If there’s one thing I’ve learned from crime films, it’s that lying about a small crime is always a bad idea. At least for movie characters like police Detective Ko (Lee Sun-kyun), who hits someone while driving on a dark highway on his way to his mother’s funeral, trying to cover his tracks creates one problem after another. Perhaps being investigated by internal affairs has messed up his judgment, though it doesn’t seem to have affected his ability to think up clever ways to cover his tracks, including, in one hilarious sequence, the truly resourceful employment of a children’s toy, an air vent, and a casket.
The tone is light and funny at first, but as Ko realizes he’s gathered an inadvertent enemy (Jin-Woong Choi), the thriller and action elements take precedence. Still, the film is extremely clever to the end, and the humor doesn’t entirely disappear even as more violent elements come to the fore. The inevitable car chase has one the oddest, most amusing conclusions I’ve seen. This was a word-of-mouth hit in South Korea, and only the language barrier would prevent a similar success elsewhere, at least with those who don’t equate a high body count with quality.
IMDb link
viewed 10/23/14 9:40 pm [Philadelphia Film Festival] and posted 10/25/14
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