by “Doc” Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Czar

And with that, the curtain has closed on another Fantasia International Film Fest and I’m …pleasantly exhausted. I managed to see over 50 films and shorts during the film’s three week tenure. Some left me scratching my head, some left me dabbing my eyes, and some left me out of my seat applauding. I want to thank everyone involved at Fantasia and all the related companies that fielded my emails and organized everything for not just myself but everyone else covering the festival both in-person and remotely. It’s a lot of work, a lot of organization, and it can’t be easy, but every year Fantasia makes it look painless.

Killing Romance
Directed by Wonsuk Lee
Written by Park Jeong-ye
Starring Lee Hanee, Lee Sun-kyun, Myoung Gong
Running time 1 hour 46 minutes

I can’t think of a movie that’s quite like Killing Romance. A slapstick-minded story of a one-time film icon’s failing marriage to a controlling egotistical entrepreneur, the film has a backbone of pure fandom and a murder plot at the center. It also has some of the strangest, silliest details that only exist to perfectly maintain the zany tone of the world. John Na (Lee Sun-kyun), the aforementioned entrepreneur, has a selection of fake mustaches for instance. Why? I guess because he can afford it? Makes sense. Seems like something he’d do.

But there’s so much more depth to Killing Romance than first seems apparent. After marrying John Na, it took Yeo-rae (Lee Hanee) a few years but eventually she realized that, as the narrator puts it, “He was a fucking monster”. And the narrator’s right. John Na is manipulative, offering to fund a movie project Yeo-rae is interested in starring in - to restart her career - but ONLY if the filmmakers promise NOT to hire her, telling them that she’s unwell, has depression and hallucinations, and is above all a bad actress! He’s also physically abusive, standing Yeo-rae in a corner and pelting her with tangerines! In hindsight, when he first swept her off her feet, she was feeling especially low because her most recent movie was a flop - the situation may be unusual, but that’s classic predatory behavior.

Serendipitously John Na’s compound is across the street from Beom-woo (Myoung Gong)’s house. He’s a Yeo-rae fanclub member from back in her pop idol days, and he’ll do anything to help her get out of this situation. Anything, even murder… Well, almost. Turns out he gets cold feet when it comes to actually killing John Na, but he’s still willing to help Yeo-rae do it. Many goofy plans are concocted, like weaponizing his toxic masculinity in a scheme to get him to stay in the hottest sauna in the country until his brain cooks, or weaponizing his peanut allergy by getting him to eat entirely too much bean stew laced with the deadly legumes.

Don’t let these events, which I’ll grant you sound grim without context, lead you to believe this is in any way a dark film. It isn’t. It’s a very fun, silly, and colorful world. It’s just that John Na is arguably the worst person in that fun, silly, and colorful world. He’s even made an ostrich nemesis (who can speak AND fly) who is firmly of the belief that John Na deserves everything that’s coming to him. Seek out Killing Romance when you’re able and I think you’ll agree.

Mad Fate
Directed by Soi Cheang
Written by Melvin Li, Nai-Hoi Yau
Starring Ka-Tung Lam, Lok Man Yeung, Ting Yip Ng
Running time 1 hour 48 minutes

Mad Fate takes the conceit of the Final Destination films - can regular humans, once wised up to the grand design, outmaneuver Death? - and ups the stakes to outmaneuvering Fate itself. After a botched attempt by a fortune telling master (Ka-Tung Lam) to bluff a prostitute’s oncoming bad luck, he finds himself crossing paths with an actual killer (Charm Man Chan), a young man with violent tendencies (Lok Man Yeung) and the grizzled detective who’s after both of them (Ting Yip Ng). For personal reasons, the master decides to use all of his occult and astrological knowledge to help the violent young man defy his seemingly inevitable murderous inclinations.

It’s an uphill battle too. The two of them don’t get along and despite it obviously being in his favor to avoid backsliding into violence, the young man just can’t seem to help himself and no amount of feng shui elements, no matter how deliberately placed, seem likely to help. The master is carrying some emotional baggage from his past, and is afraid of his own fate (he believes he is destined to lose his sanity) so he’s determined to make this experiment work because if he can help someone avoid their fate, he may be able to avoid his own.

It is a surprisingly fun watch though, in spite of the heaviness and subject matter, at times approaching buddy comedy energy between the two leads, but with those slightly over-the-top stakes (the fate of their souls) always looming. Their clashing personalities make for inherently dynamic scenes even if, as I mentioned, the thrust of the scene is essentially redecorating. There’s a manic sort of back comedy running through a lot of the film too, whether it’s the master putting the young man’s hair in curlers (long, straight hair is not good for his spiritual alignment) or the young man attempting to murder any stray cat that looks at him wrong, and even if it doesn’t all entirely work for me, I admire the bold swings at this tone.

Mad Fate was the last feature I was able to catch for Fantasia Fest this year, and it exemplifies - as much as any one film can - what makes this festival so wonderful. Even before the film landscape became as dire an environment as it has recently, a film like Mad Fate would be unlikely to see wide release. It’s too dark, the subject matter is handled in a sometimes indelicate manner, and I can’t imagine a trailer that appropriately represents the film, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be seen, and it doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable.

Obviously, my writing a few dozen sentences praising a complicated film isn’t going to break it into the mainstream but my hope is, as always, that someone reading this will put that film on their mental watchlist (or maybe they have a digital one on a site like Letterboxd), and should they ever encounter it in the wild so to speak, the title will ring a bell and they’ll decide to watch it. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be a film that really speaks to them. Maybe they love it enough to dive into the other work of the cast and crew, or maybe they hate it and it will encourage them to make something of their own.

Film is an art (yes, even whatever movie you just thought of as a counter argument to that statement) and art is always in conversation with itself, with other art, and with the people availing themselves of it. It should provoke emotional response and those emotions need not always be complex, there’s nothing wrong with simple, uncomplicated joy especially these days (which are inarguably some very rough days for many, many folks). But it should also inspire, whether what comes from that inspiration is a good conversation or another work of art.

That’s why I love covering film festivals. The major movies coming from the huge studios don’t need your attention as much as literally any other film. This isn’t my commentary on overall quality, just general awareness. There used to be more of a playing field for smaller films, but many of the theaters which catered to that market have either gone under or adopted a new programming strategy to avoid that fate (and good for them, I hope that they succeed). It’s just harder for smaller films to find their audience.

The majority of the films I was able to screen at Fantasia Fest were not on my radar and likely wouldn’t have been. A lot of them were completely unknown commodities, meaning I was unfamiliar with anyone in the cast or crew. But, thanks largely to this year’s Fantasia (as well as the quality of the films themselves) I now have dozens of new names on my mental ‘I Like Their Work’ list. I hope my coverage helped you add some new names to your lists as well. And if there’s a film festival you’re interested in checking out online, or one in your town, I hope you’ll do so.

Until next time, Long Live the Movies!