The Birdcage Inn (1998, Ki-duk Kim)
Let's cut right to the chase; this movie is terrible. Usually I would let that little factoid reveal itself throughout the course of the review, but the only approach I can take in reviewing this film is flat-out mockery, so best to get it out in the open now.
It is about the residents of an inn somewhere near a beach. This is made obvious because pretty much every scene that doesn't take place in the inn takes place on the beach, even when it makes no sense to. The inn is a family business run by a middle-aged couple and their two children, a high-school boy and a girl in college. The fifth resident is the central character, Jin-a, their hired prostitute.
The daughter, Hye-mi,
despises Jin-a, and is deeply ashamed that their family employs her. This is the main conflict of the movie. Matters worsen when Jin-a has sex with basically everyone Hye-mi has ever met, including her father, brother, and boyfriend. A creepiness factor comes into play several times in the sex scenes. The brother, Hyun-woo, puts a hidden microphone in Jin-a's room so he can masturbate while listening to her service clients. Later, the sister discovers the microphone and uses it for the same purpose. Hyun-woo convinces Jin-a to let him take nude pictures of her (on the beach), which he accidentally publishes in a porn magazine. Then there's the scene where the father and brother run into each other at the doctors where they're receiving treatment for the STD's they got from Jin-a (seriously, I'd love to be wrong on this, it's not explicitly stated, but I can find no other interpretation).
There's also a subplot involving some guy who gives boat rides or something, and becomes obsessed with Jin-a.
They have sex on that. Which is in plain view of the beach, but that works out great because Hye-mi is there to watch. The absurdity goes on and on, but it reaches its apex at the end of the movie. Somewhere along the way, Hye-mi's fiery hatred for Jin-a inexplicably burns out and she decides they should be BFFs. The happy ending of the movie takes place when Hye-mi whores herself out in place of Jin-a for no particular reason. This is even more ridiculous because through the rest of the movie she has been adamantly insisting she remain a virgin until married. The next morning, everybody is all smiles over how great things turned out.
The only good thing I can say about
The Birdcage Inn is that it was bad enough that I couldn't hate it, I just laughed at how ridiculous it is.
The Geisha House (1999, Kinji Fukasaku)
I really don't have any interest in the whole geisha culture thing, but I was willing to give
The Geisha House a shot to see more of Kinji Fukasaku's work.
It's a geisha, and a house. Aren't I clever?
The movie follows Tokiko, a young girl who is in training to become a geisha, and the other members of the geisha house that she is employed with. I found the movie at it's strongest when it wasn't dealing directly with the geisha lifestyle. A lot of it explores the political and practical issues surrounding the house, and Tokiko as a person; her reasons for becoming a geisha and the family life she left behind. That stuff I was able to get into, unfortunately there are other parts that I couldn't. Most notably, the last 15 or so minutes felt really overdone.
The whole film is really well made, I think it was just the subject that distanced me from it at times. The cast is pretty good, Maki Miyamoto as Tokiko is a great character that I could really feel for, and the senior geisha (probably not the right term) she works for is also an interesting character. I think if I knew more about the traditions and whatnot I may have had less complaints with the parts I mentioned, but as it stands I still enjoyed it.
VerdictDo I really need to say it? The Inn is out.