A Film a Week - The Killer / Deo killeo: Jugeodo doeneun ai

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Choi Jae-hoon is positioning himself as one of the new hopes of the action-based Korean cinema. His track record consists of 3 features in as many years and as many genres. He gained some international attention with the historical spectacle The Swordsman (2020), and the horror-thriller The Hypnosis ensued the following year. His third film is a straight-up action thriller The Killer (2022) based on a somewhat popular web-novel The Kid Deserves to Die written by Bang Jin-ho. After the premiere at last year’s Udine Far East Film Festival and a tour of genre-friendly film festivals, such as Fantasia, it has landed on the streaming/video market.

The story revolves around Bang-ui (Jang Hyuk who already worked with the helmer on his debut feature), a semi-retired mob assassin willing to start a new life with his wife Hyeon-soo (Lee Chae-young) making money in the real estate sector. However, she plans a holiday with her best friend and the integral part of the plan is that Bang-ui has to “babysit” the friend’s daughter Yoon-yi (Lee Seo-young), a teenage girl with a talent to get in trouble. One thing leads to another, the girl gets in trouble and has to be saved (repeatedly) by the former hitman who, in process, discovers a wider conspiracy – a teenage prostitution ring that involves some people on the high places.

Once we manage to suspend our disbelief regarding the whole arrangement in which a mafia hitman (and, more generally, a middle-aged man) has to take care of a troublesome teenage girl he sees for the first time out of favour to his wife’s friend, we are in for an interesting, rollercoaster-type of ride. The script serves us with a plot that might seem convoluted and frivolous, but its function is to basically propel the action from one choreographed action sequence to another.

Those fights and shoot-outs are refreshing in their “creativity”, especially when it comes to elaborately brutal ways to kill an expendable “NPC” baddie. The fact that the only one capable of properly hurting our protagonist gets three fight encounters with him is actually quite a clever move that adds a layer of video-game “reality” to the film.  Another refreshing thing is the complete lack of care for the postulates of political correctness shown by the creative team: the villainesses of the film are as venomous as the villains (if not even more), but expressing themselves in a more scheming and covert way.

Choi’s directing is quite sure-handed in the way the standard and not-so-standard elements are combined. Acting-wise, Jang Hyuk is a convincing and compelling protagonist with a strong presence and a good sense of timing when to switch the acting “modes”, while the uneasy alliance-type of chemistry he shares with Lee Seo-young is believable enough for an action-packed movie that cares more about the set-pieces than the human drama. On the technical level, the choreography of the action sequence is complemented with the choreography of the otherwise slick cinematography of Lee Yong-gab, while the editor Kim Man-geun controls the pace with his precise cutting and the Jung Hyun-soo’s somewhat omnipresent, yet genre-diversified score (varying from ambiental and electronic pulsating to hard/symphonic rock and heavy metal tunes) manages to touch the right emotional chord in each switch.

Finally, the reception of The Killer varies a lot of the expectations the viewer brings to watching it. An exquisite piece of cinema it is not in any case, but it is a fun, intense, lean and occasionally mean action flick that works equally well on the big and the small screen.

A Film a Week - Svaha: The Sixth Finger / Sabaha

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

"Svaha: The Sixth Finger" was never intended to be an award-grabbing festival darling, and its distribution trajectory, having a domestic release before becoming a minor hit world-wide on the internet market, clearly shows that. Neither the film, labelled as a supernatural thriller, nor its director, Jang Jae-hyun, known for his writing and directing work on similar projects like "The Priests" (both writing and directing credits) and the remake of the Venezuelan minor horror sensation "The House at the End of Time", renamed "House of the Disappeared" for Korean version (written by Jang and directed by Lim Dae-wung), fit the festival kind of profile. But envisioned and crafted properly, "Svaha: The Sixth Finger" is more than a decent past-time, far better than Dan Brown novels' screen adaptations (the DNA of the script and the characters has some similarities with them), but still not quite as brilliant as Na Hong-jin's "The Wailing".

