"A Boy Who Went to Heaven" + DVD Giveaway

The opening scene of "Boy, Goes to Heaven" takes place in a house located high in the sky. A couple of kids decide to go out to play while the adults in the room are making out, and sprout wings for this purpose. This inexplicable scene makes slightly more sense once "Boy, Goes to Heaven" concludes having provided more context. Until then, though, the opener is a bit of misdirection as the action quickly settles upon Nae-mo (played byKim Kwan-woo), a boy living in early eighties Busan with his mother.

Don't get me wrong- even in more mundane trappings "Boy, Goes to Heaven" is weird in a way that's difficult to quantify. Evidently a boy ahead of his time, Nae-mo has decided that he has a fetish for single mothers. And nothing seems to deter Nae-mo- not shocking suicide, not the promise of hanky panky from a classmate his own age, not even the fire which unexpectedly provides Nae-mo with the means to achieve his lifelong dream of marrying a single mother. Hey, the kid's barely a teenager all right? He didn't have time to come up with a better dream.

And yet for all that Nae-mo talks like a middle-aged Korean woman. Listen to his intonation if you don't believe me. It's not just the Busan dialect- I suspect the dialect coach failed to realize that kids are supposed to sound like kids before they're supposed to sound like Busan natives. Of course on that front I might as well question why the soundtrack makes such heavy use of accordions and xylophones.

Also, the story is highly and explicitly sexualized even though two kids feature prominently as major characters. Typically I'm not very thrilled about movies that romanticize pedophilia, but "Boy, Goes to Heaven" is so explicitly brazen with this story element I don't really know how to attack the ideas. It's like Trump's plan to keeps Muslims from entering the United States. What do you even say to that?

Speaking of exhaustive due diligence when it comes to national security, "Boy, Goes to Heaven" also contains some scenes which reference the string of Korean dictatorships- and these references are just as flippant as every other story element in the movie. It's quite literally presented as, oh, this one character was tortured into catatonic insanity. And of course, the immediate question presented is, how does this work in regards to the movie's supernatural elements?

If for some reason "Boy, Goes to Heaven" strikes you worth watching just for the novelty value, I recommend you avoid reading any descriptions of the movie because nearly everything I could find spoils the supernatural plot twist that only comes up halfway through. Shoot, even the main image on the DVD jacket spoils the plot twist. Sort of. Without context it's kind of hard to tell, which really sumps "Boy, Goes to Heaven" pretty well in broad perspective. It's not a comedy, or a romance, or a period piece. It's just plain weird.

Review by William Schwartz

"A Boy Who Went to Heaven" is directed byYoon Tae-yongand featuresYeom Jeong-ah,Yeom Jeong-ahandOh Kwang-rok.

A Boy Who Went to Heaven DVD