New Normal (Korean 2022) - DIFF Movie Review

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind yearning to devour quality Asian cinema; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei, more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite.

To anyone who's had the grave misfortune of living through the years 2020 to, well, now, the phrase "New Normal" invokes chilling flashbacks to masks, hand sanitizer, and extremely awkward outdoor day-time coffee dates walking two metres from your crush.

However, thanks to the ever wonderful Dublin International Film Festival, New Normal means a raucously dark Korean thriller from Haunted Asylum's Jung Bum-shik.

Jung has created a masterful, Hitchcockian anthology where the lives of strangers meet, and part, in ways unexpected - and often deadly.

The film opens with an ominous tone. Violence and misery run rampant in Seoul, fear and paranoia are the order of the day, and the weather adds to the apocalyptic overtones.

It's snowing. In June. For the first time in 115 years.

And how are the denizens of the city doing under the circumstances? Let's take a look see...

Chapter 1: M

Thanks to all the recent murders of beautiful lone women, beautiful lone woman (Choi Ji-woo) is reluctant to let an unsolicited tradesman into her home. The tradesman, a comically sleazy fire-alarm tester, mischievously played by Lee Mun-sik, oozes perversion as he parades around the posh apartment, taunting the woman about the serial killer still on the loose.

Despite his best efforts to take advantage of the vulnerable position his professional presence puts women in their own home, our tradesman is about to learn that nothing is ever as it seems.

Chapter 1 is uncomfortably tense with anxiety inducing strings and a plot twist as chilling as the cold colour palette. Note to self: retire the dust pan and brush and invest in a Roomba - who knew it could double as a weapon?!

Chapter 2: Do the Right Thing

And, exhale! Time for a tonal contrast to break the tension of the first chapter.

Here we meet youngster Seung-jin who is peer-pressured into learning that no good deed goes unpunished. He's a good lad, really. Just needs to "try harder" at school and make more of an effort in the community to be a good citizen.

When espying a poor old dear whose wheelchair is stuck on a wonky pavement, Seung-jin takes the opportunity to save the day and give the granny a big old push... all the way around some serious dingy back-alleys and right into a magnificently deserted and dilapidated high-rise.

With this chapter we see Jung's prowess as a horror director. The dizzying camera work and an excruciating build-up will have you holding your breath and praying that the inevitable ending doesn't have to be inevitable. There's great comic use of music and bursts of primary colour that keep the eye of the viewer engaged.

Chapter 3: Dressed 2 Kill

Chapter 3 is where we begin to see the storylines cross paths.

This one will be all too unwelcomely familiar to anyone who's ever had a crappy Tinder date.

Our sweet young heroine is on one such date with an absolute loser who's in the process of setting up a second date that night, with another woman, while still on this date! Isn't he the worst?

Unchivalrous as he is, Chapter 3 taps into horrid reality that when you meet up with a stranger you met on the internet, you really are taking your life into your hands. And if you're wearing a yellow hand-bag, your life may end up in someone else's.

Another breath-taking episode that casts a scathing view on those who live their lives on their phone, callously recording even the most brutal of events.

The plot twist in this is to die for.

Chapter 4: Be With You

In my world, vending machines are more likely to just steal your change without even dropping down the room temperature beverage or snack you ordered. In Chapter 4, they are an opportunity for a whimsical night-time treasure hunt that lead you to the mystery love of your life.

So far in the film we've seen that innocent people's virtues used as a weapon against them. Looking for love, doing kind deeds - these are traits that will sign post to predators that you are ripe for predation.

In this segment we see that sometimes people with the best of intentions are their own undoing. The predators merely have to sit back and wait for some fool to walk themselves into their own trap.

Fate and destiny are also strong themes here in this gothic-horror tinged vignette whose ending will elicit a massive expletive from you. (If my fellow audience's reaction in The Lighthouse Cinema is anything to go by.)

Chapter 5: Peeping Tom

Love, Rear Window style.

Peeping Tom is a hilariously horrifying episode centring around a goofy, pervert (joyfully portrayed by Ha Da In) stalking his stunningly sexy neighbour.

While the socially awkwards quest for human connection is a perfectly cromulent topic for a film, one does wish our young Romeo would just knock on his neighbour's door and politely ask her out rather than stoop to panty-stealing subterfuge.

Despite being a panty-stealing, pillow sniffing creep, this character is warm, highly comical and weirdly endearing. Even though we know this body-odour bearing geek has no chance with such a femme fatale, the audience is still rooting for him and his one-sided fantasy.

This chapter is cinematic perfection and carries on the over-arching New Normal theme of... NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS.

"I would die to be her boyfriend". Well, Peeping Tom, let's not tempt fate, shall we?

Last Chapter: My Life as a Dog

Every instalment in this film has seamlessly married comedy and tragedy, yet, the final act bleeds with poignancy and despair.

How would you feel if your move to the big city to follow your dreams of being a rockstar ended up with you living alone in a lightless box of a flat, living off expired food tins, and working the graveyard shift in the absolute embodiment of Retail Hell?

"F*ck the World" is probably how you'd feel.

We come full, unflinching circle here with the films best tale that is bleak, grimly comic and ends with a powerful, fiery climax.

New Normal is a masterful anthology where each segment is as strong as the last, there are no weak links here. We see the dark underbelly of Seoul in all its unforgiving splendour - urban decay, high class flats, trendy cafes and lonely rural roads.

Jung Bum-shik shows a world with no redemption. Good and bad are punished indiscriminately and there is no hope for anyone. Not surprising, really, considering that the film's premise is based on "hon-bab", the Korean phrase for eating alone, and is in and of itself, a loneliness.

Thankfully, Jung handles such a gloomy topic with expert script writing, fully fleshed out and likeable characters played by a stellar cast of Korean on-screen notables, excellent cinematography and a ghoulish wit that does remind one of Monty Python's immortal words "always look on the bright side of life..."

Perfect for fans of: Unlocked (2023), Adrift in Tokyo (2007), and The Good Son

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