The original title "Svaha" ("Sabaha" in the transcription from Korean) has its roots in Buddhism and Hinduism, as it is a word that is used at the end of mantra. From Sanskrit, it is translatable as "Well said", while in Tibetan, the meaning is closer to "So be it", which sounds eerily Abrahamic. The expression travelled together with Buddhism, from India to Tibet, China, Japan and Korea. On the other hand, "The Sixth Finger" (pun intended) part, added for the international video markets, is a plot point that will not be discussed any further in order to keep the spoilers at bare minimum in this pretty much plot-driven story.

The film opens with a narration by Geun-hwa (Lee Jae-in), a simple country girl, who explains that she was born with a demonic twin sister, that she lost her parents early on and that she was raised by her grandparents. As a character, she will find her way to the centre of the plot around the midpoint of the film, but as a narrator, she will be absent until the very end, making a full circle, which is a bit schticky, but efficient.

The story itself revolves around the murders that lead to the pseudo-Buddhist religious cult called The Deer Mount and its mysterious founder and leader Ye-seok (Jeong Dong-hwan). While they are being officially investigated by the police and its chief Hwang (Jung Jin-young), they also draw the attention of Pastor Park (Lee Jung-jae), a man specialized in investigating and exposing the cults and pseudo-religious groups, who becomes our protagonist. With the help of the two of his employees, driver Joseph and deaconess-secretary Sim (Hwang Jung-min) and the valuable information provided by his Buddhist monk friend Hae-an (Jin Seong-kyu, glimpsed in "The Extreme Job"), he is on his way to solve the mystery that exceeds the borders of the material world.

In the exposition stage of the plot, "Svaha: The Sixth Finger" is an intriguing and high-revving piece of movie fun, with a couple of set-piece scenes that provide a nerve-wrecking tension and are directed with elegance and efficiency by Jang. Also, the setting of the urban and rural areas with different religious backgrounds around the Christmas time fills the film with a pretty unique atmosphere. The technical component of the film is usually spot-on, and Jang does his best to shift the tone either by fine-tuning, or by shifting gears regarding the tempo.

However, when all the threads converge into one, Svaha becomes pretty much straight-forward piece where every character does what it is supposed for them to do. Jang's attempts to change the rhythm with the flashback moments seem a bit clunky and the flashbacks themselves are quite unnecessary, since they tend to over-explain the clues and the twists planted just several scenes earlier. In the end, some 15 minutes of slightly over two hours of runtime could easily be trimmed off.

The thing that elevates "Svaha" above the line of average is the film's carefully picked cast. The actors are making an effort to breathe the life into the characters that are either stock, broadly sketched or a bit underdeveloped. Pastor Park even has some franchise potential as a character, while Lee has the star power to carry it. Park Jung-min's efficiency, complete with a dash of humanity, in his role here definitely paved the road for him for bigger things, like this year's Berlinale title "Time to Hunt". Jin Seong-kyu is quite compelling as the protagonist's consultant with a dash of nerdiness, while Lee Jae-In hits the right tones as Geum-hwa. Little known David Lee also puts himself on the map of talent with his role of Joseph that exceeds the frame of a basic sidekick.

Masterfully acted and for the most of the time efficiently directed, easy to follow "Svaha: The Sixth Finger" simply works as a good enough fun, regardless of occasional errors and clichés that could be traced back to the script. Make no mistake, this is not a masterpiece on any level, but it is still an example of a good genre film that works ideally on home platforms.

A Film a Week - Coming Home Again

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Wayne Wang is one of the pioneers of Asian-American cinema, often providing a unique voice on the topics of identity, immigration and integration. In his long and fruitful career, listing 22 feature-length films over the course of 44 years, he has made some of the biggest and most beloved indie hits like “The Joy Luck Club” (1993) and “Smoke” (1995), had his chance of earning Hollywood fame with “Maid in Manhattan” (2002), but he always came back to Asian-American themes. The other thing characteristic for Wang is the tendency to work with the material sourced in literature. Both stated facts hold for his latest film, “Coming Home Again”, which was shown at Toronto and Busan before having its European premiere in the official selection at Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn.

