A good movie

Since I’m a huge fan of ‘Oldboy’, I was just so eager to see this movie. First of all, I have to admit that it was rather tricky to watch a South-Korean movie with Dutch subtitles (Dutch is only my 3rd language) and, as a result, it took me a while to get a good grip on this rather complex story. Unfortunately, even though I did enjoy most of it, even though it turned out to be really intriguing, I never thought it was really fascinating though. Still, the damned thing was pretty good though. Indeed, I didn’t expect that, on top of being an entertaining detective story, it would be also such a romantic tale as well. It displayed that, solving the case and finding who’s guilty is not everything. As displayed in this movie, it can be so much more complex than what you usually get with the genre, especially when feelings might have a major impact on the proceedings. Concerning the two main characters, the Chinese woman was really complex and I really appreciated the depth they gave to this character. It was also thanks to Tang Wei who gave a really strong performance. On the other hand, I had more trouble to care about the South Korean investigator. I won’t blame Park Hae-il who did a fine job, it’s just that the guy was so clean and straight and, eventually, I never thought that his character was really interesting. The whole gimmick of the insomniac detective was also rather derivative but I have to admit that it did create a interesting surreal dreamy mood. The movie also mostly focused on these two characters and their complex relationship and while there were a number of other characters involved, none was really developed. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t completely blow me away, it was still a fine directing effort from Chan-Wook Park and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

7/10