Review for Lee Hyung-Gon's 'The Fox Family' (2006).

It seems to me, that in Gangster Movies from Korea (and no, this isn't one, not even in part), that... a) smoking is cool b) rain looks dramatic c) all gangsters that are successful are fantastically handsome, and d) double-footed kicks are the method of choice for offensive action during fights whilst smoking...in the rain... between handsome men. I am certain that some things look a little generic when they're infact a perfectly understandable part of a general trend. When they come at us frequently and we're viewing from afar though, we often take this for an appearance of something that was once apparently incredibly bespoke.

May be the case, more often than not, we're stumped by the appearance of something that's the filmic equivalent of someone else turning up to the party wearing the same mass-produced item of clothing because we expect something new all the time due to frequently finding it - I am not sure where we stand with 'The Fox Family' in relation to trends versus originality, success verus failure, not entirely at least. I know it's something I find an issue, something that's confusing, and I sense it's a general trend for us fans of foreign films which is a hurdle yet to be jumped.

I say these things because 'The Fox Family' is a very borderline example of something that Korea does particularly well, there have been a few and some of the flights of imagination may or may not work for people, and because it shows this alongside an unsucessful application of many elements. It's a genre mash-up, a comedy (like early Steve Martin films - the comedy of ineptness, somewhat physical too, sexual at times), a little horror (one moment's just like a sequence from Nicholas Roeg's 'Don't Look Now', though this could be a coincidence), some drama (though not so melodramatic or sentimental this time around, I think) as is the generally expected trend.

You'll doubtless find your faith in the subtitles dented relatively quickly too (KD Media usually have great subtitles, this is lacking true structure and gets confusing) and you'll also find the script lacks a subject matter and structure that transfers outside of Korea with complete success. This is, unfortunately, a film that's perhaps a little too localised to be clearly understood elsewhere, and that's fine - in fact it's what I expect to find, it's what I expect Korea to do, but it's an oddity in that regard also because most things do boil down to relatively universal aspects on enough levels to work more than they fail - so I'll try a little clarification for you.

These are snippets of information revealed not in the set-up of the story in the initial minutes, but in the film from about the 30-minute mark onwards.

In Korea, it would seem the common red fox (as we see them here in the U.K at least, quite common and relatively easy to see in the suburbs these days) are considered extinct, mythical, or are surrounded by urban myths of various kinds. On their one-thousandth year, foxes travel down from the Nam Mountain, under a spell that makes them appear human, and seek a human sacrifice to provide them with a liver; one murder at the base of the mountain leads a Columboesque Detective to suspect this as a possibility, I would guess. That liver must be removed and consumed within the short 30-minute period of a total lunar eclipse, and it will lead to the fox being reincarnated as a human for all eternity - they desire to become human because the life of a fox is unpleasant; this is portrayed in a way which makes these look like the clear opinions of humans of course, why would a fox be bothered about aspects of life that are commonplace to all creatures in any way living life in a similar manner? Now, this took the entire film to construct, so this has me thinking that the script lacks clarity and that's either incidental, cultural, or just bad scripting from the perspective of the translation to subtitles. And it's a shame.

I am not entirely certain of what I see as the story, so don't hold me on that paragraph...

Aside from this, the various members of The Fox Family (an ageing father, two twenty-something kids (one male, one most certainly incredibly female - she can have my liver, if that's how she goes about getting it...) and a young daughter too), pose as Circus Performers within their own touring troupe; there may be prejudice played to comical affect there too, suspicions held by the public about such people as Circus Performers may be stereotypically-understood to be. The general idea is that there's a regular supply of human sacrifices to take the chance to ensnare in preparation for the eclipse with is fast arriving within the next month or so. This then allows them to remain hidden away with their own privacy and introduce humans into their lives in a fairly controlled and predictable fashion, and it gives cover to the oddness of their behavior - something which is played as more like human eccentricity than foxes struggling to master human lifestyles, but at times I found it very funny, especially the Disco Dancing early on. Unfortunately, although the sets are fantastically produced and certainly as much of a feast for the eyes as we've seen Korean Cinema provide, it all feels a little too much like a stage, almost as though this were a play on film because the external shots are minimal across the duration as a whole, things feel a little static, contrived. In essence, it makes it a little too clear you're watching a film, breaks the illusion somewhat, and it's just like many aspects of the film which are working just hard enough to leave a sense of disappointment from how it just doesn't quite hit the mark on any given level.

As a production the most fascinating aspect of the failings of the film come with the sparing use of the most imaginative aspects of the visuals. There are loads of these moments, lots of times during the film where you'll likely know you're thinking that things are generally a little too plain, but still promising, where you'll spot some visual flare, some activity, something on screen you think could have been more regularly used to build more of a sense of fun. I won't point them out, because the whole things so dangerously close to hitting the nail on the head, so close to being a genre mash-up classic like 'Save the Green Planet' or a Horror-Comedy like 'The Quiet Family' that it's worth seeing to take in the potential of the film and it's Director and to confirm just how damn clever those two movies actually are - as if it were in doubt to those who like them. There's just not quite enough imagination here, or what imagination there was wasn't applied effectively to beef-up all the various elements that have been imagined to create the film as a whole.

It's a real disappointment of a film, not because it's bad (which it really isn't) but because it's so nearly very good indeed - memorable because it fell at the last hurdle, because it seemed to know what needed doing and still didn't manage to focus enough on doing it, even if it's nothing much more than a fairly disposable, solidly produced entertainment movie. This is a debut feature, and the cliche applies - it shows great promise, without doubt.

'The Fox Family' Teaser Trailer at YouTube.

Order 'The Fox Family' on R3 Korean DVD (with English Subtitles) at YesAsia.