To wrap up the film reviews for 'Jopok Week', what better way
than to take a look at the latest Korean gangster film to hit theaters, the fourth entry in
Korea’s longest running franchise (I think), the Marrying the Mafia series.
There has not been a very high-profile Korean gangster comedy since
2009’s Jeong Joon-ho starrer City of
Damnation which was met with middling success. I must admit that I can’t really remember what happened in
the previous installments of this franchise bar the first one but I’m quite
sure that they employed the use of some kind of story.
You see, Marrying the
Mafia IV (bewilderingly subtitled Unstoppable
Family) does not seem to feature any discernible story. It is a supremely lackadaisical and
episodic film that throws together a veritable panoply of minor Korean film
stars in an attempt to dazzle us with its sparkling dialogue and zany set
pieces. The problem is that the
script is a soporific slapdash of sketches that seems to have been cobbled together
by a bunch of babbling baboons.
Earlier this week, Darcy Paquet of koreanfilm.org
contributed an insightful piece entitled ‘The Rise and Fall of the Korean Gangster Comedy’ which laments that producers of gangster comedies often “don't consider them worthy of
good craftsmanship.” There may be
no better example of this than this turgid continuation of an already tired
franchise which doesn’t attempt to respect its audience (which was significant as
it currently ranks as the 10th highest grossing Korean film of the
year) with even a semblance of a narrative.
Essentially,
the mother of the Marrying the Mafia clan (Kim Soo-mi), which is now running a
food business instead of engaging in organized crime, goes to Japan on a
business trip and brings her three vain sons and the family’s idiotic assistant
along. What ensues is a series of
puzzling vignettes in a forest, a bathhouse, a gas station, a bank, and a
Laundromat that don’t even follow each other in any logical fashion. The loose thread that jumbles all these
episodes together is their search for the bank robber who took their
money. They don’t really go
looking for him, they just walk around with no aim in mind and bump into him
numerous times in different locations.
What
you do get is a lot of repetition but nothing clever. Characters frequently see people but can’t quite recognize
who they are and this is presented as a sort of running gag. Some of the most insufferable elements
are the perpetual costumes changes which of course involve men in drag. Marrying
the Mafia IV looks more like a Lady Gaga concert than a gangster
film.
The film’s writers gleefully laugh in the face of plot
contrivances then have the gall to have their characters reference the laziness
of the writing “Dang, we’re pretty lucky.
A bathhouse when we’re dirty, and a Laundromat when we need clothes.” Subplot (if you can call it that) with
Jeong Woong-in and Kim Ji-woo is a total waste of time but is supposedly
parallel with main narrative (again I use that term loosely). The purpose of these scenes is
incomprehensible and worst of all, they’re not funny.
Beside Kim Soo-mi’s matriarch, women are portrayed in a very
unflattering fashion. Hyeon Yeon
plays a ditzy sexpot who throws herself at Shin Hyeon-joon’s character and
prances around in skimpy outfits.
Her presence among the core group makes no sense and once again the
writers reference their refusal to put together a logical story by having Kim’s character ask her why she’s even there in the first place!
Connor McMorran, in his 'Comedic Representations of Gangster Culture in Korean Cinema' piece
posted earlier this week, points out that it’s “possible that in castrating the masculine aspects of
gangster culture, either through
male-orientated comedy or by placing the concepts in a female body with
franchises such as My Wife Is a Gangster
(2001-2006), it allows society to escape from the
realistic threat that gangster society potentially poses.” I would tend to agree with Connor’s
assessment and thought about it throughout this film. They are a particularly non-threatening group of tough guys
that would most aptly be labeled sissies.
The biggest laugh for me was in the opening scene when Shin’s character
is knitting in a board meeting, talk about a non-threatening gangster!
I can’t really
recommend Marrying the Mafia IV to anyone but whether you like it or not
will largely depend on what you think of the performances of the ensemble
cast. Kim is pretty good but then
again she’s a first class actress, a lot of the other performances were grating
for me. I won’t lie though, I was able to enjoy some moments of this, if only a little. Then again I can be very
forgiving when it comes to Korean cinema plus I was watching a gangster film
after a full day of research, writing, and editing for 'Jopok Week'. If I was ever going to be able to find
something interesting in this film, this was the right time for it.
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