LOVELY RIVALS (2004)

As the new school year begins the 5th grade art teacher quits. Her replacement is a sexy male and all of the female staff and young girls instantly fall in love with him, including 5th grade homeroom teacher Ms. Yeo and one of her students Mi-nam. That's a weird premise for a movie: a female teacher vs. a 10 year-old girl for the love of a grown man, but that's what we got. And somehow it works. 

From the very first scene, LOVELY RIVALS travels at a neck break pace and never lets up. It's funny, unfocused, silly, slightly perverted, bizarre, surprisingly deep and in the end heartwarming. I'm not even sure what to think of it, but I think I liked it. At one moment it's fucking silly as shit and just a few seconds later it deadly serious...very bizarre style of storytelling. Overall, I wish the film had been more focused and the ending not quite as predictable.

Enough about the story, let's get to the acting: I really enjoyed everybody involved. I usually hate movies with kids in it, but all of these kids put in believable performances. Very impressive. I also really liked the two adults leads. Another favorite was the headmaster. He was only in a handful of scenes, but he was really great.

If you're into Korean cinema and are looking for something lighthearted and enjoyable then I say it's worth a watch.

YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE (1983)

Cavemen vs. dinosaurs and robots!!! Well, that's something you don't see everyday...unless of course yor reading this review far in the future and maybe even on another planet where cavemen fighting robots is an everyday occurrence.

Yor is a blond-haired, buff cavemen and one day he beats up a dinosaur and saves a sexy chick. She introduces him to her tribe and they ask about his shiny medallion. Suddenly, the village is attacked by a gang of apemen who kidnap all the women and take them to their cave. Yor kills a giant bat and uses the corpse as a hang glider to swoop down and save his new girlfriend. After that, Yor travels on to solve the mystery of shiny medallion.

The 1980's was flooded with these kind of caveman barbarian movies and YOR is pretty middle of the road.  Mild action, women in skimpy outfit but still zero nudity, zero gore or blood, sub-TV level special effects, average acting.  I'm sure there are big fans of this movie, but outside of a few laughs, I can see anybody wanting to watch this more than once. 

THE WEIRDO (1989)

Well, this movie definitely lives up to it's title. It's weird as shit!!! Imagine if Forrest Gump and Karl from SLING BLADE had a love child. His name would be Donnie and this is his story...

Donnie is dumb as a bag of mentally disabled hamsters and he lives with a nice old lady who takes care of him. He spends a lot of time walking around in the woods collecting crap. There's also a gang of local tough guy's who beat him up every once and a while. One day while out wandering around, a teenage girl wearing leg braces comes up to him and starts talking. Her name is Jenny (just like Gump's girlfriend) and soon they are inseparable. Nothing really happens for a long time, just your standard soap opera stuff (mentally disabled philosophy, clumsy sexual fumbling, priest copping a feel of Jenny, etc.), but yet I couldn't stop watching. The entire time I felt there was something sinister lurking just below the surface...and I was right! During the third act the movie goes from zero to Fucking Nutz in the blink of an eye and it just gets wilder and wilder until finally at the end it blows it's mentally disabled load all over the place! It was awesome! I was laughing so hard my sides hurt. Especially his final act with his girlfriend. Holy fook.

THE WEIRDO drinking game: take a shot every time somebody gets slapped.