Typhoon

There are three kinds of bad acting: underacting, overacting, superacting.

All three are in Typhoon, the big Korean production shot in Korea, Thailand and Russia. It stars Jang Don-gun (Brotherhood) and Lee Jung-jae (il Mare). Lee Jung-jae doesn't do bad even if some people might consider his acting style as very underacting, but the truth is, he was the only reason I managed to finish this film from start to end (and even hazarding a quick review if only to see him again in his Navy uniform, shirt-less playing beach soccer, cruising the murky rivers of the floating market and practically every close-up -- and there was a lot).

But there should be a rule not to make Thais and Jang Don-gun act. They should be obliterated by Kim Jong-il's nukes from the acting world.

Okay, not all Thais. Those kids in Fan Chan (My Girl) and Seasons Change, and even Rak Jung (the only Thai movie I have seen on the big screen) should be spared from the catastrophe. But we should all be spared from the bad acting catastrophe of the rest of the Thais (you'd understand if you watch them on their TV dramas), especially the ones that appear in Typhoon. And there were a handful of them here, but thank goodness, the scriptwriters had a heart and only two Thai actors were given more than five minutes of screentime that were sadly wasted on bad acting obviously.

One played the shameless and money-faced broker named Peter who buys WMD from Sin (Jang Don-gun), a North Korean who tried to defect with his family when he was a young boy but was rejected by the South. Of course Sin grows up to be a vengeful pirate and wants to sow revenge on the South big time.

Back to the Thai actor, I've seen him playing similarly goon roles in TV dramas. He may be our version of Paquito Diaz except that Paquito was funny and not that bad looking. But this Thai actor, he had to have a venomous face coupled with bad acting so he was really a pain to watch. I was relieved when Kang (Lee Jung-jae) shot him (not to death, my Lee Jung-jae is too good for that) on the leg, although as his swan song, this bad actor let out a long groan that he might have considered the pinnacle of his award-winning performance in this movie worthy of a nomination at the Academy... not, but at the Rotten Tomatoes awards.

And even if he lived, thank goodness, he never appeared in the movie again. (So I pressumed he died a slow death inside the boot of the car where Kang left him; go Kang! Warning to all bad actors: you'd die a slow death in your movies so better shape up and lose those theatrics.)

Then again, even if I was saved from Peter's bad acting, there was another Thai actor who played Toto, the second sidekick of Sin. He was this bulky man with a face worse than Alan K and had Bob Marley hair. Throughout the movie, I called him Fat Marley. In the first half of the movie, he did not get in the way of the camera much so he wasn't annoying. He played the quiet, invisible sidekick who you see doing tthe dirty job while the main guys did their flashy scenes. He even tries to be funny and hell, I could even have rooted for him if not for his latter scenes when he must have thought, hey Peter is not around to murky things up, I should just strut my bad acting then for all it's worth. And so he did. His final scene, singing a Thai folk song (and believe me, if you hear Thais sing their folk songs, you'd like to commit harakiri) as he waited for Kang to find him, I was tempted to enter the screen if that was humanly possible and shoot him myself. I bet, Kang was just as annoyed that's why he shot Fat Marley, the final shot at close range to make sure he's really dead and won't torture anyone anymore with his singing. Bad actor, bad singer. What a lethal combination.

With the overactors dealt with, this takes me to the superactor, Jang Don-gun. Back in his country, he is supposed to be this hotshot actor who acts well. Kaytee said he is like the counterpart of our Aga Muhlach. Well, I'm not a fan of Aga, but I certainly like him. Yet for some reason, despite the hype and all that (and even appearing in a commercial with Rain for Giordano where he, as expected, superacted too, commercial lang yan ha), I can never bring myself to like him. There is something about Jang Don-gun I don't trust and like, though I'm sure his countless fans would disagree with me.

There's no denying that he is good looking though I personally don't find him so. There's no denying either that he's a good actor though I personally think he is the type of actor who might as well walk around (Korea) with the word A C T O R written across his forehead. And I hate actors like that. Johnny Depp, for one, doesn't prance around acting like he is an actor when in fact he is one of the world's finest. So how much more Jang Don-gun, right?

In this movie, he acts out every scene as in ACT, capital A, capital C, capital T, you get the drift. For once, he doesn't make people forget he is the great Jang Don-gun. He acts to remind them he is himself. And I had to remind myself that this was just a movie and that he is being paid to do just that -- overact.