However, “Coming Home Again” will take a special place in Wang’s filmography. The reason for that is the type of the material he works with: a deeply personal, autobiographical and essayist reflective stream of consciousness-type short story written by Lee Chang-rae. It is a challenge, but Wang has always been unorthodox in his choice of literary bases for his cinematic works, preferring to adapt short stories rather than novels and even experimenting with his own and his creative partner Paul Auster’s observations on their two-tome 1995 collaboration consisting of “Smoke” and “Blue in the Face”.

Wang opens the film with narration by Chang-rae, played by Justin Chon, about a special way to prepare beef short-ribs by almost filleting it, but leaving the bone attached to the meat on the side, so the meat can suck its richness. On that one, he is quoting his mother (Jackie Chung), the woman who had been always treating him with good food. But the mother’s cruel sickness, stomach cancer, is the reason why Chang-rae left his well-payed job in New York and went back to his childhood home: he feels obliged to take care of his dying mother who was always the first to sacrifice her own happiness for the well-being of the family, since his college professor father is busy with work and his career-pursuing sister lives in South Korea.

The plot of the film (sort to speak) takes place over the course of one day, but through flashbacks, narrations and reminiscences, Lee as a writer and Wang as a filmmaker reveal more background details about the family’s past, making the movie more of a meditation on the subjects of family, ambition, self-sacrifice and the constant fear of death. “Coming Home Again” is far from an easy watch due to its sombre topic and essay-like storytelling through voice-over narration with only a small portion of dialogue and in the complete absence of “action” of any kind. On the other hand, it is clearly a work of a filmmaking master and one of the best films of its kind.

The reason for that is Wang’s sure-handed directing and meticulous approach to the material that makes “Coming Home Again” easy to follow and navigate. The scenes set in the present are cold in terms of colours, the camera is usually fixed and it observes the characters from behind, while those set in flashbacks, memories and reminiscences are richer in colour, filmed with hand-held camera and more dynamic. The absence of external music (that is not the part of the plot) until the very end is also telling what kind of emotions Wang aims for and actually scores, for which he also has to thank his crew, the cinematographer Richard Wong as well as Ashley Pagan and Deirdre Slevin, who were handling the editing.

The actors also deserve to be considered among the film’s highlights. Justin Chon (“Twilight Saga”, “Gook”) finds a good balance between the multiple roles he has to fill in as a character, but also as an observer and narrator, aiming either for more of a cerebral effect or for pure emotion. Jackie Chung has even a harder mission playing a character who barely moves and talks, but she handles it with grace, making “Coming Home Again” an emotional and cinematic experience hardly comparable to anything else.

A Film a Week - Wonderful Woman / Joh-eun Yeoya

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Have we ever wondered why it seems that bad things happen only to good people? Is it that we do not notice bad things happening to bad people and we write it off simply as karma? Or is it that the suffering makes a person look better in our eyes than he or she really is? The truth probably does not have anything to do with the two theories, because people, good or bad, suffer for completely different, realistic reasons: bad decision they have made or simply bad luck. "Wonderful Woman", the ninth film of the South Korean filmmaker Jeon Kyu-hwan, is exactly that: a film about a woman having to endure some harsh life conditions. It premiered internationally at 23rd edition of Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia in Signatures section dedicated to established arthouse filmmakers.

In the very first scene, our heroine, played by Ahn Min-Yeong, is pretty much diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The good news is that it is diagnosed early, so it is operable and her chances of full recovery are very high, with a proper care. The trouble is, however, that her life is not very predictable, as she works in a massage parlour that got temporarily locked down because of prostitution, she has no savings and no luxury to take some time off.

The additional trouble is that she has to attend the wedding of her daughter whom she left when the latter was a teenager and in order to do so, she has to track down the husband she has not seen for ages. She has the urge to make things right, for her wrongdoings and also for her husbands who gambled away all of their property and left them without means to survive. So our titular heroine is being drained physically, emotionally and financially and her time is ticking away...

