Having never seen Hwang Wook’s previous movies (Dog Eat Dog; Live Hard), I did not know what to expect when watching the latest, Mash Ville, and what was delivered was a combination of some of the zaniest wackiest things ever seen and something out of a religious cult fanatic film. It was a hilarious time that ran a little long but delivered on sheer chaos and entertainment. What starts off as confusion (simply because we’re introduced to characters that don’t last or appear for long in the film at all) leads to chaos and hilarity as we realize how these paths intersect, and the final results are a mixed bag, but the journey getting there is certainly a chaotic roadmap of hijinks.
A scene from MASH VILLE. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.
The film focuses on Joo Se-Jong and his two brothers as they sell (and make) moonshine, delivering it all over their native land including to a town of Hwaseong. However, his rather stooge like brothers who make the moonshine did something horribly wrong with this batch and their booze ends up killing anyone who drinks it. While this is certainly an issue, it doesn’t go unnoticed by the town, the sellers, and the product manager of a legitimate liquor business. Won-Keun Park is the legitimate seller who knows something illegal is going on as he has a nose for the business and can tell there is moonshine being sold.
A scene from MASH VILLE. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.
However, while all of this is going on, we also have Hyun-Man Kang, Seo-In Moon, and Ye-Jin Jeong, who are working on a movie and need a fake corpse for their shoot but are unsure where to find one. After drunkenly falling into the trunk, Seo-In Moon gets mistaken for the corpse and that creates a whole new level of chaos and hijinks that slightly derails from the main plot of the movie. Halfway or so through the movie we meet another wildly erratic character named Jae-Won, who’s a cop but is also a massive sh*t disturber and general nuisance, but insane in his own right. He wants to find Joo Se-Jong and stop his moonshining business, but there is a problem he has to tend to first. Two priests are tormenting the town of Hwaseong as they believe corruption and chaos have poisoned the town, so they need 12 bodies (one born each month) to create a ritual to rid the town, and potentially world, of the corruption and evil.
To say that Mash Ville is not a lot is an understatement. It feels like three separate movies thrown in together, potentially making fun of its name Mash Ville, but the way they intersect works. While the entire subplot of the fake corpse and film shoot is rather dull, despite moments of hilarity, it could have been cut to reduce an over bloated run time already. The general concept of two stooges messing up a moonshine they’ve done for years that now results in death with an absolute character of a cop trying to stop them and religious killers on the prowl certainly provides entertainment, but in such a mashed up variety hour special kind of way. When it succeeds it works effortlessly, but when it swings for the fences and hits a foul instead, it definitely sours the audience perception.
A scene from MASH VILLE. Photo courtesy of Fantasia International Film Festival.
Mash Ville works in moments, and when it works, it’s endlessly entertaining and enjoyable. However, when it misses, it feels like it drags and falls apart. There are more moments of success than failure, but due to the structure of the film and the three, nearly four, separate ideas being thrown together, cutting some of it out to create something tighter and ultimately more rounded would’ve done wonders for the audience. While it may be mashed together, the overall ending is still something enjoyable, just not all that memorable.
Screening during Fantasia International Film Festival 2024.
For more information, head to the official Fantasia International Film Festival 2024 Mash Ville webpage.
Final Score: 3 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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