Part contempo crime thriller, part period political drama, part epic love story, this handsomely tooled production contains enough material for a prestige two-hour-plus movie, but instead dissipates much of its potential in relentless forward motion. Though certainly entertaining on a superficial level, and proving that veteran Bae Chang-ho can still
helm a big-budget popcorn movie like anybody else. Screenplay, adapted from a novel by well-known writer Kim Sung-jong, spans 50 years and spins on a little-known scar in recent Korean history: the infamous Geoje Camp for political dissidents and POWs, built on an island southwest of Pusan just after the start of the Korean War.
Opening reels pack in a mass of detail and characters as unrepentant communist Hwang Seok is released from solitary after nearly 50 years, and the body of a drug addict, Yang Dal-su, is fished out of a harbor with a dagger in his chest. Loose-cannon cop Oh is assigned to the case and clues lead him back to Yang's elementary school days, when Yang was pals with two classmates, Han Dong-ju and Kang Man-ho. Oh also stumbles across a diary, written 50 years ago, by Son Ji-hye, who joined the communist party and infiltrated Geoje Camp to save the man she loved, Hwang Seok.
On their own, the atmospherically lensed set pieces are undeniably gripping: a roadside killing and nighttime chase in a bamboo forest; the breakout from Geoje Camp in mud and rain; the POWs' escape underground from a torched school; and the finale at Seoul railroad station where the killer is unmasked. Time and again, however, one longs for more depth to the characters, more detail about the past, and more reflection on the protagonists' emotions to realize the potential in the material. Every cent of the budget, sizable by local standards, is up on the screen.
Derek Elley