Review for Joe Bum-jin's 'Aachi & Ssipak' (아치와 씨팍), 2006.

Highly anticipated Animated Feature from Korea - a frantic, dynamic (and very rude) action comedy told with great passion, honesty, though lacks a little clarity and originality in some respects. Very much an experience that demands to be repeated, and some of the nicest animation I can imagine being turned out around now. It blends clever CGI environments with 2D character animation better than any film I've seen to date, I would recommend this one highly to those that love the trailer.

There's a series of fundamental issues with the storytelling in 'Aachi & Ssipak'; now, either this is because there's a presumption about our prior knowledge of the characters, or it's because it's got gaping holes in the explanation of the logic behind the story which aren't dealt with. Either way, the results are the same, it's not entirely clear what's going on, or what has happened - there were short website episodes in the run-up to the release, and I can see a suggestion of work involving these characters going back to 2001, so perhaps that is the cause of this. This unfortunately affected my ability to engage entirely with the story on first viewing as much as I would like as I was still trying to figure things out as the frantic action-comedy zipped along. It doesn't detract enough from an experience that's worth having again and again - it's great fun, original and a lot to take in from one viewing.

Now, It seems the world as portrayed in 'Aachi & Ssipak' is devoid of energy sources, the only thing left is feces. People sit on their toilets and donate their dumps to the cause, powering the land, in return they're rewarded with a JuicyBar - a highly addictive blue frozen lolly - and the results are predictably mixed, causing chaos. Partially kept under control by the addictive nature, partly by being monitored by the government in their most private moments, some cope well and don't question their role (or in fact celebrate it), others focus on the rewards so much that they intend to exploit others for their own gain as they increasingly fall into an evolution driven by excessive JuicyBar consumption. In a way, it takes a familiar situation and makes something else of it, and the focus isn't on the act of taking a dump as much as it's on the power struggle, thirst to satiate and addiction, and to earn cash from selling JuicyBar's on to addicts.

Each citizen is implanted at birth with a special microchip where the sun doesn't shine and it registers their contributions as they occur, at the point of origin; turds rush off down pipes, JuicyBars' ping as they arrive next to you whilst you're still on the job. The addictive nature of the JuicyBar gives us the mutant addicts that are The Diaper Gang (led by evil overlord, The Diaper King?), a band of small blue nappy-wearing child-like gangsters wielding machine guns in order to access as much of the publics rewards as possible. They themselves, The Diaper Gang, can't defecate as a result of their extreme addiction so they choose to rob to provide for themselves. On the opposing side(s) are numerous small gangsters that deal in JuicyBars, stealing them as they're delivered to their true destinations (cue the scenes of stinky toilets being robbed at gun point) and battling one another for domination and financial success.

This then is an action comedy that involves a tussle between warring factions, and knowingly makes huge references to action/comedy films like 'Alien', 'Robocop', 'Terminator' and many more. The main thrust of this story revolves Aachi & Ssipak (JuicyBar dealers) bumping into potential porn star called (or known as) Beautiful; a dumb, ditzy sexpot with a special talent or two. The blue-haired, rubber-lipped, slim-wasted beauty auditions for a hack S&M Porn Movie Director and finds herself drawn into a criminal plot that originates as an audacious story for just another film. The Diaper King wants to develop a special chip to insert into a perfect anus (belonging to Beautiful), thus causing a delude of JuicyBars to be delivered into the hands of The Diaper Gang.

So, Beautiful then falls into the hands of Aachi & Ssipak as she escapes the grasps of the Porn Director and The Diaper King, and the draw between Ssipak's love for her and Aachi's desire to exploit her ability to literally "shit for money" begins to go full tilt. Add to the mix the chase to track down the exploitation of the system, the Robocop/Terminator-esque killing machine (whose name I forget right now) and the governments desire to control the situation as it gets increasingly out of hand. It's frantic stuff, and a films that's actually far better than the criticisms that stick in my head the morning after having watched it. It really needs and wants to be watched again and again, and it offers enough to draw you into that, with it's absolutely superb animation and unusual atmosphere, approach, tone; even from the general thug action you might be feeling too familiar with if you've been watching Korean stuff lately.

Korean films then, mostly the more adult-oriented stuff that I've seen so far. By that I mean the gangster movies, the films that more often than not include copious amounts of what is also seen here in even more abundance. Brutal physical violence, gun play, swearing, killing, blood, dynamic visuals and (of course actions sequences in heavy rain. Exaggerated here in 'Aachi & Ssipak' of course, the fantasy world that's animated offering the chance for things to ramp all the way to eleven without the need to consider the budget in quite the same way. For a Korean audience then, maybe 'Aachi & Ssipak' would be perhaps all too familiar but strangely original for it's audacity and it's animated nature, but that's going to be hard to wrangle an explanation of and it's going to vary anyway.

For me, it's a little self-indulgent but not unforgivablly so, though perfectly charming and fun stuff. The animation is really very impressive, great detail, movement, color, and quite varied in the kind of character design on display - The Diaper Gang look intentionally creepy and rubbery in their movements, like early black and white animation, the military forces look a little stereotypical, clean-cut or cute, perhaps derogatory in their intentions, and Aachi & Ssipak (et al) look cool as you like - streetwise, fashionable, snappy dressers. As a visual feast, it's a refreshing experience, some of the nicest animation I've ever seen without a doubt, very skillful stuff and I want more of it too, and I want to see this kind of thing making its mark in foreign climes even though it perhaps panders to the typical "extreme" label that's likely to be slapped on it.

As a story, it gets a little close to some of those famous so-called adult animations in its subject matter, those 'Jungle Burger', 'Fritz the Cat' cheapo productions that do nothing but turn to salacious content in order to tap-into an audience of an adult age but not of adult sensibility. Here it's a little different, feels more honest and truthful to the desires commonly shown in this particular cultures output, it has it's familiar sense of humor and themes as well as extending them in an individual fashion, so to label it an oddity is both accurate and misleading - this is typical Korean films done to excess, knowingly and lovingly, not exploitatively. Overall, it manages to be entertaining, a mix of familiar, bizarre, and reasonable (though not entirely) original. Great fun, and I have high hops that we could or should see more of this kind of thing from other countries than we usually get them from.

This DVD, a 1-Disc edition (not a rental version on early sale to the public, so there's no sign of a 2-Disc on the horizon) is superbly rich in detail and color, slight errors in the subtitles as is common, and is mastered in Anamorphic Widescreen . Total running time of the film is 90-minutes, the Disc contains 68-minutes of additional material; interviews, outtakes (quite interesting stuff that), trailers. Although this film's due to appear in many places after this, the disc is beautifully presented in every aspect though likely to be surpassed with additional material containing subtitles at some point. For those whose main focus remains the film, this is a great edition to have, I'm glad I go to see it before other films distracted me away from it, before I had to wait too long.

'Aachi & Ssipak' Theatrical Trailer at YouTube.
'Aachi & Ssipak' Order the R3 Korean DVD at YesAsia.