Jason says: “This one
has received a lot of notice in part because of Bong Joon-ho’s
involvement as a producer and co-writer for long-time collaborator Shim
Sung-bo, and if that helps it out, that’s great. It’s a nifty little
movie, the sort of thriller that South Korea seems to do better than
anyone else right now – the type that plunges the audience into much
darker than expected territory and still keeps one on the edge of his
or her seat out of genuine excitement.
“It takes place in 1998, and times are tough in the port city of Yeosu,
South Korea. Kang Chul-joo (Kim Yun-seok), the captain of a small
fishing boat, has just been told that the owners intend to sell the old
ship for scrap, putting him and his crew out of work. He would like to
buy the Jeonjiho, but fish won’t let them make that sort of money fast
enough. Smuggling people in from the North will do it, but it’s a job
for which these grizzled fishermen are ill-suited; they almost lose
young and idealistic hand Dong-sik (Park Yoo-chun) when he dives into
the sea to rescue Hong-mae (Han Ye-ri), one of just a couple women in
the group. Still, what happens when a Coast Guard ship stops them for
an inspection is far worse.
“HAEMOO is based upon a real incident, and comes to the screen by way
of the stage, but those looking for an introspective film built around
the characters talking about the moral dilemmas they face are in for a
few shocks. There is not much opportunity for big, memorable speeches
at all, and if Bong & Shim have done much to make the dialog of
their (generally) unrefined working-class characters snappier, it
doesn’t make it to the subtitles. And that’s probably good, because the
film becomes a quite starkly horrifying thing in the blink of an eye,
and it would not do for a glib or self-satisfied impression to come
through.
“That’s not what one gets from the cast. Park Yoo-chun is able to pop
enough early on that the audience knows to keep an eye on Dong-sik as
things start to develop, even if he is surrounded by a fine roster of
character actors playing rougher-hewn sailors; there’s a nobility to
him that’s never artificial fueling the character’s later desperation.
When cracks appear later, they feel real and terrible. Han Ye-ri spends
a lot of her time paired with Park, and while it might be easy to
discount her a bit because of the character’s quite reasonable
circumspection, she does a lot to let the audience see what’s going on
through different eyes, and even her scenes with Park have a slight
tension, as if she genuinely likes this boy but always has a defector’s
precarious position in the back of her head.
“Kim Yun-seok goes the other way as Captain Kang, and his take on
desperation is something else again. Kang is in a hole from the start,
although it’s the sort that tends to garner audience sympathy, and Kim
does a great job in building him up as the sort of outburst-prone loser
with his heart in the right place that we’ve seen in a lot of movies,
but winds up taking him in a very different direction. Kang becomes
outraged and winds up on a dark path, and Kim is able to transform his
fear into something monstrous, pushing the pugnacious qualities the
audience admired him for beforehand across a line while also cooling
just enough to seem like a more dangerous adversary.
“The film looks great – I joked earlier this year that someone in South
Korea built a tank for shooting maritime movies and intends to get
their money’s worth – this, THE
ADMIRAL, and THE
PIRATES hit Korean multiplexes in rapid succession this summer –
but I can’t complain about the results. Especially nifty is how Shim
makes the sea fog of the title a major presence, letting it really set
the scene when the movie gets into murky territory; it makes the ship a
world of its own, and Shim uses the geography of that world – it’s
vertical, it’s got niches, parts are very cramped and dangerous –
extremely well. He sets up unflinching violence and tension, sometimes
crossing the line between ugly-but-powerful to just nasty, but making
an impressively tense picture.
“HAEMOO isn’t quite the movie I expected going in – it sounded more
like a straight tragedy than a thriller, but wound up being a real
nail-biter. Fortunately, that doesn’t make it lightweight at all, and
fans of Bong Joon-ho should not be disappointed that he lent his name
to his co-writer’s directorial debut at all. 4.5 cats
“Seen 24 September 2014 in Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar #6 (Fantastic
Fest, DCP)” |
