A wild, zany, and sometimes, indulgent meta-film in the hands of Kim Jee-woon, about a tormented filmmaker hoping to reshoot an alternate ending that won’t go down well with the authorities.
Review #2,893
Dir. Kim Jee-woon
2023 | South Korea | Drama, Comedy | 135min | 1.66:1 | Korean
M18 (passed clean) for sexual scene
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lim Soo-jung, Oh Jung-se, Jeon Yeo-been, Krystal Jung
Plot: In the 1970s, Director Kim is obsessed with the desire to re-shoot the ending of his completed film Cobweb, but chaos and turmoil grip the set with interference from the censorship authorities, and the complaints of actors and producers who can’t understand the re-written ending.
Awards: Official Selection (Cannes)
International Sales: Barunson E&A
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Directing & Acting; Filmmaking; Meta-film; Censorship; Creative Expression
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Mainstream
Viewed: Golden Village Suntec (as part of Korean Film Festival)
Spoilers: No
I’ve been a Kim Jee-woon fan since I was utterly shocked by how unapologetically and gleefully violent I Saw the Devil (2010) was.
His latest, Cobweb, which I wasn’t even aware played in Singapore cinemas last year, had an encore with the Korean Film Festival, which proved to be a crowd-pleasing affair at the screening I attended.
It is a wild and zany meta-film, pretty much what one would have expected from the director of The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008), a kimchi Western for the ages.
Shot entirely on a soundstage, Cobweb alternates between black-and-white and colour as Kim shows us the chaotic behind-the-scenes of the production of a gothic mystery-thriller, also titled ‘Cobweb’.
We see segments of the finished film in black-and-white, but while there is ample visual flair and an unsettling mood to boot, it is the sequences in colour that are the heart and soul of this troubled shoot.
“If I can’t shoot this, my life will pass in torment.”
Song Kang-ho plays the tormented studio director (also named Kim) who envisions a new, alternate ending that would make it a ‘masterpiece’, but it is a change that won’t go down well with the authorities.
Set during the early ‘70s when the government had tight controls over what could be filmed, Cobweb brings an array of tensions into the spotlight as cast members agitate one another, producers are at their wit’s end, and matters of art and censorship play out in a setting of theatrical artifice.
Even folks from the Ministry of Culture pay a visit to this motley bunch of crackheads, with Kim Jee-woon serving up an explosive cocktail of misunderstandings, near misses and black humour.
Although Cobweb does feel its length, and some might say, indulgent, it is impossible to deny its heightened entertainment value.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 