BAEK JI-HYE IN FUNKY FREAKY FREAKS

HAN CHANG-LOK: FUNKY FREAKY FREAKS 충충충 (2025)[ NYAFF /B]

[B]Explosive youth in a provincial high school

This intensely graphic little film is so monochromatic and lurid it almost feels like it's in black and white. It's limited, and may add little to our understanding of teenage rivalries and conflicts, but it shows how they are filtered through today's world of social media. What makes it special is its striking visuals, jangly digital editing, and expletive-laced dialogue, which make it seem almost like an art film, a technically up to date one, and the director gets good performances out of his young stars.

The setting is a small city where redevelopment has stalled, surrounded by low mountains that provide a dramatic visual: you can see the landscape from the school's big windows. The main characters are three high school friends who struggle with their one-note identities: Yong-gi (Joo Min-hyeong), a self-styled "attention seeker" with a strikingly chiseled but pimple-scarred face who dreams of becoming a superhero, or maybe a national scandal; Ji-sook (Baek Ji-hye), a "pro-ana" girl obsessed with losing her weight and hence bulemic; and Dumbo (Shin Jun-hang ), a short, chubby, formerly bullied "netkama" who scams money off men online by pretending to be a girl with a high-pitched feminine voice.

The youthful trio's fragile friendship begins to unravel when Woo-joo (Jeong Soo-hyun), a charming transfer student, a surprisingly pale and pretty young man identified as a judoka (judo expert) and an influencer with 100,000 followers on Instagram, arrives at the school, riding in a German car that shows he is also rich. This is a movie about the present era when teens' lives are dominated by social media and their smartphones are always in their hands. Ji-sook falls for Woo-joo instantly and Yong-gi, who has been secretly in love with Woo-joo, is forced into the role of passive onlooker. But when Woo-joo’s ugly tangle of Epstein-style secrets of past sexual exploitation of women are dug out by the boys, Ji-sook starts to collapse and Yong-gi’s hidden feelings lead him to devise a dangerous plan for revenge. (I'm liberally quoting from the Letterboxd summary, with revisiions.)

This brief, lurid tale of a few individual teenagers on the edge reminded me a little bit, because of its vigor and edginess, of the first season of the British series Skins. Except that it's more limited, of course, being only a short feature film and not a series. It's restricted to only four main characters, never going into depth (such as showing family life) for any of them - but Skins rarely took its camera inside the kids' family homes either. What makes Funky Freaky Freaks special remains the intense visuals, fast action, and kinetic editing. The English title reminds one of Freaks and Geeks, another teen or preteen classic, but alas, it has none of the charm of that portrait of middle schoolers, and again, isn't quite a fair comparison because Freaks and Geeks also is a TV series, even if cancelled after one season. Euphoria has been cited, and may have more in common with the plot.

We are told that Han Chang-lok, the writer and director, whose "punk debut" film has been heralded as something fresh in Korean cinema, was inspired by real-world crime reports of teenage violence, 90s social anxiety, and "the aesthetic chaos of early MTV music videos" to craft his coming-of-age story. Aesthetic chaos--so that's what it is! But it's a chaos stylish enough to go down easy.

When Yong-gi says he has always imagined he is destined for something special, we suspect he is either going to become a mass murderer or do serious harm to the provocative judo expert transfer student Yong-gi, and this happens. One the way, there are a series of violent confrontations.

At the end, we see Yong-gi clumsily trying to turn a cartwheel, and nearly succeeding on the. last try. It's a reminder, I suppose, that the film, despite its violence, is conceived as comedy. But it's also visually experimental in its editing. See the trailer.

Funky Freaky Freaks Yong-gi ("Chung Chung Chung"), 87 mins., premiered at Busan (Special Jury Award ) Sept. 20, 2025, also showing at Taipei Jun. 29, 2026. screened for this review as part of the NYAFF. Showtime:

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.