The weekend is nearly upon us, and that means Film Focus. Here’s Mike Laidman with what’s new in local theaters.
The rainy season has hit Jeju hard, but despite the non-stop deluge outdoors, there sure hasn’t been a deluge of new movies indoors.

Despite this, there have been some noteworthy releases over the past few weeks that are still kicking around in theatres. If this week’s smattering of movies doesn’t do it for you, check out some past releases and enjoy a quieter theatre experience.

This week then, aptly-named crime drama Criminal, and next week, The Legend of Tarzan takes a swing at the box office.

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Mike Laidman

Welcome to another edition of Film Focus. I’m Mike Laidman.

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Criminal (2016, Ariel Vroman)
A dead CIA operative's mind is copied to a death-row inmate.

Here’s something to help usher in the craziness of summer movies.

Criminal follows Bill Pope, a CIA agent on a mission in London tracking down a shadowy hacker nicknamed "The Dutchman." When he gets mysteriously ambushed and killed, an experimental procedure is used to transfer his memories into dangerous ex-convict Jericho Stewart. When he wakes up with the CIA agent's memories, his mission is to find The Dutchman and eliminate him before the hacker launches ICBM's and starts World War III. But complications soon arise and the mission turns personal.

Sounds about right for a summer action movie, although with an intriguing premise. But despite the efforts of a talented cast, Criminal has little to offer beyond the bare minimum expected by most genre enthusiasts.


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The Legend of Tarzan (2016, David Yates)
Tarzan is called back to the jungle to investigate a mining camp.

Opening next week, The Legend of Tarzan is a different take on the iconic character than many might be expecting. It takes a number of important cues from the original stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, written over 100 years ago.

It has been years since the man once known as Tarzan left the jungles of Africa behind for a gentrified life as John Clayton III, Lord Greystoke, with his beloved wife, Jane at his side. Now, he has been invited back to the Congo to serve as a trade emissary of Parliament, unaware that he is a pawn in a deadly convergence of greed and revenge, masterminded by the Belgian Captain Leon Rom. But those behind the murderous plot have no idea what they are about to unleash.

This one is a bit of a wildcard. The premise of a now-civilised Tarzan returning to the jungle is different enough from most all other adaptions that this should be one to check out when it hits screens in a week's time.