Han Suk-Kyu and Cha Seung-Won as cop and robber in Eye for an Eye (2008).I watched another Korean film today, Eye for an Eye, directed by Kwak Kyung-Taek and Ahn Kwon-Tae. Why they replaced Ahn with Kwak after finishing half the film I don't know, maybe it was just co-directed, but parts of the film are confusing and hard to follow. Maybe Ahn was having trouble getting it straight. It's basically a heist film with Cha playing the mastermind behind it and Han playing the cop trying to catch him and at the same time it has a story about Han's detective trying to catch a powerful business man who is also a crime boss, in style with Public Enemy (2002). Knowing more about the plot beforehand would spoil the film, so I'll leave it at that.
I wouldn't call the film a masterpiece, but it is a great piece of entertainment, mostly thanks to Han Suk-Kyu and Cha Seung-Won in the lead roles. Han seems to be moving away from the regular lead roles, like in Christmas in August (Hur Jin-Ho, 1998), Shiri (Kang Je-Gyu, 1999) and Tell Me Something (Chang Yoon-Hyun, 1999), that I'm used to seeing him in and portrays a slightly more bizarre character here.
With Eye for an Eye my interest in Korean cinema keeps on growing after having been put to rest a couple of years ago. It may not be the greatest film ever made in Korea but it's up there with the better of their crime films.
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Apparently, Eye for an Eye was a co-writing and co-directorial effort between Kwak Kyung-Taek and Ahn Kwon-Tae. Ahn, the director of My Brother (2004), was not replaced by the more experienced Kwak whose earlier films include Friend (2001), Champion (2002), Mutt Boy (2003) and Typhoon (2005).
3 comments:
this one is a bit interesting. i'm of 2 minds basically: as a fan of these actors it's disappointing a better film wasn't made (they both had much better genre thrillers in the past: Big Swindle, Blood Rain, Scarlet Letter). but considering the bad financing/production troubles (a new director changed story to finish on budget/time), and the overall junk food sausage factory that's the prod company Taewon, i guess we got decent results.
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ed.
scratch that: Cha seung-won wasn't in Big Swindle, but The Big Scene w/ shin ha-kyun.
I really liked it, it reminded me of films like Wild Card and Public Enemy and the few Korean action/thrillers I thought was good. I ususally like Cha Seung-Won the best in comedies but he was good here too.
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