Korea's movie industry comes in for some light joshing in Killer Story, an entertaining look at a blocked movie director forced to shoot a picture with an over-the-hill bimbo actress that's virtually an uncredited remake of the 1997 Hong Kong pic Viva Erotica. Pic is buoyed by a lively performance by well-known actress Hwang Sine (301 302, Push! Push!).
Guido (Mun Seong-keun) - clearly named after the hero of the Broadway musical Nine, itself based on Fellini's 8 1⁄2- is an arty director with a failing B.O. record who's unsuccessfully peddling a script called A Killer Story, a tragic love story about a peeping Tom in a Korean "love hotel". Guido is offered a deal by a sleazy producer, but with the proviso that he uses his thirtysomething mistress, Marie (Hwang), who sees it as her big break into serious movies, and his star actor Harvey (Lee Kyeong-yeong), who wants to turn it into a gangster movie.
Helmer Yeo Kyun-dong, also an actor, gives his cast plenty of space and has expected fun with scenes visualising the movie in Guido's head and with the spiralling complications as everyone maximises their own agendas.
Derek Elley