While I was at work on Thursday, my wife informed me there was a special screening event on Saturday. It was a movie that intrigued me due to its huge box office success in South Korea. So we both were very excited to get the chance to see it before its official premiere date in Indonesia on 20th February 2019. After waiting a while, the studio finally opened at around 1.10 PM which was only a bit behind schedule, but apparently due to valid reason as there was surprise giveaways to audience prepared before the start of the show (which sadly my wife and I did not won it). OK, let's move on with the movie.
Brief Story Line
A bunch of narcotic police division group led by Captain Go (Ryu Seung-ryong - Miracle in Cell No. 7, The Target etc) that consisted of the surveillance guy Detective Yang Ho (Lee Dong-hwi - Reply 1988 TV series etc), the rather crazy Detective Ma (Jin Seon-Kyu - The Merciless etc), the only female in the group, Detective Jang (Lee Hanee - The Rebel TV series etc) and the rookie Jae-hoon (Gong Myung - The Bride of Habaek TV series etc) seemed to always screwing up their job assignments. So when they were given some kind of last chance to stakeout and capture the notorious Mubae (Shin Ha-kyun - Brain TV series etc) they did not hesitate.
Only challenge was, they had to avoid suspicion while doing the stakeout and it would seem the best way to do so was from the fried chicken restaurant across the location. But then customers started to come in and they had no choice but to make sure people believed their restaurant was legit, by really making fried chickens. And things would be really complicated when their fried chicken somehow became famous and more & more customers coming, making it very difficult to juggle between their undercover disguise and their actual job.
So how would the story resolve? Find them all in this hilarious comedy action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
OK, this movie was really funny and entertaining. From the beginning, we already got to see the silliness of the whole team. One by one we were introduced to these bunch of screw-ups police. As the story progressed, we would see the interaction among the whole team which was usually amusing. But what amazed me was every now and then, when it would seem like they were getting serious, there was always some surprising brief scene that would make us laugh again.
I really loved the performances of the five actors/actress who played these detectives. Ryu Seung-yong was great playing the team leader with some family problem and even manage to show off his capability in the more dramatic side. While Lee Hanee was wonderful portraying the only lady detective who had to be very tough but later on showed some feminine side. And my most favorite Detective Ma who left a great impression to me even from the start. The first scene when he appeared already showed what kind of character he would be. As for Gong Myung and Lee Dong-hwi were really great towards the latter part of the film.
Even though the story was pretty standard of a police stakeout to capture bad guys, but the film was made interesting because of their disguise which was to manage a fried chicken restaurant. It was really fun to see how police detectives had to be waiter/waitress, cashier and cook. Especially during the scenes of picking up phone, or customers suddenly came and many more. The villain here was a very ruthless gangster leader Mubae who was played quite convincingly by Shin Ha-kyun. And I thought he was the perfect villain to this group of really crazy detectives.
The conclusion of the movie was something that most likely we could have guessed, but the journey towards it was really worth the while. We really would be able to laugh out loud during the whole movie and I also noticed that towards the end, the audience were really enjoying themselves as could be heard from the volume of laughters that kept on increasing. Oh talking about the end, after the really great finale scene, there was a song playing in the background which I think came from a Hong Kong gangster movie (not sure from which movie though). My wife was the one who caught this first before I realized. And for a movie with duration of 111 minutes, it was satisfying. Only thing I personally thought a bit lacking was a mid or post end credit scene that could probably give a little bit of conclusion (but that's just me).
Overall this was a really fun movie. It was entertaining. Something that could make you laugh your hearts out. My wife was really enjoying the movie that she did not even sneak a peek to her handphone or went to the rest room. For a comedy action movie, I think it successfully delivered. The comedy part was great, a combination of some absurd moments and behaviors due to the conditions. The action sequence were amazing and not just adequately done to support the story (a bit violent but still reasonable). Even the frying chicken scenes were wonderful, as it really made me and my wife wanted to find a Korean fried chicken restaurant to eat them. It was no wonder the movie was such a big hit (at the time of my writing this post, it was already at no. 4 of all time domestic South Korean movie in term of admission. And still counting). Kudos to the director Lee Byeong-heon who had previously directed a successful movie titled Twenty.
So if you want to have fun, looking at a bunch of detectives who had to disguise as fried chicken restauranteurs, and fighting gangsters, then this is definitely it. Be sure to watch this in certain theaters when it premieres in Indonesian theaters.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
A big thank you from us to Rivki from CGV for the invitation to this event and we were really fortunate being part of the audience given the opportunity to see this movie before its premiere date. We really appreciate it and look forward to future events.
Some pictures from today's event held in Starium, the biggest auditorium in CGV.
No comments:
Post a Comment