A wickedly smart and hilarious black comedy/social satire from the master of South Korean cinema himself, Bong Joon-Ho. It is a film about a struggling graduate student (Sung-Jae Lee) caught up the seemingly endless rat race of everyday life. The Seoul of Joon-Ho's mind is filled with a burnt out population who feel that they can only achieve greatness through unscrupulous avenues or in the unlikely event that they will end up on television. When Lee seems to be on the precipice of madness due to constant societal demands, his rage is projected onto a neighbors dog. What ensues next is an opaque but comical attempt to dispatch the poor animal.
What sets Joon-Ho apart from his cohorts in Korean Cinema, namely Park Chan-Wook, is that he isn't there to solely shock the viewer. Sure the material makes for some surprising moments, but Joon-Ho brings up some important questions. Why do people pamper animals when they themselves must toil endlessly just to achieve sustenance? Why do people long to nourish animals when they are not nourished by their own caretakers?
It is an interesting and thought provoking film that is wrapped in a delightful black comedy and is definative proof that South Korean directors are some of the most premiere filmmakers of this generation.
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