Watching this Korean action-thriller makes you realize how many ways there are to do this kind of film other than the ways Hollywood has gotten people used to. The sort-of hero is a surly pimp who does most of the chasing on foot. The killer is an ordinary-looking guy with no special powers or elaborate apparatuses. His victim is a demure-looking prostitute with a young daughter. And the police range from competent to crooked to inept, but most often the last.
There is infrequent but realistic brutality, yet also some humor that does nothing to diminish the parts that are serious and even tender. (A very good music score sets a melancholy mood at times.) I kept waiting for the predictable tropes of the genre to show up, but they don’t. Even though the whodunit is established in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, there’s more real suspense than in half a dozen typical thrillers. The sure-to-be-inferior American remake awaits.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz East (Philadelphia Film Festival) and reviewed 3/30/09
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