This movie is very well put together. The performances are great, especially from the mother and Do-joon. It definitely captures the feeling of a mother who worries incessantly about her child, even ignoring the murder plot. Every lingering shot is very well put together to show this dynamic. It captures mundanity perfectly.
I didnt enjoy this movie at all. I dont think there was a single thing I enjoyed about anything. I didnt like the mother, I didnt like Do-joon, I didnt find any thrilling suspense, I wasnt engaged at all by finding out who really killed that girl, , for heping Do-joon, or for making mother feel better about the situation.
I didnt find anything interesting or compelling about the mother being a mother, or about Do-joons childlike incompetence. I didnt care about chasing the Benz driver and the golf scene, I didnt care about Do-joon out drinking, I didnt care about the murder, the cops lack of due diligence, the lawyer not giving a shit, the mothers investigation, mother watching Jin-tae bang a girl and then sneaking out. Jin-tae probably did murder somebody though.
Mom trying to kill Do-joon as a child was quite a twist that seemed kinda pointless.
The best scenes were the lawyers karaoke, Jin-taes monologue in the shadows, interrogating those schoolboys, the crazy granny, and Do-joons brain short circuiting after the act. But I still cant say I enjoyed any of them. It was a perfectly put together movie that I did not care about at all.
6/10.
Actually, there is one thing I liked. Jin-tae said theres three reasons for murder. Money, passion, and vengeance. Its shown MANY times that Do-joon will use violence as vengeance against people who insult him. So the result does have some set up. But I still dont really care about Do-joon. I had no sympathy for the mother before this reveal and so I definitely did not have sympathy in her descent into villainy.
Ive never watched a Korean film before, though Ive read a lot of manhwa. One interesting feeling is that, like the live action Japanese movies Ive watched, it felt very anime in the way it frames scenes to hold on a striking image, like how it shows Do-joons eye staring at mother when he remembers her murder attempt on him, or how it will make certain characters unusually distinguishable like the rice wine granny or the girl with the scar in her cheek. I watched the Grand Budapest Hotel recently and it goes out of its way to do this sort of thing, but I think western films dont do this much.
7/10 final rating.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG