Koreatown

Tagline="Walk Tall Shoot First"

I would have called it, "What The F@#%?!"

Seriously, it's that bad. --So bad that it drew curses from even me along with disgust and contempt. When it was over, I breathed a sigh of relief, "Finally!"

I went to see the "world premiere" of Koreatown The Movie last night with my good friend, Josh Lee, at the Sunset Screening Room in Burbank. Actually, the movie isn't totally finished yet. They said that it was about 75% to 90% finished. I would say they have 100% more to go. --Meaning start all over with a new script. They just wanted to finish up mostly on sound editing. I would say they have a lot of film and sound editing magic to do to make it even watchable.

I didn't know much about this movie before I went there. I was kinda excited and was kounting down the minutes before the movie Koreatown started. This was my first experience going to a film screening like this. I thought the process of moviemaking was quite interesting. It was cool to see David E. Baker, the creator of the film, and other people who worked on the movie. Mr. Baker seemed like a nice enough guy.

I just don't understand why he made this movie. Frankly, I don't know why people even make low budget movies at all. Do they even make money making these low budget movies? Do people even watch these movies? Do filmmakers make them just because they've always dreamed of making films, but couldn't get into Hollywood? Well, if you make a low budget independent film, it should be more original than anything out there in Hollywood. I found nothing original about this particular movie. Most low budget films are really bad, and this was no exception. I've had more moving experiences watching short films on the internet.


Okay, enough of my ranting. Here's the story:

The movie takes place in Koreatown, Los Angeles. For some strange reason, all the Koreans have disappeared. Not one Korean can be seen roaming the streets of Ktown. Now only low life scum of the earth and cheap skanky hookers walk the streets of Ktown. Only the Korean business signs remain. Spoiled-young-Korean-punks-who-spend-their-parents-money-like-there's-no-tomorrow-
while-their-first-generation-parents-work-long-hours-to-give-them-a-better-life are nowhere to be seen inside the Korean nightclubs and bars. (I'm being facetious here, but honestly, how can you have a movie called, "Koreatown" and hardly have any Koreans in it?) I'm assuming the biggest demographic is going to come from young Korean males between the ages of 17 to 35. It will be off-putting to many when you have a movie set in Koreatown with only a couple of token Korean actors.

What was Mr. Baker's purpose in having a movie take place in Koreatown without having Koreans appear in the film? Call me ethnocentric, but where the heck are all my people? This movie could have taken place just about anywhere in LA County if he just wanted a dark and seedy place to set the environment in. I don't think it would have been difficult to find some Koreans to star in the film. I know there are a lot of wannabe actors out there. He could have chosen me, for instance. I would have starred in this B-movie and he could have paid me less than what he probably paid those other gringo actors. I would have worked for chump change if I could be in a movie.

Anyway, back to the story. Tim Lovelace stars as this ex-cop who wants to find his daughter, Kimberly, who is taken into a prostitution ring. Apparently, years ago Tim fell in love with a beautiful Asian hooker, but she also happened to be the main squeeze of a pimp named "Ghost". The hooker had a baby girl with Tim, and she tried to pass her off as Ghost's daughter. One day, Ghost found out that the bastard girl wasn't his, so he murderized her at a local park. Tim keeps having nightmares/flashbacks about seeing his dead daughter lying there at the park. The word, "Ghost", is carved onto her forehead in Korean. I highly doubt that Ghost knew how to carve in Korean though. Ghost is played by British B-movie star, Daz Crawford. I couldn't read the carved-in Korean chicken scratch on her dead forehead.

Tim seemed to have gotten himself on the wrong side of the law, because he was locked up in prison for 15 years or so after his adultery with Ghost's ho. But, before that happened, he also seemed to have forgotten to learn from his mistakes, because he had a second bastard daughter with the Asian hooker mom. Now, he's out of prison and lives in a slummy apartment with no Koreans in Ktown. I guess the whoremom was killed off too. He wants to find his second daughter, Kimberly, before it's too late. He doesn't want her murderized like her first daughter or devirginized by some nasty john.

