Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1933 during the Japanese colonialism in Korea, an anti-government group tried to assassinate the new Governor-General. The Japanese soldiers led by Captain Takahara (Park Hae-soo - Money Heist: Korea TV series, Narco-Saints series etc) was assigned to find out the culprit, known by the code name Phantom.
Takahara gathered five suspects in a secluded hotel where he gave everyone the chance to come forward before he started using torture. The five of them were former police chief Murayama (Sol Kyung-gu - Yaksha: Ruthless Operations, Kingmaker etc), an employee in communication department Park Cha-kyung (Lee Hanee - Extreme Job, The Fiery Priest TV series etc) and his colleague the young Baek-ho (Kim Dong-hee - Extracurricular series, Itaewon Class TV series etc), secretary to general political affairs chief Yuriko (Park So-dam - Parasite, Special Delivery etc) and Cryptography analyst Gye-jang (Seo Hyun-woo - Spiritwalkers, Flower of Evil TV series etc).
So how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When I read the brief synopsis from the cinema's website, it gave a hint that the story was a whodunit which was what made me interested. However, when I saw this movie yesterday, my wife and I found it to be a bit misleading since it was not a whodunit type but more of a game of cat and mouse. Yes there was some sort of finding out who the Phantom by the Japanese, but we did not really put our mind to it as it did not seem like a mystery at all (I thought it was made clear who the Phantom was from the early part).
The movie actually started off quite promising with the wonderful setting of the 1930s and the beautiful scenery, followed by few slow motion scenes in the rain that felt stylish. Then there was a very brief suspenseful scene which was not really shown but we did feel the dramatic aftermath. What confused me was actually why the five people were later gathered as suspects in the first place. There was no background story of them and even when Takahara announced the purpose of the isolation, there was no explanation of why they were the ones suspected (unless I missed out on this detail).
Ever since that moment, the story was more interesting with few scenes that would have significance at latter stage (although it might feel there were too much dialogues with unclear direction). Not until we reached one moment in the middle of the movie that it suddenly sparked to life. It was definitely more intense & exciting with some pretty well executed action sequence which I never thought would happen. Again it was probably because of the word "whodunit" that gave a different impression of what kind of movie this would be. Funny thing was after a major fight, it felt like a conclusion and I thought the movie would end. Till I realized that it was not the time yet and there would definitely be something more.
The final act was pretty awesome with some action that reminded me of Hong Kong's 80s action movies. The film itself was written and directed by Lee Hae-young (Believer, Like a Virgin etc). I am not sure if he was influenced by those movies, but this one was based on 2007 novel titled "Feng Sheng" (Sound of the Wind) written by Chinese novelist Mai Jia. I read that previously there were 2 Chinese movies and a TV series created based on this same novel. So this was already the fourth adaptation but the first one in South Korea.
I think the lead cast were definitely the main attraction of the movie, with almost everyone quite well known by South Korean drama fans. My wife even recognized one of the supporting characters Nan-yeong (Esom - Taxi Driver TV series, Samjin Company English Class etc). What amazed me was how fluent few of them in speaking Japanese, especially Park Hae-soo who had to use the language almost in his entire dialogues as he played a Japanese soldier. The action sequence as I said above was well crafted and something that I also enjoyed in the film. Oh, there were few violent scenes though not up to the point of totally disturbing. Btw, there was no mid or post end credit scenes in here.
Overall to me this was an interesting spy action thriller movie. The premise might not be what I was looking for but the action itself was cool enough to satisfy me and my wife. The mystery was not particularly amazing, though the part where the suspects tried to outwit the Japanese was quite fun to see. Its duration of 133 minutes might be a bit too long and I personally felt the movie should have ended after the major fight that involved large explosions. But the additional scene was pretty entertaining too, hence no major complains there. So if you are looking for a stylish spy thriller movie set in the period where Korea was still under the colony of Japan, with some cool looking action scenes, then you could give it a try. But if you are looking for a whodunit type, then this one is not for you.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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