Director: Park Chan-wook
Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min
Have I Seen it Before: Never.
Did I Like It: I’ve been frozen for a day or so regarding writing this review, because I feel like it deserves a fair bit more than saying this would have been a heck of a way for the fifth season of The Office to go.
It’s more incisive than that, although that may be the larger sum of my letterboxd review.
It’s truly fascinating how noir (and I would argue that this is at the very least neo-noir) translates to different cutlures. Had this story been told in America* it feels like Yoo Man-su (Lee) would never be able to keep far enough ahead of his schemes to not get caught in the end. Americans always get caught. Just ask William H. Macy. Lora had even mentioned that she wondered why he just didn’t team up with his targets to form a new competitior that could be the solution to all of their problems. If there ever was an American resolution ot the plot, that is it.
Instead, the film’s bleak heart only leads to something of a happy ending, which for my money becomes only darker with the realization that these people are going to have to likely live a long time with the knowledge of what they’ve done. Is that a worse punishment than imprisonment? Maybe. Probably. But even living with guilt would have been far easier than having to continue living in a world that has no use for your skills.
Maybe that’s the reason I’m having a hard time focusing in on this review: It seems like all of these characters would have been able to get better solutions to their problems by realizing that they could all get jobs in other fields. For an entertaining, thought-provoking, well-made fim, that kept taking me out of the whole affair.
Honestly, people. It’s possible to make a living. It isn’t always possible to make a living doing what you want to do.
*It is, indeed, based on an American novel by Donald Westlake, and now I’m legitimately interested to see how the concept would work out in the context of an airport paperback.