8/28/2013

TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE (2000)


Country :
South Korea

Genre:
SF / Action

Running Time:
60'

Director:
Gee-woong Nam

Cast: Lee So-Woon, Kim Dae-Tong, Bae Soo-Baek, Kim Ho-Kyum, Yang Hyuk-Joon

GHOUL RATING:
0 (ZERO)

Story: The first 7 minutes, out of the 60, are made of opening credits. Nothing interesting whatsoever happens during them. In the following 32 minutes, a hooker (I'm not sure if she's teenage, but she's certainly nothing to write home about) is impregnated and killed by her 'teacher', revived by hack-saw 'scientists' and turned into a poor man's cyborg. She is unleashed upon her wrongdoers in the 39th minute of this mess (that's only 17 minutes before the end credits). Of course, nothing interesting whatsoever happens during the entire 49 minutes of the film proper. The end credits are mercifully shortened to mere 4 minutes, and, of course, just like in the opening 7, nothing interesting whatsoever happens during them. 

Review:  TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs!
 
I'm not against opening credits: they can be an art-form in themselves. They prepare you for the film, introduce the mood, the setting, the atmosphere, they can be enjoyable in themselves, like a short movie of a kind... But, those you get in REAL cinema. The opening of TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE perfectly announces the insipid time-waster that follows by showing 7 worthless minutes of a girl roaming around the city streets, accompanied by a forgettable, stupid music and the endless crawl of names no one should ever bother to read or remember.

TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie. It is a title that never bothered to provide a substance to be attached to. And by 'substance' I do not mean a profound meditation on human condition and the plight of raped schoolgirl hookers around the world. No, I mean the kind of substance one can reasonably expect from something that advertizes itself as a TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE. Rape, tits, perversity, mayhem, slaughter, gore, body parts, imaginative death scenes, weird cyberpunk imagery. Stuff like that.
 
None of that will be found here. The only 'sex' scene consists of repetitive close up shots of a guy's ass (luckily, in trousers) pumping at the 'teenage hooker' against the wall. Cyberpunk imagery? How about a group of giggling 'scientists' with a hack-saw, whose overlong 'operation' is intercut with a pointless opera singer? Their creation is surrounded by cheap plastic tubes. GHOST IN THE SHELL, eat your heart out! Gore and mayhem? Gotta be kidding me. A tit blown-off, a few splashes of red, and that's all. Here's a free advice: if you're after sleaze which, unlike this crap, actually delivers, try GUTS OF A VIRGIN and ENTRAILS OF A VIRGIN for a change. They ARE stupid, but at least they do not cheat you with endless nonsense. They deliver on their promise.

It is one thing to try something, and fail. But it is a completely different, and most despicable affair when a product (I refuse to consider this a movie) does not even try. TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is a spiritless affair whose makers were assured there would be enough morons in the world to buy or rent a DVD solely because of its title, cover and basic plot. Since the director Gee-woong Nam was too lazy and talentless to even bother trying to develop the concept into something resembling a movie, he decided to stretch scenes way beyond the running time they require, so as to forcefully fill the 60 minutes. Other than the 11 minutes 'worth' of credits, you're also treated with a 2 minute long wailing of a granny who hates the noise in the streets. Two minutes of an ugly crone thrashing on the floor: "Why are they making all this noise? Why don't they leave an old woman like me alone? Why, oh, why? etc." Other memorable scenes include the 5 (five!!!) minutes of the hooker's single uniterrupted close up in which she slowly mumbles insufferable platitudes about her love to her teacher, willingness to leave the job for him etc. Whatever could be stretched – was stretched. Emptiness had to be filled somehow. With no budget, no imagination, no spirit, no inventiveness, no care, no regard for the audience – all they could think of was: prolong everything. This may be 'only' 60 minutes long – but if you're foolish enough to watch it, it'll seem like eternity. 

Because this thing is not a movie, it does not deserve to be treated as one. That's why this is not a movie review, but a warning: TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs!