“The Ugly”
Bae Dongmi(CINE21 Reporter): A quiet voice of an old man drifts out of the darkness: “We who cannot see think more often about what beauty really is.” “I take good care of my hands. They’re how I see and feel everything.” The camera moves in for a close-up of Young-gyu's (Kwon Hae-hyo) face, a master seal engraver who has lost his sight but carves characters of striking beauty. As he chisels the stone with practiced skill, he gives an interview. Known as “the man who sees the world through his fingertips” and “a living miracle,” his success has often been likened to South Korea’s rise from postwar poverty to rapid economic growth. Young-gyu speaks thoughtfully about the connection between blindness and beauty. Yet there is one question he cannot answer: the one about his late wife, Young-hee (Shin Hyun-bin). For years, he has told people she abandoned him and their infant son, Dong-hwan (Park Jung-min). But when he is asked on camera about her, his composure cracks. Dong-hwan, who has always taken his father’s words at face value, begins to notice his father’s unease. Then he gets a call from the police; they have found her skeletal remains. The police raise the possibility of murder. For the first time, Dong-hwan wonders about the past his father never told him. Meanwhile, Su-jin (Han Ji-hyun), a TV producer who initially set out to document Young-gyu, finds herself drawn instead to this darker mystery. Together, she and Dong-hwan begin to trace Young-hee’s past.

The people who once knew Young-hee, her family, and coworkers, remember her by pointing to what they call the “ugliness” of her face. They also recall incidents in which she was shunned simply for speaking the truth and standing up for what was right. Dong-hwan, who has never even seen a photo of his mother, is torn; he longs to know what her face really looked like, even as he bristles at the injustices she endured. But that was how it was back then. Everyone was too busy surviving to care for someone else. Should he bury the past, or confront it? His search to untangle the mystery of his mother becomes a confrontation with the Korea his parents’ generation lived through, a time when human dignity was often pushed aside in the rush for economic development. “The Ugly” is the latest work from director Yeon Sang-ho, who has long explored Korea’s darker realities through projects like “The King of Pigs”, “The Fake”, “Train to Busan”, “Hellbound”, and “Revelations.” This time, he delivers the pleasures of a mystery while withholding the tidy satisfaction of resolution. When the secrets are revealed, what lingers is not satisfaction but a deep ache; scenes that feel etched in the heart long after the credits roll.

“DDDD!” – Dabda
Na Wonyoung (Music Critic): Formed in 2013 around two members who first met in Daejeon, indie rock band Dabda shows a new side in “DDDD!”. It is not only the sudden burst of a flashing “ping!” sound effect in the middle of the song, but the way the track keeps shifting and reshaping itself over five restless minutes. Looking back at the review I wrote when they began work on their first full-length album, I noted how Dabda turned time into both setting and tool. In “DDDD!”, which marks the start of their second album cycle, that quality moves front and center. The first two minutes show how naturally Dabda turns variation into an instrument. The chorus “Today is the kind of day” repeats with changes in rhythm and dynamics, each instrument locking into its own pattern as Lee Seunghyeon’s characteristically hard-hitting drumming drives a percussion-heavy ensemble section. That kind of rhythmic play has always been central to Dabda’s style, but midway through the track, the mood shifts. Kim Jiae murmurs, “I wonder now if that version of me really existed,” and the song transforms again. This time, the music turns speed itself into a stage, with the two electric guitars trading leads in an explosive call-and-response.

Lee Joseph, the departing guitarist who shaped the band’s sound and lyricism over the past decade, takes part in the composition. His successor, Park Jungwoong, steps in with versatile arrangements that carry forward Dabda’s legacy. “DDDD!” bridges these two moments in time while also surrendering itself to change. It reminds us how instinctively Dabda has always handled variation. Like sailors trimming sails to shifting tides and winds, the band controls tone and dynamics with precision, persuading the listener through dense, intricate passages that retain emotional clarity. Noh Keohyeon’s recording and mixing once again give Dabda’s tightly woven sound a vivid brightness, as they did on the EP “Yonder.” By the time the track surges to its grand finale, all the instruments collide in an eruption of sound—thundering, chiming, almost like fireworks bursting in the night. As with “Polydream” and “One, World, Wound,” Dabda sends listeners into a daze. This vast spectacle is a ceremonial launch, the kind only Dabda can host.