After experimenting with genre cinema lately, Jeon has got back to his roots in socially charged dramas along the lines of his early Town trilogy. In the hands of a less tactful filmmaker, "Wonderful Woman" could easily earn the label of a "misery porn" film, but Jeon knows very well how to induce the maximum of viewers' emotion without being exploitative or sentimental. As a screenwriter, he is very aware of his heroine's flaws and as a director and a DoP (he handled the camerawork himself, sometimes resulting in unnecessarily shaky long hand-held shots), he decidedly stays with her for the whole 97 minutes of minutes, offering a view to her life and providing understanding.

On her part, Ahn Min-Yeong is exceptional in her role, brave to no limits to present herself in an emotionally open way, keeping her composure, rarely missing the step and not even slightly overdoing her part. Her presence is simply magnetic and she carries the film on her shoulders almost effortlessly, making it a must-see for fans of Jeon's work and enthusiasts for arthouse cinema with socially aware side to it.

A Film a Week - Parasite / Gisaengchung

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Judging by the taste of A list film festivals juries, Asian cinema is taking the lead on the world scale. Last year at Cannes, two of the most lauded films were Palme d'Or winner "Shoplifters" by Hirokazu Koreeda and "Burning" by Lee Chang-dong. Interestingly, both were examining class conflict in a divided society with deep rifts between the haves and have nots. There are obvious parallels to be drawn between this year's Palme laureate, Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" and both of the aforementioned films so we could debate on a trend of sorts, where the approach of art house drama or more genre-oriented is just a matter of taste. We were lucky enough to finally catch the "Parasite" (no pun intended, or just a little a bit...) at Sarajevo's impressive and impressively full open air stage.

Like in "Shoplifters", here we also have a family (only this time biological) of four (mom, dad and their adult son and daughter) living on the fringes of society in a basement apartment where the only window is being regularly pissed on by a passing drunk. Their current gig is folding pizza boxes for pocket money and their favourite past-time is searching for an open Wi-Fi signal that could be there lifeline for finding more and better gigs in a harsh economy. However, their luck is about to change when the son's student friend comes with the "lucky charm" in the form of a large stone and the news that he is leaving country and willing to let his English tutoring gig to him.

So, Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik), who has already pulled entrance exam scams for the college kids, gets his job teaching the insecure teenage girl from a rich family Park Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), and an anglicized name Kevin to go with it. When he meets her younger brother Da-song (Jung Hyun-jun) who might be somewhere on the spectre, he "accidentally" thinks of "a friend of a friend" named Jessica who is an exclusive art therapist. Jessica is, of course, his sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam), a skilled Photoshop forger and a fast learner who gets to impress the Park family matriarch, nice but hopelessly gullible Yeon-kyo (Jo Yeo-jeong), with one night of internet studying. Soon enough, the Kim family kids pull the scam to get their parents, father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) and mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) employed at the Parks' household as a driver and a housemaid respectively.

With such a simple-minded mother and largely absent successful businessman of a father Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun), the Parks stand no chance against our very sympathetic infiltrators. Well, until one rainy night when the rich family takes the camping trip, the old housemaid returns to the house to "pick something up" and the secret about something or somebody being locked in the basement of a modern posh villa comes to light...

Dramaturgically speaking, every detail is in place and all of them get a pay-off that is usually brilliant thanks to the airtight script penned by the director and his "Okja" assistant director Han Jin-won. Countless tomes of theoretical analysis and anthropological studies of class system could be written just about the smell as the source of the plot mechanics, the use of elements, the topography of the locations used or the use of high culture alone. Remarks like Mr Park's theory about the people riding the metro that all wear the same odour, Mr Kim's honest piece of wisdom that he would be as nice as the Parks if he were born to be rich or the impersonation of a North Korean state television speaker are both being played for laughs, but also providing a deeper insight about the patterns of thinking differing between the classes. Also, it is worth noting that the script is quite nuanced in the terms of treatment of the characters from the both side of social spectre - even though we can cheer for the Kims while they are "relieving" the rich from the burden of their money, we are well aware that their crime is not a victimless one, as they are ruthlessly and efficiently removing the common, working-class people that find themselves on their way, while we can also feel some sympathy for the Parks because they are actually nice and friendly people.