He meets up with an old cop buddy of his played by David E. Baker. Tim and David E. Baker go around Ktown looking for Kimberly. They talk to every pimp and ho in their desperate attempt to find her.

One night, Tim walks the streets (where no Koreans walk) alone. He walks by a gringo john who is with a nasty Asian prostitute. The guy is leaning against a pillar while the slut seems to have caught her mouth on his pants zipper. She keeps struggling to get her face off of his pants by repeatedly pulling her head away, but the guy is just there putting his arms behind his head and enjoying it.

Then, Tim starts having migraine headaches and has a flashback of her dead bastard daughter's corpse face. This flashback happens A LOT throughout the movie. We get the idea. We don't need to see her nasty smiling corpse face so often.

Then, Tim gets held up by a white teenage punk who wants his money. Tim just lights his cigarette and points his own gun at the punk. The punk freaks out and tries to walk away, but Tim grabs him and shows a picture of his daughter and asks if he's seen Kimberly. The punk takes him to a Korean bar full of fat Hell's Angels-types (and no Koreans). There is a pretty chunky Korean ho-bag there. Apparently, the chunky Korean girl is the punk's girlfriend. The chunky Korean ho tells Tim that Kimberly is a new recruit for Ghost, the pimp overlord. Tim goes off searching for the Ghost.

The chunky Korean girl tells the punk that she'll try to get off work early, because she has school the next day. The punk says that he'll come pick her up after she's done with "work". The chunky Korean slut keeps calling him to come pick her up, but that lazy-ass good-for-nothing slob who can't-get-a-job falls asleep and doesn't hear the phone ring. The chunky Korean girl starts walking home alone, but apparently one of Ghost's henchman found out about her squealing the info to Tim, so he kills her and dumps her body in a garbage bin.

Ghost's posse also kill David E. Baker by stabbing him to death, because they found out that he's been helping Tim find Kim. David E. Baker, although he's a cop, was paid off by Ghost to keep quiet about his drug deals and pimping business.

Tim then talks to his old catholic priest and tells him about what's happening. They go to have some drinks in a Korean bar (without Koreans). The priest gives his advice by saying that jesus turned the other cheek when he was wronged. Turn the other cheek! Bah ha ha ha ha! Turn the other cheek while your daughter is being tortured, drugged, and made into a hooker?!!!! Thanks for the advice, father.

Tim goes out to seek revenge and to get his daughter back. Later, the punk and the priest join him on his Kill Bill-like revenge mission. Tim gives the punk a baseball bat, because "you can kill a person with a gun." Apparently, the movie's budget was so low that they couldn't afford more than a couple of guns. The priest starts shooting bad guys left and right with his shotgun that seemed to have been paid for by the church's offering money.

The punk goes around clubbing drugmakers in the Ghost's factory. The Ghost's underground drugmakers manufacture what they call "Sextacy". It's like Ecstasy but with a certain more oomph like Viagra. The pills looked like Tic Tacs with Valentine hearts on them. The sound effects are so bad in this film. When the punk clubs people over the head with his bat, a cartoony "clunk" sound emanates. That generated tons of laughs from the audience. Couldn't they find a more realistic "hit-over-the-head-with-a-baseball-bat" sound effect than that off of the internet or something?

Tim, all of a sudden, becomes some Dirty Harry-type-dude and starts shooting two guys at once without even looking. Of course, the bad guys can't aim and the good guys always have pinpoint accuracy because of god's grace.

Tim manages to get through the procession of tougher and tougher bad guys as he goes through the levels like a videogame.

There is one hot but skanky looking Korean girl, Karen Park, who likes to shoot people while sucking on a lollipop. She shows no remorse at all and actually takes pleasure in shooting people in the face. She does whatever Ghost commands. Karen kicks Tim's ass the first time around. This time, Tim's pissed so he shoots the bejeezus out of her. Her lollipop falls out of her smirky mouth along with some of her teeth.

