VOLCANO HIGH * * * (2003, 80 min. [US Version], Rated PG-13) Strangely, no volcanoes appear in this film.
I was looking to venture outside of the horror genre, and this film looked promising: MTV takes a Korean film, cuts out 40 minutes of plot and character development and hires a bunch of hip hop artists to dub the vocals. It should have been incoherent and craptastc and... it wasn't. At all.
This presents a problem. You see, the mission of the Bargain Bin Review is to take on the kind of crappy, straight-to-video films that no respectable reviewer would touch and seek out the ultimate in "so bad it's good." And while Volcano High won't be confused with anything as good as Oldboy, it's much more good than bad.
The film is dubbed as "where martial arts and hip hop collide," so of course this is set in a high school. Kyeong-su Kim (voiced by Andre 3000) is the new kid in school, a daydreamer who has been expelled from numerous schools due to the superpowers he obtained when -- and I am not making this up -- he was zapped after falling into a tank of electric eels. Kim just wants to keep from getting himself expelled, but all the other students are out to get him.
On his first day alone, Kim gets a spiked seat, a threat to join the rugby team and a quick thrashing by Rhang Jang, leader of the "Dark Oxen." Jang's big plan to "take over the school" is to frame the school's golden boy (Song Hak-Rim, voiced by Snoop Dogg) for poisoning the principal's tea. Bizarrely, the plan works.
Just when you start to wonder things like "Where are all the adults?", the interim principal (voiced by Pat "Mr. Miyagi" Morita) summons "the substitutes." You know they're super-powered bad asses cuz they're all decked out in the finest Matrix-wear. From this point, it's all about the students banding together against the teachers and Kim coming to terms with the full potential of his powers.
Sure, there's plenty of bad dubbing and logic is mostly thrown out the window. But the film plays like live-action Japanese anime -- filled with excellent fight scenes, very cool effects and yes, great music. In other words, Volcano High is too good of a movie to fall under my jurisdiction.
Don't worry, I'm confident I won't have this problem next time.