Reviewed by James Whittington
Stars Yunjin Kim, Seung-woo Kim, Seon-a Kim, Min-su Choi, So-yeong Jeong, Seung-chae Lee
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £14.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 120 minutes | Directed by Yun-su Jeon
Science Fiction isn’t the sort of genre you’d first come up with when discussing Asian cinema, but here’s a little Korean effort from 2002 that has a stark warning for the future of mankind.
It starts off by explaining that in 1990 a number of school children disappeared whilst at the same time a group of top scientists began a top secret project. Forward thirty years and said same scientists are being bumped off one by one and the Special Investigations team has been asked to resolve the matter. Then things take a turn for the worse as the chief of police is kidnapped and the group leader’s son is shot dead.
Opening strongly with a powerful siege sequence and some wonderful hand held moments of camera work the movie soon settles into a more concrete format displaying a future that’s not dissimilar to the ones we’ve seen in features such as Blade Runner, Brazil and the like. There’s some rain, a few neon lights and advertisements sponsor the messages sent between police officers on their video links. It’s this familiarity that makes the movie seem slightly un-original and the Western inspired dialogue, “You want a piece of me, huh?” seems out of place. The multi-layered story twists nicely but does suffer from some slight over acting from the cast. Also some poor CGI effects let the movie down from time to time and distract your attention away from the plot which is already difficult enough to follow. But director Yun-su Jeon does show some promise and a good eye for dramatic camera angles and set-ups. His car chase sequences, coupled with some exciting gun play might help the movie appeal to a broader audience looking for a quick action fix, but won’t create long term fans. Trying to be positive here but even after such exciting build ups the movie lets itself down time and again by becoming even more clichéd. For instance we have the hard nosed cop, the hard assed female cop, the beautiful Chief’s daughter who needs has talents to help incarcerate her father’s captors etc etc. And the bad guys, well you can spot them a mile off. They either look mean and moody or just plain eccentric.
EXTRAS The lack of any extras makes this release feel a little naked. Surely there’s a nice companion piece to go with it, maybe something about Asian sci-fi? Until then this won’t really convert many new followers to the genre thanks to some uneven movie making.