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Soo Ae (left) and Park Kae-il in High Society. Picture: Netflix
Opinion
What a view
by Stephen McCarty
What a view
by Stephen McCarty

Korean film High Society on Netflix offers a stylish take on Gangnam’s rich, powerful and corrupt

  • Directed by Byun Hyuk, the slick flick explores the darker side of power in Seoul’s Gangnam district

Disproving the theory that Koreans can make only big-number, period dramas heavy on history, costumes and zombies, here comes movie-for-the-holidays (but not for the children) High Society. And no: it’s got nothing to do with Bing Crosby.

Directed with an eye for the salubrious setting by Byun Hyuk and just added to Netflix, High Society throws together the rich, powerful and corrupt, plus all the wannabes who hanker after being just like them without considering the predictably devastating personal costs.

In Netflix’s Kingdom, zombie apocalypse meets Korean period drama

“I prefer a man who makes a chance, not a man who waits for one,” chirps ambitious curator Oh Soo-yeon (Soo Ae). Thus, she propels her husband, the equally scheming, self-satisfied economics professor Jang Tae-joon (Park Hae-il) into a career in politics, in which he hopes to become a Republican congressman for Gangnam (where else?), in Seoul.

This pair of shallow social climbers are so determined to drape themselves in esteem and influence they cheerfully become embroiled in money laundering, slush-fund operations and doing the bidding of thugs in tailored suits, while their marriage falls apart to the accompaniment of their graphically depicted affairs, he with his simpering personal assistant, she with an arrogant artist.

Enter the genuine bad guy, the deadpan Han Yong-seok (Yoon Je-moon), odious head of an obscenely wealthy family firm that funds the gallery-cultural centre. He is also a sexually deviant blackmailer and manipulator of politicians.

He may have far more money than taste, but Han also supplies the film’s black humour and most of its best lines. “Whether it’s a person or a horse, the bloodline is important,” he announces, creepily, while talking stallion semen with Soo-yeon. At times, High Society can be a wild ride.

Russian Doll on Netflix, an unapologetic existential sitcom for our age

Natasha Lyonne in a still from Russian Doll. Picture: Netflix

“Live. Die. Repeat.” as the movie tagline had it. But this is no Tom Cruise blockbuster. It is Russian Doll, on Netflix, the addictive story of an uncompromising, chain-smoking New Yorker who finds herself stuck somewhere between Groundhog Day and Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow (without the aliens or explosions).

The action consists mostly of Nadia (series co-creator Natasha Lyonne) taking lethal falls through pavement basement-access doors, tipping backwards over a railing and into the harbour, being hit by a taxi while chasing Oatmeal, her errant cat, expiring in a crashing ambulance, expiring in a crashing lift … generally finding new ways to die, repeatedly, then discovering herself back in front of a bathroom mirror while her 36th birthday party goes on around her.

Into the lounge again and cue time loop, with Nadia gleaning a little more information at every reboot about what has happened to her, whether she’s mentally unhinged or if she has been inadvertently ingesting drugs.

Rebecca Henderson (left) and Greta Lee play Nadia's friends in Russian Doll. Picture: Netflix

Nadia is so brash there’s little initial sympathy for her from her party friends, who think she’s having a severe psychological meltdown, or from the viewer. But as the inexhaustible nightmare progresses in eight parts, her frailties push through – again and again and again.

Russian Doll has something of the attitude of sisters doin’ it for themselves: all episodes are some combination of written, directed and produced by women, including Lyonne, Leslye Headland (Sleeping with Other People) and Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) and they feel all the sharper for it.

And there’s nothing about the series that is even vaguely starry eyed. “I feel empty,” says Nadia early on, becoming aware of anxiety, regret and an amorphous grief building somewhere at the back of her mind. But whoever said such things weren’t funny, as our unflaggingly cynical heroine might put it?

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