Direction-wise, Bong Joon-ho has already proven as a master, both as a craftsman on the level of Hitchcock and Spielberg he relies on here especially as the nerve-wrecking tension builds up towards the bloody climax near the end, and as a creative genius ready to turn the genre conventions around and to make some of his own in order to deliver a one-of-a-kind film. His transitions from genre to genre, covering basically everything from pitch-black, but still hilarious comedy to classical literature level of tragedy (there are some nods to Dostoyevski and Kafka weaved into the film's coda), with a nail-biting chiller and the occasional outbursts of perfectly choreographed gory violence in between.

But, actually we could expect all that from a man who gave us the Korean New Wave genre-defining pleasures like "Memoirs of a Murder", "The Host" and "Mother", as well as the passionate social parables in his international career titles "Snowpiercer" and "Okja". In "Parasite" he takes the chosen elements from the both worlds and combines them to perfection, making it his most complex and complete, if not even his best film of the career. Wonderfully shot by Hong Kyung-pyo, with whom Bong has already worked on "Mother" and "Snowpiercer" and who shot the recent highlights of Korean cinema like "Burning" and "The Wailing", with a classical, almost monumental score composed by Jung Jae-il who worked also on "Okja", precisely edited by a newcomer Yang Yin-mo and with a cast consisting of the hand-picked stars of Korean cinema, both established and rising, "Parasite" is an absolute masterpiece of a film whose significance transcends the level of just cinema.

A Film a Week - Extreme Job / Geukhanjikeob

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

It might look like that comedy as a genre is slowly, but painfully dying out, drowning, at best, in pop-cultural references that would not last very long, or, at worst, in a pool of body fluids, with undercooked pre-ordered jokes and underwhelming physical gags take their place in the middle of the two. Saving grace this time comes from South Korea, in the form of Lee Byeong-heon's action comedy "Extreme Job" that works superbly on both levels, being properly tense and funny-to-die, while also adding an additional of satire and social insight in its sub-text. The results in the terms of admissions and box office, both home and abroad, are not just impressive, but record-breaking for a good reason. We finally seized the opportunity to see it in Art Film Fest Košice's Eastern Promises programme section.

The plot revolves around the team of incompetent narcotic detectives lead by the jaded Captain Ko (Ryu Seung-ryong, seen also in the previous record-holder, "The Admiral" directed by Kim Han-min) and consisting of an equally jaded surveillance expert Young-ho (Lee Dong-hwi), the apparently crazy Ma (Jin Seon-kyu), the rookie Jae-hoon (Gong Myung) who is pretty green and too fired up to prove himself and the only female Jang (Lee Hanee). After botching a routine arrest action by causing a severe material damage in quite a wide area, they get a bone thrown by a rivalling police team: a notorious gangster Mubae (Shin Ha-kyun) is putting together his old crew in order to reclaim the throne of the drug-dealing kingpin after some time of absence.

The inner circle of a gang is located in a building across the street from a fried chicken joint that is about to get closed. The team comes to a "brilliant" idea to buy the place off and to make it the centre of their stakeout mission, lead by an information that the ones holed up in the building have a habit of ordering the food from there. It does not seem as a bad plan, until their business reaches some sudden and unexpected success thanks to Detective Ma's cooking abilities and bold imagination to serve the sticky chicken in a beef marinade. What seems to be a cure for their ailing finances, might prove to counter-productive for the case they are supposedly working on, so they have to tone the success down a bit in order that they could work. But whatever they do, the place gets more and more popular. Until they catch another lucky or "lucky" break...

