Ever since I saw the movie's title promoted in the social medias of some Indonesian cinema chains, I was quite intrigued especially after I read the brief synopsis. It premiered on last Wednesday but I could only see it in the weekend due to some scheduling conflicts. Finally yesterday evening my wife and I got the chance to see the movie, even if we were late by few minutes as we came back from food tasting events quite far from the cinema location. Anyway, let us get on with the movie now.
Brief Story Line
A police detective named Jung Tae-suk (Kim Mu-yeol - A Muse, Warriors of the Dawn etc) was investigating several cases which he suspected to be done by a serial killer. However, his idea was not supported by his captain and he ended up having to perform investigation by himself. Meanwhile, a notorious gangster leader Jang Dong-su (Ma Dong-seok - Unstoppable, Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days etc) was having a turf war with another gangster. While he was alone, he was attacked by the serial killer, but due to his skills in self defense, Dong-su was able to fend off the attack and managed to survive.
With his reputation tainted, Dong-su wanted to capture and kill his attacker. But it was much more difficult than he thought. As Detective Tae-suk who suspected that it was the serial killer who attacked Dong-su, both of them decided to form an unlikely partnership and join forces to try and capture the killer (Kim Sung-kyu - Kingdom TV series etc).
So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this quite exciting and intriguing action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
OK, this movie was quite exactly what I thought it would be. There was sufficient amount of action sequence with the most exciting ones pretty much involving the gangster Jang Dong-su (once again Ma Dong-seok showed his excellent ability to show off his fighting skills). There were also quite a lot of intensity whenever the serial killer was murdering people as we would be shown some bits of disturbing scenes that could haunt the weak heart, though they were not done in the most graphic ways like in some other more gruesome movie about serial killers.
Meanwhile the appearance of the detective Jung Tae-suk was quite OK. His character with high moral compass was the complete opposite of the gangster Jang Dong-su. Which was why this movie was very interesting. A combination of such opposite characters who distrust one another to cooperate for the same goal was the main attraction. It was fun to see how one thought he was using the other and vice versa. I think this movie was exciting due to the performances of the main cast. Ma Dong-seok and Kim Mu-yeol looked like they complimented each other. And it would not be complete without the eerie performance of Kim Sung-kyu as the psychopath serial killer. This was a pretty convincing portrayal and amazingly different characterization from his part in that highly rated and popular Netflix Zombie series Kingdom.
The movie was not only filled with darkness, as it was also having brief fun moments (that scene involving umbrella during the heavy rain was quite fun). There was no melodramatic moments at all in this film which felt unusual for me personally in a South Korean movie. And for a film that had a duration of almost 2 hours (109 minutes), it was quite intense, no boring moments. The mystery was not something that difficult to solve but there were still some surprising twists towards the end which made the movie had a satisfying finale to me and my wife.
Overall it was an intense enough movie, with some well choreographed fight sequence and actions, brief amusing moments and suspense towards the end. It might not be the first story of a cop who has to cooperate with a bad guy, but this one certainly had its moments. My wife and I had pretty fun time and we quite enjoyed this movie. Ma Deong-seok's performance was the best for us in here as he really had a commanding presence and he looked damn convincing as a vicious & ruthless Gangster leader (some scenes even reminded me of those 80s & 90s popular Hong Kong gangster movies). So if you want to enjoy and watch him in this quite successful and new South Korean movie (released less than 2 weeks ago by the time I wrote this post), then give this one a try. Hopefully you could have as much fun as my wife and I did.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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