A Man Called Otto:

Similar to Gran Torino, A Man Called Otto is a story about how an unlikely friendship can change someone’s life for the better. Otto is a grumpy and an unhappy widower who has given up on life following the loss of his wife. He doesn’t let anyone get close to him. He wants to end it all. He is the kind of person who disconnects electrical and gas connections when he plans to commit suicide. Then a young and pregnant Marisol and her family  move in as neighbors. Despite the initial friction, due to her persistence and wit, Marisol revives the passion for life in Otto. Otto follows the expected storyline and no surprises or twists. What holds the movie together are excellent performances from Tom Hanks (Otto) and Mariana Trevino (Marisol), handful of great moments (his heart is too big 😀) and does a good job of kindling our basic human emotions. A heart-warming movie about normal people like us, life, love, and friendship.

Kill Boksoon:

Kill Boksoon is director Sung-hyun Byun’s homage to Kill Bill. Starting from the title itself. Story structure is similar, protagonist, mentor, and the daughter. It also borrows a little from John Wick for the story universe. There is nothing new when it comes to the story. It does across as full of cliches. But well written characters, finely drawn relationships we can connect to, the slow burn approach, build-up to action pieces, dynamic action sequences and performances from Jeon Do-Yeon (Gil Boksoon), Sol Kyung-Gu (Cha Min-Kyu) makes Boksoon an interesting watch. There is a freshness in how the action scenes are choreographed. Be warned that they are violent (there is good amount of blood) but be assured that they don’t come across as mere violence since we know the characters and there is a build-up to it 😄