As the plot progresses, starting quite physical in the sense of comedy, then developing a smart context, it is destined to end up in the orgy of unbelievable laugh-out-loud moments and the pleasures of choreographed violence. "Extreme Job" works on so many levels, hitting many targets often in the same scene and employing different approaches and techniques. It is fast-paced both as comedy and as an action movie, but the pace is not just a trick to cover up the plot holes, since the rhythm of the whole thing is simply amazing, with all the punchlines, figurative and literal, temped to perfection.

Occasional logical acrobatics are also there, but it never becomes a problem for Lee Byeong-heon and his screenwriter Bae Se-young. Lee directs in a smart and studied manner, usually insisting on short, hand-held close-up to mid-distance shots, infusing the film with mock-TV news reports, and quickly switching the tone between action and comedy, while remaining faithful to the very smart sub-text of poorly paid and trained police officers as a result and also a source of corruption rooted in the country's notorious history of violence and power abuse.

The actors are disciplined in following the director's lead, but are also quite aware of one another, so the interplay between the characters is as funny to watch as are the perfectly placed moments of pure slapstick and cartoon-like violence. One might argue that they are all pretty broadly sketched, but it is not a problem for this kind of film. We even get a bit of Captain Ko's backstory, which Ryu uses as a clue to perfectly channel his character's frustrations, while others have also their perks and quirks.

Comedy might be underestimated as a genre, since it is quite hard to do it properly and the trick is to make it look easy and effortless. In that and every other sense, "Extreme Job" is an enormous success with a high score for laughs and probably one of the best and most hilarious comedies in years. The success is even bigger having in mind that Korean cinema is not usually known for that kind of comedies. Well, maybe the filmmakers should have tried it earlier, but it is never too late.

A Film a Week - Golden Slumber / Gol-deun seul-leom-beo

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Does everything under the label of cinema has to be completely original? Of course not, because otherwise we would not be able to enjoy precious little thing called genre. Genre works on the terms of archetypes, and, for added bonus if we are lucky, it innovates or even creates them. "Golden Slumber" directed by Noh Dong-seok works as a stellar example: it is hardly original (actually, it is a second adaptation of the novel by Japanese writer Kotaro Isaka), but it well-made and fun to watch. After a successful stretch in theatres world-wide, especially in East Asia, it is being shown at Florence Korea Film Festival.

It is a recognizable riff on the trope called "wrong man wanted", with our unlikely hero Kim Gun-woo (played by Gang Dong-won seen in "Duelist", "Master" and "1987") being framed for assassination of a leading presidential candidate. Otherwise, he is a happy-go-lucky delivery guy who became a minor celebrity for being a model citizen and saving a K-Pop star from mugging, which might actually serve as a primary motive for framing him: the media would gobble up the sensational story of his fall from grace and would not go deep in the political or whatever background of the murder.

 

Framed but also warned by his high school friend and former bandmate he did not see for a while Moo-yeol (Yoon Kye-sang), Gun-woo has to run for his life against the seemingly omnipotent and omnipresent spy gang operating within the government. Everyone close to him either turns to be a traitor or dies in a brutal fashion by the hands of Gun-woo's body double nicknamed Silicone so he has no one to turn to except for maybe a Moo-yeol's former secret agent buddy Mr. Min (Kim Eui-sung, best known for the role of the businessman Yon-suk in "Train to Busan") who is, needless to say, quite a shady character.

In the meanwhile, the surviving bandmates, a computer repairman Geom-chul (Kim Seong-gyoon) and a divorce lawyer Dong-gyu (Kim Dae-myung), as well as his former girlfriend Sun-young (Han Hyo-joo of "The Beauty Inside" fame) who now works as a radio reporter, keep debating whether to help their friend or the government that is breathing down his neck. The title of the film has been taken from The Beatles song from their Abbey Road phase which the band used to cover in their "glory days". We get to hear it as a bonus.

