrone's review is here.

 

Grier takes her first lead in the Jack Hill-directed "The Big Doll House" (1971), a minor classic in the genre that established the new rules of the game: abusive guards, lots of showers, late night groping, and the payback prison break. It’s pure exploitation and bit mean spirited, but it was a smash hit and started Corman’s New World Pictures in the WIP exploitation biz. Hill’s superior semi-sequel "The Big Bird Cage" (1972) elevates Grier to top billing as a mercenary/revolution​ary in an unnamed South American country who (with partner Sig Haid) engineers a women’s prison break from the outside. Why? Because their rag tag soldiers are looking for revolutionary sisters to join their cause… and their beds. This is pure B exploitation powered with oddball humor—Grier and Haig’s first heist is a corker—and energetic action. The 1971 "Women in Cages," made between the two Hill pictures by veteran Filipino director Gerry (Gerardo) de Leon and featuring Grier as the sadistic head matron in a women’s penitentiary, fills out the triple feature.

 

The two-disc set features entertaining commentary by director Jack Hill (originally recorded for an earlier DVD release) on his two films. (My favorite tidbit: the location for the prison in "Bird Cage" was later used by Francis Coppola for Kurtz’s compound in "Apocalypse Now," where it looked much darker and more menacing.) New to the set is the 48-minute documentary "From Manila With Love," a detailed look at the making of "The Big Doll House" and "The Big Bird Cage," the films that reworked the WIP film as tawdry drive-in exploitation genre and launched Corman's New World Pictures.

 

"Road to Nowhere" (Monterey, reviewed on Videodrone here) is Monte Hellman's first feature in 21 years. The director of "The Shooting" and "Two-Lane Blacktop," a resolutely personal director who turned out drive-in pictures for Roger Corman and spent his career largely transforming work-for-hire productions into distinctive and mysterious films, spent years taking jobs as editor and second-unit director while one project after another failed to come together.

Among his projects during that time was working with the Sundance institute, where he helped a young filmmaker named Quentin Tarantino workshop a film called "Reservoir Dogs." Hellman signed on as executive producer and helped Tarantino get his film made. The role of educator and mentor eventually took him to CalArts, the private arts college where he has been teaching for the past six years.

"Road to Nowhere" is a welcome return by a master filmmaker, a film aware of its existence as a film, and his first digital production. Which he shot with a still camera, mind you, that he adapted to shoot a feature film. The result is imagery as rich as paintings. The 79-year-old rebel brings a whole new beauty to digital photography.

 

That's one of the things we talked about in my brief but lively phone interview with the director, along with the creative process and, of course…

 

What's in your DVD player?

 

I've been away for a month so I haven't actually haven’t had a DVD in my DVD player over that time. One of the last was "The Secret of the Grain." I was watching the Criterion disc. And there was something after that which I liked a lot, another Criterion disc, a Blu-ray of "Sweet Smell of Success."

You were very involved in the Criterion edition of your film, "Two-Lane Blacktop." In fact, you conducted and produced the interviews with Kris Kristofferson and James Taylor for the "Two-Lane Blacktop" disc.

 

I did about four pieces for the DVD and that was a lot of fun. In fact, I'm going to be doing similar things for Criterion releases of my two Jack Nicholson westerns, "The Shooting" and "Ride in the Whirlwind."

 

That's a scoop! Criterion hasn't even announced these discs.

 

They're a ways off. We haven't even closed the deal yet but we've talked about it and basically agreed. They're not going to be doing it until sometime in 2012.

 

 

"The Event: The Complete Series" (Universal), the latest attempt to replicate the cosmic mystery and labyrinthine plotting of "Lost," did not quite turn out to be the event that NBC had hoped, and even after a mid-season adjustment, the epic alien invasion conspiracy thriller with the breakneck plotting momentum was cancelled after a single season (thus the subtitle: "The Complete Series"). Videodrone's review is here.

 

"NCIS: The Eighth Season" (Paramount), which long ago spun off the sturdy but stodgy "JAG" and became one of the most successful scripted shows on TV, keeps on delivering the mix of joshing camaraderie, crack teamwork and clubhouse humor that made it a hit. Mark Harmon is flinty team leader Gibbs, Michael Weatherly the class clown heartthrob and movie buff Tony DiNozzo and Cote de Pablo the Israeli Intelligence veteran turned NCIS field agent Ziva David, but I tend to watch it for Pauley Perrette's goofy goth scientist Abby and David McCallum's forensic doctor "Ducky" Mallard. And I definitely prefer this to the self-serious "CSI" procedurals.

 

This season opens with Gibbs taking on the drug cartel that puts him and his father in the gunsights of a vindictive Mexican drug lord and features a two-part story that puts Director Vance (Rocky Carroll) and his history with the agency front and center and includes return visits from Ziva's father (Michael Nouri) and Tony's father (Robert Wagner). There is also a nice tribute to former co-star Sasha Alexander and her character, Caitlin, in an otherwise familiar episode gambit of a psychiatric evaluation for the team, and the season ends with a new squad, led by Sarah Jane Morris as Special Agent E.J. Barrett, taking over a difficult case.

 

24 episodes on six discs in a box set of three thinpak cases, with cast and creator commentary on numerous episodes and seven featurettes, from "Lights! Camera! Weatherly! Michael Weatherly Directs an Episode" to production interviews and a Q&A answering questions from the fans.

 

"NCIS Los Angeles: The Second Season" (Paramount) is the younger, prettier spin-off, with Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J chasing bad guys in the California sun. This is a slicker, sexier show with sun-baked outdoor action, a younger set of players than "NCIS" original recipe and cooler technology, all of which helped make this even more popular. What it doesn't yet have is the chemistry, though Linda Hunt provides a dash of spice as the unit boss who reveals peaks into her colorful past life through the season. Also features a guest appearance by NCIS Director Vance (Rocky Carroll), another bit with the parent show looking in on the offspring.

 

24 episodes on six discs in a standard case with hinged trays, plus commentary on one episode and five snappy featurettes (including clips from a table read of one of the scripts).

 

"Off the Map: The Complete Series" (Disney), the romantic medical drama from the creators of "Grey's Anatomy" about doctors who run from their demons and land in a remote clinic in the South American jungle, never even made it a full season, despite a cast of gorgeous young doctors (Caroline Dhavernas, Zach Gilford, Mamie Gummer, Martin Henderson, Rachelle Lefevre and Valerie Cruz) in a jungle paradise. All 13 episodes on three discs, plus two featurettes.

 

"Angry Beavers: Seasons 1 & 2" (Shout! Factory) features 26 episodes from the Nickelodeon animated series of the nineties. Four discs in a standard case.

 

Another season:

"Gossip Girl: The Complete Fourth Season" (Warner) opens with a Paris fling before returning best friends Blair and Serena (Blake Lively and Leighton Meester) back into the heart of the rumor mill and gossip network that is the culture of the young and privileged of New York City. Gosh, it's tough to be rich, trendy and beautiful. 22 episodes on five discs, plus two featurettes.

 

"Brothers and Sisters: The Complete Fifth and Final Season" (Disney) ends the family drama starring Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Balthazar Getty, Dave Annable and Matthew Rhys as grown siblings and Sally Field as their mother. 22 episodes on five discs, plus commentary on one episode and two featurettes.

 

For more TV on DVD, see the weekly DVD listings in MSN.

 

"Say hello to my little friend!"

Just as Howard Hawks' original 1932 "Scarface," with Paul Muni as an Al Capone-esque gangster blasting his way to the top of the (under)world, is a defining film in the first blast of American gangster films, Brian De Palma's 1983 remake, starring Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee who swaggers his way to the top of the Miami cocaine empire, has become *the* defining gangster movie of the eighties, all excess and bloodshed in sleek Miami nightclub-chic fashions. Oliver Stone's screenplay embraces the garishness of the era and De Palma's sweeping style elevates it to a pulp epic: the tawdry, gaudy, vulgar underside of "The Godfather" for the go-go-go eighties. Love it or hate it, the film has become a part of the cultural lexicon.

It makes its Blu-ray debut on September, following a special event one-night-only digital screening in select theaters across the country on Wednesday, August 31.

In anticipation of both events, Al Pacino joined co-star Steven  Bauer, Robert Loggia, F. Murray Abraham and producer Martin Bregman for a special Q&A in Los Angeles, streamed live via Livestream on the evening of August 23.

 You can view a recording of the event here.

 

"The Event: The Complete Series" (Universal), the latest attempt to replicate the cosmic mystery and labyrinthine plotting of "Lost," did not quite turn out to be the event that NBC had hoped. Even after a mid-season adjustment, the epic alien invasion conspiracy thriller with the breakneck plotting momentum was cancelled after a single season (thus the subtitle "The Complete Series").

 

NBC went all out promoting the show and the mystery, which it played up with a storytelling style that fractures the breathless energy of the crisis of the moment (it opens with an airline hijacking as terrorist attack) with flashbacks stairstepping back as little as a couple of days and as much as 66 years (the time of the first "event"), each flashback redefining the action at hand. But before long the secret settles into something at least vaguely familiar: an alien invasion, of sorts, with hundreds of human-looking invaders sent to prepare Earth for the sudden arrival of an entire race and captured by the American government, which puts them into a frozen Guantanamo for decades. You could call their escape another event.

