Silly Sex Tale Limps Along

I went to see an early screening of A TALE OF LEGENDARY LIBIDO (Garujiki in Korean) last night. Man, it really reminded me of why I do not write more reviews and stuff about the movies themselves on this blog -- because so many of them are so very, very bad. And I really do not want to spend my time slamming one terrible film after another.

LIBIDO is the latest retelling of a well known smutty song from the 19th century. It is the story of Gang-soe, a tteok-seller in a remote mountain town, famed for its libidinous women. Gang-soe is miserable, though, because he has such a small penis that the town's women laugh at him constantly.

So one day Gang-soe drinks a magic potion that gives him superhuman virility. And he drinks waaaaaay too much of it. Comedy ensues, followed by the inevitable (for a Korean comedy) 30 minutes or so of crying and tragedy.

Seems like an easy set-up for some easy, sex-based laughs, right? Wrong. I think I half-giggled once and smirked maybe twice, but overall this movie is witless and dull. Director Shin Han-sol is remarkably incompetent, with no idea how to tell a basic story or a joke. The film shifts tones constantly, although remaining generally torpid throughout. On the rare occasions the movie is not lousy, it is actually offensive.