 

Compared to the previous Japanese screen version also titled "Golden Slumber", directed by Yoshiro Nakamura in 2010, Noh's one is tighter, with less digressive sub-plots, but also with two angles distinctive for Korean cinema. One is obsession with government surveillance, which is understandable having in mind both the Korean not so distant history of military dictatorship and the playbook of movie tropes according to which the mightier the enemy, the more we root for our hero. The other one is quick and smooth transition back and forth between breathtaking action directed and edited with precision and more relaxing genres of buddy comedy and melodrama about the power of friendship.

The acting is solid throughout, while the range of the emotions some of the characters have to cover is impressive. The actors respond to the challenge with considerable zest and it works, especially in the case of Gang Dong-won whose transformations are brilliant. Also, the technical aspect of the film is so flawless that it is easy to forget about some minor script troubles.

Speaking of which, Noh treats the conspiracy in the same manner as the media in his film, never going deeper into the background why the spy syndicate had to remove the presidential candidate, while the other problem is more common for the sub-genre. The script is pretty arbitrary regarding the power of the agents who are all-mighty and all-knowing until the point they have to screw something up really badly so our guy will get the chance. But never mind that, "Golden Slumber" is an effective action thriller with an emotional core and it is really fun to watch.

A Film a Week - Idol / Woo sang

previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

One thing is certain: Lee Su-jin's second feature "Idol" ("Woo sang" in the original language) is a head-spinning thrill ride of a movie which, in the end, can become exhausting. Having in mind Lee's previous feature, a minor sensation on both the genre and the regular film festival circle titled "Han Gong-ju", Idol's inclusion in the Panorama selection of this year's Berlinale is completely justified, even though the film certainly has narrow limits regarding the exposure outside of its native South Korea and hard core genre circles.

Basically, it is a story about two fathers connecting by a hit-and-run accident involving their sons. The title character of sorts Koo Myung-hui (Han Seok-kyu of "Shiri" and "The Berlin File" fame) is a politician on the move whose career prospects seem promising due to his respectable, honest and trustworthy public image. His son Johan is the supposed perpetrator, but Koo stays firm in the decision to let his son try his luck with the legal system rather than to make an attempt at cover-up. On the other side of the spectre is a simple-minded van driver Jong-sik (Sul Kyung-gu) whose mentally handicapped son was the victim. He is full of rage and is not going to be satisfied with a proverbial slap on the wrist of a sentence for the politician's son, so he hires a private detective to conduct his own investigation.

As it plays out, there were witnesses to the accident, and they saw a young woman leaving the scene. It turns to be Jong-sik's daughter in law, Ryeon-hwa (Chun Woo-hee, the lead actress of "Han Gong-ju", also seen in Na Hong-jin's "The Wailing"), and she might not be that innocent. She is an illegal immigrant from China with "colourful" past, a tortured soul prone to torture and violent behaviour herself. And so begins the battle of the wits full of twists and turns where no one is actually innocent set against the rainy nights of Seoul for the exceptionally noir-ish feeling.

Noir as a genre has archetypical characters in its foundations and that is the path that Lee Su-jin takes straight from the start. The trouble is, however, that even the main trio (a seemingly benevolent, but corrupt politician, a vengeful proletarian father and a woman who serves as a damsel in distress, a femme fatale and a downright psycho) is never elevated to anything more than a cliché. The Korean star actors do what they can, Chun Woo-hee is especially memorable, and their interaction is both juicy and compelling. The supporting characters fared even worse: they are lost in numbers and relegated, at best, to plot devices.

It is evident that Lee, who also penned the script, has her mind somewhere else: on the plot that is complicated enough so it keeps the viewer intrigued for the whole duration of the film. However, the last drop of its logic gets lost in the inflation of twists and turns, so even the most attentive of the viewers to make any sense out of it.

Combined with fast pace, rapid editing and the runtime of 140 minutes, "Idol" definitely outstays its welcome a bit due to its intensity. But it is technically masterful and stylistically polished enough to be fun for most of the time, especially for a certain type of genre audience, which makes it more than a decent efort.