Directors in Focus: Kim Sung-soo | Runaway (1995) Review

Directed by: Kim Sung-soo

Notable Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Kim Eun-jeong, Jang Se-jin, Lee Kyung-young

In 1993, a budding filmmaker named Kim Sung-soo was met with critical acclaim with his short 18 minute film, Dead End, which quickly thrust him into the world of feature filmmaking and a two short years later, in '95, he debuted with Runaway, which features Lee Byung-hun in one of his very first roles, and features among other things, a sweeping jazz score, lots of blue lighting, sweaty (comically so) scenes of eroticism, and of course, a whole lot of 90s culture. The plot is also as of the era as imaginable. A video game designer (Lee) hooks up with an artist (Kim), and the two have a good time together one night, but as their steamy night comes to a close, the heat picks back up when a murder is witnessed just outside of Kim's apartment window. Seemingly out of nowhere, the two find themselves pulled into a game of cat-and-mouse as they begin to be hunted down by the group of murderers.

Joint Security Area (2000)

Director: Park Chan-wook

Notable Cast: Lee Yeong-ae, Lee Byung-hun, Song Kang-ho, Kim Tae-woo, Shin Ha-kyun, Herbert Ulrich, Christoph Hofrichter

 

Park Chan-wook has become synonymous with the bright streak of artistic talent coming out of South Korea since the mid-90s. Even though Bong Joon-ho is the one that might be a more household name since he swept his Oscars last year, it was Park Chan-wook that was previously the name to know when it came bold cinema from the market. What makes the director’s career so interesting is that he has increasingly moved further from the mainstream with his films, despite attempts to break out in the international market with English language films like Stoker. And while his third film, Joint Security Area, might be one of his most mainstream ones, it’s a flick that doesn’t shy away from the style and themes that made Park Chan-wook such an iconic artist. With its most recent Blu Ray release, it was only the perfect time to revisit the dark military thriller to see if the film holds up.

 

Master and Asura: The City of Madness (2016/2017)

MASTER (2017)

Director: Cho Ui-seok

Notable Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Kang Dong-won, Kim Woo-bin, Uhm Ji-won, Oh Dal-su, Jin Kyung

At this point, the South Korean market is so good at making thrillers that it’s setting the bar too high for them to even keep up. Master is the victim of that bar standard. If this film was made in Hollywood, it was easily be one of the best that Hollywood has made this year if not in the last handful of years and yet, compared to the two kinds of thrillers that South Korea is producing, it feels occasionally disjointed and safe.

Master tries to be a complex socio-political-economic thriller as it takes two heroes and pits them against a financial criminal mastermind, played with impressive swagger by Lee Byung-hun, who is running a massive pyramid scheme. This is problematic, outside of being ambitious, because it’s very dense material. A plethora of various characters, two leads, and enough plot to make two movies. Two movies that are jammed into one. The first hour is purely set up, but it’s built like its own film and reaches a natural climax and everything. The second half then jumps ahead six months (or more, as memory seems to escape me at this moment) and proceeds to build an entirely new plot where our leads must re-team up to find the baddie AGAIN and hunt him down. It’s a ballsy maneuver for the film, but it’s a lot to consume for a two and half hour piece of cinema. Respect, for sure, but also not perhaps the most efficient maneuver when both pieces could have been fantastic films on their own. On top of that, the film is neither the dark and ambitious thriller nor the overly entertaining and hammy ones that South Korea is known for producing. It tries to be both and in that effort, does go far enough in either direction. For many fans, this riding the line will be wonderful for consumption, but ultimately for this reviewer it felt like they didn’t want to make a choice one way or the other and it’s a tad disappointing.