Jopog manura (My Wife Is a Gangster, 2001)

Cho Jin-Kyu

Korea

110 min, color, Korean with English subtitles

The title tells it all. Eun-jin (Shin Eun-Kyung), also known as Mantis, is "Big Brother" to some fifty gangsters. She is a legendary fighter, having rescued two of them from some very wet and very dangerous circumstances (although not before one of them gets the top of his scalp sliced off). She is tough as nails, her smile resembles a scowl, and her gang adores her. Her rough exterior conceals a rather rough interior, but she does have a soft spot: Her long-lost orphan sister Yu-jin, who is found at the beginning but turns out to be terminally ill.

Eun-jin decides to fulfill her sister's dying wish and get married. In a typical Mantis fashion, she instructs her gang to find her a suitable groom. They settle on Kang Soo-il (Park Sang-Myun), who, we are told, has had over 50 blind dates with nothing to show for it. He is ugly, he is not quite in shape, and he is not too bright. The latter trait wins seeing that Eun-jin must somehow keep her gangsta vocation secret from him.

They get married with a hilarious ceremony that involves various non-church-going people attending the church wedding, and some rather unsavory characters trying to disrupt the proceedings with a fairly convoluted plot that apparently involves painting something yellow. We never find out what the plot really is because they are spotted and then, in the words of the non-ordained minister, "We have prepared a spectacular martial arts exhibit."

The next few weeks pass with Soo-il desperately trying to induce Eun-jin to agree to consummation of the marriage but with no success. That is, no success until her sister mentions how much should would love to have a nephew or a niece. Eun-jin, the pragmatic one, takes this in stride and Soo-il soon finds himself making love to his wife ceaselessly and in just about any place that legend identifies as someone having conceived at some time.

Eun-jin does get pregnant but then her sister dies, but not before telling her that the baby needs a father. So much for the idea of a quick divorce once all is done. The "happy forever after" does not last because one of Eun-jin's closest buddies (whatever that means) gets stabbed to death by some punks but the gang mistakenly blames a rival group, gets beaten up badly, and she has to go save the day. Which she does not, and in the process loses the baby. This, of course, means war as Soo-il pathetically tries to get revenge.

The ending, which I will not disclose is pretty good and quite funny.

The film has received good reviews and is usually compared favorably with another Korean flick that features an outspoken chick who makes mincemeat out of tough guys, My Sassy Girl (although in this case it is literal, and in the other case it is figurative). I liked both, although I liked the other one better. Still, it is quite amusing to see a really sassy gal deal with her horny husband. It is even more amusing when you realize how patriarchal Korean culture is, and how outrageous therefore this behavior is. It may not be completely outrageous to Americans, but it is still funny.

The acting is pretty decent, especially Shin Eun-Kyung, who manages to portray both the tender-hearted sister and the deadly gangster leader. This is quite a feat considering that she has to snuggle with her sister in one scene and then poke some guy in the forehead with a chopstick in another. I also liked Romeo (Ahn Jae-Mo), who succeeds in being a romantic bad ass. Others did not do it for me. Soo-il, in particular, was quite annoying and a lot of the comedy involving his pathetic seduction attempts were actually somewhat embarrassing. It is true, though, that his wife gives a whole new meaning to the "Have a headache" excuse.

The film is well-shot, but they squander the potential for good fight sequences here and there by relying too much on gimmicks. There's too much wire work and it is obvious. I don't usually object to this kind of stunt, but I don't think it works very well in a non-fantasy action movie (unless it has Jackie Chan, in which case you might actually believe he can do it without the wires).

There is nothing to ponder in this film. I don't care how much you love your sister and to what great lengths you are willing to go to fulfill her dying wishes. Being a gangster is being a gangster, and offing people is offing people even if it looks pretty darn cool with those shears of hers. Don't look for a message here. That does not mean, of course, that the film was bad.

The Korean 2-Disc Special Edition DVD is very nice, with a good anamorphic transfer and okayish English subs. It comes with both DTS and DD 5.1 soundtracks in Korean. The second disc is choke-full of extras but none are subtitled. The outtakes and some of the behind-the-scenes sequences, however, are interesting and do not require translation. The interviews with the cast, unfortunately, are lost on anyone who does not speak Korean.

December 11, 2002