Bad Guy


cert 18

Yes, well, I think "bad guy" doesn't quite cover it. Maybe "very bad guy" or perhaps "thoroughly deplorable guy". At any rate, there's no danger of problems with the Trade Descriptions Act with this title.

Korean director Kim Ki-Duk, who directed The Isle, has here come up with a macabre thriller with its own weirdo streak of pathos. A psychotic and mostly silent mobster, Han-gi (Jo Je-hyeon), apparently minding a pimping operation for another hard case doing jail time, falls passionately in love with a respectable, if impecunious girl Sun-hwa (Seo Won); he sets out to ruin her financially so that she will be forced into his prostitution racket, and he can spy on her from behind a two-way mirror while a succession of horrible customers have their way with her.

Part of the grisly fascination of this movie is Sun-hwa's hellish descent into someone who despairingly resigns herself to being a prostitute; but we're also invited to believe that a bizarre and tragi-black-comic love story is being played out between Han-gi and Sun-hwa.

It's difficult to see how seriously, or on what terms, to accept this. Jo's performance consists largely of a pop-eyed and malevolent glare; he takes innumerable beatings and two stabbings from his various enemies and associates, the second of which involves being virtually run through with a broken pane of glass, but survives to indulge in a lot more fighting and pop-eyed staring. When he does speak, it's in a throttled squeak.

A very disconcerting slice of extreme Asian cinema.

Contributor

Peter Bradshaw

The GuardianTramp

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