Directors in Focus: Yoon Jong-bin | Narco-Saints (2022) Review

Director: Yoon Jong-bin

Notable Cast: Ha Jung-woo, Hwang Jung-min, Park Hae-soo, Jo Woo-jin, Yoo Yeon-seok, Chang Chen, Choo Ja-hyun, Kim Min-gwi, Hyun Bong-sik, Lee Beong-ryeon

Episodes: 6

Coming to the end of my journey with director Yoon Jong-bin, I took a journey with his most recent project, his first foray into television, with the Netflix original limited series, Narco-Saints, based on true events about a man who happens upon a fish-selling scheme that he falls victim to, which ends up being a "laced" situation. Unaware of what was in the fish he had traveled from South Korea to Suriname to gather and sell for profit, Kang In-gu (Ha Jung-woo) finds himself working for the NIS when it is brought to his attention that a powerful drug lord, a local pastor named Jeon (Hwang Jung-min), screwed over his life. Hellbent on getting revenge and a boatload of promised cash in the process, In-gu agrees to help the agent that approaches him, and thus a journey of drugs, bloodshed, and a little worship for good measure ensues.

A Taxi Driver (2017)

Director: Jang Hoon
Notable Cast: Song Kang-ho, Thomas Kretschmann, Ryoo Jeon-yeol, Yoo Hae-jin

Based on the true story of a Seoul-based Korean taxi driver, Kim Sa-Bok, and German reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter, A Taxi Driver is a cinematic retelling of a cowardly driver turned courageous as he escorts a foreign man into the hellish Gwangju, a city which was undergoing heinous violence and oppression from its dictator government during an uprising in the 1980s, that in which before these two men infiltrated the city, was being kept a big secreted and fabricated into a lie, broadcast to the rest of the country.

Right from the get go, Song Kang-ho has the power to allure even the snobbiest of film goer. He is the definition of a true star, but unlike most stars, at least in the Western reaches of cinema, Song can act like no one else of his caliber can. He's playing his typical goofy and sort of bumbling self, which he has gotten quite good at over the years, but as usual, he is very likable and charming in that offbeat way that only Song Kang-ho can do in the form that he does.