Sensei Sensibility

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. If the plot of Netflix's new K-thriller Unlocked is anything to go by, it looks like I'm not the only one who's been bingeing the hit show You . The gorgeous Lee Na-mi (Chun Woo-hee) is a carefree, and careless, twenty-something student who, like most twenty-something-year-olds, charges through life with her phone firmly glued to her hand, relying on it for every conceivable thing.  After a night of wild partying, the unthinkable happens and Na-mi wakes to find her phone missing! Fear not, gentle Na-mi, for a kindly voiced woman has just rung saying she found your phone on the night-bus, with its screen cracked, and has helpfully left it in for you to be repaired at Woo's Phone Repair.  Crisis averted!  Thoughts and prayers of gratitude for this good...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian horror cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. I recently stumbled across   Lee Chung-hyun's 2020 South Korean thriller The Call . With such a generic title, I had vague expectations of a knock-off of  Ahn Byeong-ki's 2002  top-notch horror  Phone .  Whilst I do always like to be right , when it comes to Asian Cinema, I love it when a movie proves me wrong . Little did I know that The Call was one of the most hotly anticipated movies of 2020. How to define its genre? Thriller, crime drama, horror and, surprisingly, science fiction time travel roller-coaster – The Call is an absolute powerhouse knock out cinematic experience. The main action of the movie is set in 2019, where mopey millennial Kim Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) is dealing with more baggage than a concierge for a Kardashian. De...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility!  You  are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian crime cinema;  I  am the (questionably) knowledgeable  Sensei , more than happy to satiate your cinematic appetite. Brothers in Harm: Time and time again, cinema has confronted the black and white morals and ideals of its audience. From Park Hoon-jung's underworld masterpiece New World (2013), to (yes, even) Point Break  (1991) - we have been presented with the fact that the crime equation doesn't always follow as: Cops = Good Bad Guys = Bad.  The honour and unswerving solidarity amongst big screen murderers and thieves often results in some of the most unflinchingly emotional, beautiful pieces of cinema.  Think I'm wrong? Ask yourself: How many times have you mysteriously gotten something in your eye whilst watching an Undercover Cop Posing As Gangster, on his knees in the rain, screaming at the sky, holding his slain comrade in crime, as said comrade bleeds out p...

Welcome to Sensei Sensibility! You are the hungry mind yearning to devour Asian themed literature; I am the (questionably) knowledgeable Sensei , more than happy to satiate your literary appetite.  If you’re looking for a grim and ghoulish read this winter, may I recommend You-Jeong Jeong’s The Good Son ? This 2016 South Korean crime thriller is the perfect read to get your blood racing on a dark, dismal night. Han Yu-jin wakes one morning in the family’s luxury sea-view apartment to find his mother brutally murdered and laid out in the sitting room – Yu-jin, covered in blood. Yu-jin has absolutely no memory of the night before and must now retrace both his and his mother’s steps to uncover the events leading up to this terrible incident. Can he solve this mystery before anyone discovers a murder has taken place? And, must Yu-jin then clear his name, or hide his crime? Starting at the end and working backwards is a fairly common crime trope, and when handled poorly, can of...