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With such an unusual premise of suicidal groups and a town trying to profit from them, “Moodori” could have had endless interesting possibilities, but the filmmakers of Moodori opted for the easy route of low brow comedy. More often than not, the jokes missed their marks and just felt flat. In general, Korean films tend to show more scenes of people using the bathroom than films from any other country and in Moodori they gladly continue this dubious distinction. Perhaps I was just having a bad day with an ugly hangover, but the “funny” scenes of Mr. Baek sitting on the toilet was particularly difficult to endure. Other scenes of the three elderly men ogling over the younger ladies just didn’t come out as funny as expected. Another Korean comedy that offered similar low brow humor but was far more engaging would have been “How The Lack Of Love Affects Two Men” – check that one out. Also, I would have loved to know why the people that were to jump off the Moodori cliff always took off their shoes and placed it neatly on the ledge – some kind of Korean tradition?
The newsreporter Mik-Young (played by Yeong-hie Seo), was able to keep the movie flowing along relatively well, with her goofy performance as the undercover newsreporter trying to break the story of the “Suicidal Hot Spot.” Exploitation was something every character in the film seemed to be obsessed with. Yet, the film only broached this subject but never really tried to address it in any meaningful way. The film did do a nice job of wrapping up the film with a few heart warming scenes that was genuinely moving. During those scenes where the Suicidal Club would go near the ledge to jump, I had images of the Wilson Phillip’s video, “Hang On,” playing over in my head. Probably more scary than jumping off the ledge.
While the film wasn’t deathly dull, the low brow comedy elements of Moodori just struck me as crude and diluted the more enjoyable aspects of “Moodori.” Not a terrible film, but certainly mediocre enough that I would only recommend checking this one out if you don’t have anymore K comedies to watch (which is highly unlikely).
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