Rating: 4/5
Hoop-Tober | 18/35 | Countries 3/5 | South Korea
Joong-ho is a pimp. He sends out one of his girls, Sung-hee, only for the customer to try and secretly film her. When Sung-hee finds out, she tries to leave, but the customer hits her. So, she calls Joong-ho, who comes and settles the matter. How? We don’t know, but it involved a money exchange.
Through Sung-hee and Joong-ho’s conversation, we learn that two girls are missing — Joong-ho believes they ran away, but Sung-hee believes otherwise. We also know that Joong-ho used to be a detective. Sung-hee runs off while Joong-ho gets a call about a customer rejecting all their girls. So, Joong-ho sends Mi-jin, who has a cold but of course Joong-ho doesn’t care.
While fumbling around in the car, Joong-ho finds one of the missing girls’ phones. He sees that the last number called was the same one as the customer Mi-jin went to see. Joong-ho believes the customer is selling his girls. The truth, however, is much worse. Joong-ho tries to wrangle in his old police buddies, but they have their own problems. So Joong-ho will have to take matters into his own hands.
Like Memories of Murder, the film deals with police incompetence. In some ways, it’s incompetence all around. No one is good at what they’re doing, and they pay for their endless mistakes. This movie would end in 30 minutes if people didn’t make so many logical leaps.
The filmmaking complements this incompetence, letting the camera roll throughout the struggle. The resulting tension is more effective (and frustrating) than your traditional crime thriller. The closest comparison would be The Nice Guys or a Coen Brothers movie. But way bleaker.
I’ve watched a fair number of South Korean crime thrillers — this one stands out by playing deftly with genre conventions without straying too far from what makes them compelling.