Cupid's Mistake

Redundant, ill-conceived, and relentlessly amateur, this midnight movie from director Young Man Kang (great name) is framed as a series of interlocking vignettes in which one character professes his or her love for another and is rebuffed, leading to the next vignette, in which the previous rebuffer gets rebuffed in turn by someone else. Virtually every scene is filmed as a static two-shot with no close-ups, features fade-outs and fade-ins for no apparent reason (other than perhaps the camcorder battery running out, or a dearth of alternate angles), and uses such poor production sound that half the dialogue is inaudible over the roar of wind against the microphone. We get Day-Glo cartoon images of little Cupids in between vignettes, presumably because Kang couldn't come up with any effective visual transitions. There's no narrative suspense, because every vignette tells essentially the same story, and does anyone really want to watch people getting dumped over and over? (Maybe those with a recent ax to grind.) In any event, the animated logo Kang has created for himself -- to announce upfront that this is a Young Man Kang film -- is far superior to anything in the film itself, suggesting that he might want to jettison the live actors next time. And having a crew of five people is no excuse -- Blair Witch is a testament to that.