Tim has a shootout contest Wild West-style against some crazy nerdy sub-boss, but gets shot in the stomach. Tim's about to get shot in the face, when suddenly the punk arrives and conks the crazy sub-boss with his baseball bat. "Thump".

He finally reaches the final boss level, the "Ghost" level. Tim has a revolver in his hand, but was previously shot by one of the insane sub-bosses. Ghost meets Tim unarmed, but laughs at him. "You won't get any satisfaction by shooting me." Tim, delirious from a heavy loss of blood, agrees and drops his gun and proceeds to duke it out Ultimate Fighting Championship style. Ghost is much tougher than him and keeps punching Tim's bullet-laden stomach. Ghost starts kicking Tim's face Jackie Chan style over and over while Tim just stands there like a drunken idiot. Ghost says, "Aren't you proud of your daughter following in her mommy's footsteps?"

All of a sudden, Kimberly, shoots Ghost in the head. The Ghost kicks the bucket. Kimberly starts sobbing uncontrollably. Tim lays there on the ground next to Ghost when another sub-boss comes to finish Tim off. Tim then plays possum until the sub-boss gets close enough and shoots him in the eyeball and blows his brains out.

The punk comes to Tim's side: Don't die.

Tim: It's too late for me now. Take care of Kimberly.

The punk: Okay.

The flashback of Tim's daughter appears and she smiles and goes away finally.

Later, Kimberly and the punk go to the park where her sister died and leave two roses, one for her sister and one for her dad. The Spirit of Tim sees them and vanishes into thin air.

The End.

Silence from the crowd.

The lights turn on.

Half-hearted clapping and laughter emanates from the audience.


This movie was so bad, it's funny.

The fight scenes were pretty generic. Everything about the film screamed "Amatuer". The sound editing sucked. Sometimes, you have loud heavy metal type music and other times, you have silence. You can hear characters talk, but the camera shows someone else. You could see the choppiness in between the frames when they switch to different camera angles.

There was too much use of the same flashbacks of Tim's dead daughter. The movie dragged on and on even though it was only an hour and a half. There was also much too liberal use of blurry camera techniques to show that Tim was in a hazy daze.

The acting was really bad. The direction sucked. The plot and storyline were terrible.

You had no sense of sympathy for the characters. There should have been some background scenes to show Tim's relationship with his daughters. Instead there are only flashbacks and dialogue.

I think I could make a better movie with my digital camera and post it on Youtube.com. I can hire my friends and we could make a pretty interesting home movie.

I'm sure it's pretty difficult to come up with a good movie with such a limited budget. Maybe drama or love stories might work better with that kind of a budget. With action thrillers, it's hard to get excited about such cheesey fighting.

If I were to make this film, I would have made it extremely violent. That would make it stand out in a tired genre of fighting thugs. I would make it so ultraviolent and realistic. I would show the impact of every punch, knife wound, and bullet going through someone's body. There should be a lot more rage and pain in character's faces. Since this movie also is about hookers, I would show a lot more gratuitous nudity and sex. By pushing the envelope of sex and violence beyond mainstream movies, this would have been an instant classic and a huge moneymaker. Too bad, a lot of film makers soften this stuff up for audiences. I think audiences are ready for extreme violence. Look at Grand Theft Auto games for instance.

I enjoy watching good movies, but bad movies really help make my movie reviews more interesting.

The Highs: Not bad for a really low budget F-movie. It's fun to see places in Ktown and say, "Hey, I recognize that place." You can have a great time poking fun of it while watching it with friends while you're drunk.

The Lows: The low budget quality of this movie permeates throughout the film from beginning to end. No Koreans in Koreatown The Movie.

The Verdict: A low budget action film that tries to imitate the big boys in Hollywood, but comes up dreadfully short and gets spanked.

My Rating: F, 15.