 

Jason Ritter gets top billing in the ensemble as the scruffily handsome everyman hero rushing headlong into danger every episode to rescue his fiancée (Sarah Roemer). Laura Innes is the leader of the aliens, Blair Underwood is the American president and Zeljko Ivanek his unflaggingly loyal advisor (finally the eternal TV villain gets to be a hero again), with a parade of familiar TV faces coming and going through the twists and turns of a show that never seems to pause for a breath.

 

 

Tom McCarthy's "Win Win" (Fox), starring Paul Giamatti as small-town lawyer and family man, is a small film from with a big heart. Videodrone's review is here. "Road to Nowhere" (Monterey), Monte Hellman's first feature in 21 years, blurs reality and storytelling in beautiful and compelling ways. Videodrone reviews the film here and talks with director Monte Hellman here.

 

The films of South Korean director Lee Chang-dong have won acclaim and awards all over the world for their intelligence, compassion and emotional power. This week his two most celebrated films arrive on DVD and Blu-ray: "Secret Sunshine" (Criterion), a devastating drama of anger and grace that won the Best Actress award at Cannes 2007, and the sublime "Poetry" (Kino), which earned Lee the Best Screenplay award at Cannes 2010.

 

Jodie Foster's "The Beaver" (Summit), starring Mel Gibson as a suicidally depressed husband, father and businessman who channels his desperation to recover through a hand puppet, had the bad luck to be a hard-sell drama with black humor and a leading man with a private life far too close to his character's crisis. "There's a lot going on in Kyle Killen's script, and frankly, a lot of it comes off as direly underdeveloped in the way it plays out onscreen," offers MSN film critic Glenn Kenny. "And for all that, the film has some bristling and moving scenes and certainly ends up being what you'd call a conversation starter." Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin and "Winter's Bone" golden girl Jennifer Lawrence co-star. The DVD and Blu-ray feature commentary by director/star Foster, the making-of featurette "Everything is Going to Be O.K" and deleted scenes.

"Henry's Crime" (Fox) is an indie caper comedy with Keanu Reeves as a man who serves time for a crime he never committed and decides to go ahead and rob the bank he was convicted of robbing when he gets. The film never quite comes to life according to MSN film critic James Rocchi, who complains that it "dawdles when you want it to jump, skips when you want it to sizzle." Vera Farmiga and James Caan co-star and Malcolm Venville ("44 Inch Chest") directs. No supplements to speak of on the DVD and Blu-ray releases, which arrived too late to review beyond a cursory look.

Morgan Spurlock has fun with product placement in "Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" (Sony), a documentary that chronicles the efforts of director Spurlock to finance its production by selling product placement rights. "As agreeable as it is insidious, Morgan Spurlock's latest exposé of corporate control via immersive humiliation is his best, most formally inventive project yet," proclaims Village Voice film critic Mark Holcomb. Features commentary, a featurette, deleted scenes and (of course) commercials.

 

Foreign Affairs:

Norway reveals is greatest secret in "Troll Hunter" (Magnolia), a tongue-in-cheek mock-documentary in the "Blair Witch" mode transported to the snowy wilds of rural Norway. It's and "enjoyably goofy scare-pic," in the words of Philadelphia Inquirer film critic Steven Rea. It arrives on DVD and Blu-ray after a limited theatrical run and OnDemand availability. Features deleted and extended scenes, improvisations and bloopers, and behind the scenes and visual effects featurettes among the supplements.

Jackie Chan is the "Little Big Soldier" (Well Go USA), a hapless recruit who inadvertently captures an injured enemy general and take him home for a reward, in the comic war movie from China. "To Die Like a Man" (Strand) follows the struggle of a Lisbon drag queen pressured by his boyfriend to get a sex-change operation.

 

Great Britain and Down Under:

Jason Statham goes on an action "Blitz" (Millennium) as a volatile cop after a serial killer (Aiden Gillen) who targets police officers. Peter Mullan directs "NEDS: Non Educated Delinquents" (Tribeca), a drama about a promising student in the Glasgow slums who drifts into street crime without any support system to channel his talents. Ray Winstone and Temuera Morrison star in the New Zealand western "Tracker" (Lionsgate).

 

The horror, the horror:

"The Bleeding House" (Tribeca Films) is an American indie horror about a troubled, isolated family and a mysterious visitor who arrives like a judgment. C. Thomas Howell and Corbin Bernsen star in "House of Fallen" (Phase 4), about fallen angels disguised as humans. "Super Hybrid" (Anchor Bay) is a driverless car on the prowl for unsuspecting human victims. "Closed for the Season" (MTI) is a haunted amusement park that terrorizes its customers.

 

For more on DVD this week, visit weekly DVD listings in MSN.