Hwang Wook’sMash Villeis a King’s Cup concoction spiked with a little bit of everything. Cultist assassins, poison whiskey, birthday destinies, you name it. Titles like theCoen brothers’Burn After Reading,Kim Jee-woon’sThe Good, the Bad, the Weird, orFrancis Galluppi’sTheLast Stop in Yuma Countyall resonate as comparison points. Overlapping misfortunes weave a web of amusing obscurity that spirals into booze-soaked madness with a stumble and skip in its step.Mash Villemight as well be torn fromQuentin Tarantino’sPulp Fictionera. It’s a psychotic, sweat-drippingwesternthat won Mr. Wook “Best Director” at this year’sFantasia Film Festival.
Mash Ville
What Is ‘Mash Ville’ About?
On a sultry day, the sun beating down on a cast of kooky characters,everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Moonshiners, led by the cigar-chompingJoo Se-Jong, ship tainted products to its retailers that could kill consumers. Jeong Ye-Jin, a special effects artist, accidentally presents her latest production with a “lifelike” actual corpse. A duo of Hanbok-wearing preachers with rifles embark on a homicidal spree in the name of salvation. These are, separately, ridiculous acts of buffoonery and violence — butMash Villedares to smash every insane story together. Nitwits, businessmen, and abusive lawmen all find themselves scrambling to restore order to Hwaseong, often after a few bottles of hooch.
Wook’s Western is more contemporary, with suited salesmen instead of bandana-wearing cowboys. “Wild West” attributes highlight lawlessness and saloon behavior with a chipper sense of humor.Mash Villecan be aggressively silly but also macabre and thrilling when gunslinging breaks out. It’s the kind of movie where a woman can guzzle an entire bottle of liquor by herself, then bullseye a headshot with sober precision. A very rowdyMartinorJohn Michael McDonaghsensibility about Wook’s direction encourages pitch-black humor even as bodies pile up, which he navigates withoutMash Villelosing the plot. Characters are bonded in sin and form unlikely alliances over glasses of alcohol, as inebriation helps storylines flow into a singular current.
Don’t get me wrong —Mash Villeis an absurd and sudsy comedy-thriller. Characters are defined by physical attributes like ZZ Top beards or drawn-on soul patches, maybe custom one-eyed glasses. They can be maximalist nutjobs like Oh Jae-Won, the police officer who loves beating the snot out of his jurisdiction locals. There’s a frothy head-high toMash Villethat might not be everyone’s style since it does require surface-level acceptances of plot pivots. Maybe an executioner’s next target drops dead without any altercation, or Jeong Ye-Jin fools an entire studio full of producers and crew with an honest-to-goodness dead person. Wook and co-writerLim Dong-minare playing in a sandbox like any kindergartener with a vivid imagination, but the film’s goof-about nature won’t be everyone’s speed. It’s also over two hours, so Wook’s experimentation window includes plenty of room to fail.
‘Mash Ville’ Boasts a Great Ensemble Cast
Wook’s ensemble meshes together like friendly regulars at a cherished dive bar. Personalities are calibrated to be larger than life,which makes their split-offs and side-quests all the more daffy. Distillery dimwits Se-Hyuk and Se-jin unwittingly find themselves accepted into the killers’ pastel-colored congregation for a spell, or Joo Se-Jong wins over Oh Jae-Won with his homemade brew. When you fondly recall movies likeReservoir DogsorLogan Lucky, it’s all about overblown caricatures stuck working together or falling to pieces, andMash Villehonors that tradition. It’s less about who lives or dies, and more about anticipating what in the Wild Turkey can happen next.
There’s no secret ingredient toMash Villebeyond Wook’s talents as a filmmaker. It’s outlandish, stimulating, and hilariously sloshed to a charming degree. Actors fulfill their ridiculous roles in Wook’s crisscross-y story about utter unbelievability, keeping us engaged no matter how exaggerated events become. There’s legitimate artistry behind this tonal homogeny of lousy luck, bloodshed, and karmic justice, which goes down smoother than happy hour well spirits.Mash Villeis a flavor of well-blended cinematic anarchy you can sip and savor, not some cheap cocktail that’s all burn and no taste.
Mash Ville is a whiskey-soaked contemporary western about misfortune and mayhem that you could sip on all night.
Mash Villehad its World Premiere at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival.
