“Ever-growing in your love, chirping like a lark, I am comedian Lee Jong-se.” Whenever asked who he is, Jong-se (Ahn Sung-ki), a third-rate comedian, introduces himself with this grandiloquent spiel. In the opening scene of the 1988 film Gagman, barber Moon Do-seok (Bae Chang-ho) grumbles while sweating profusely: “Ah, why do we even have summer? Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if we just had spring, fall, and winter?” In a film where the dialogue contains as little concrete information as this, the three characters continuously chirp away with their own lines. Gagman showcases Ahn Sung-ki’s most sly and shameless facial acting. Living in a Don Quixote-like fantasy, Jongse completely reverses delusion and reality, insisting he will go to Hollywood tomorrow even while on the run from the police. Sporting a Charlie Chaplinesque mustache, Ahn portrays Jong-se, a character who directly mocks a reality stripped of romance, with a touch of melancholy. (KIM Song-hee)