From the moment it was first announced, Ryoo Seung-wan’s espionage thriller The Berlin File produced steep expectations on the part of the audience, and steep pressure on the part of the filmmakers to succeed. The work’s blockbuster-sized budget of $9.5 million was far and away the largest ever taken on by the director. The announcement of an all-star cast including Ha Jung-woo (The Chaser), Gianna Jun (My Sassy Girl), Han Seok-gyu (Shiri), and the director’s talented brother Ryoo Seung-beom (The Unjust) piqued audiences’ interest early. Set in Berlin, the film would require extensive shooting in Europe, including some highly elaborate action set pieces. Not only that, in the previous two years a string of expensive Korean genre films including My Way, Soar into the Sun, and Sector 7 had failed miserably at the box office. The pressure was on director Ryoo not only to earn back his investors’ money, but to restore the tarnished reputation of the Korean blockbuster.
In the event, the filmmakers came through with an impressively executed large-scale work that sold 7 million tickets, passing Shiri to become Korea’s best-selling action film in history. Although some viewers found the complex plot frustrating, there was near universal agreement that the action sequences were creatively executed and exciting. The Berlin File also now ranks as Director Ryoo’s best-selling film to date.
The film’s espionage and Berlin location might remind some viewers of classic Cold War narratives, but the film is set in the present. A North Korean special agent named Pyo Jung-song (Ha Jung-woo) is negotiating an arms deal with an Arab terrorist organization, when Israeli Mossad agents break in and seize the terrorist. What’s more, a South Korean agent (Han Seok-gyu) also attempts to stop him as he makes his getaway. Soon, talk begins to circulate around the North Korean embassy that someone is leaking information to the other side. When a shadowy power broker from Pyongyang (Ryoo Seung-beom) arrives in Berlin, Pyo instinctively fears the worst – and sure enough, the man accuses Pyo’s wife (Gianna Jun), who works for the embassy as a translator.
Weaving in a diverse array of characters and nationalities, Ryoo sets up a complex tale of intrigue in the first half of the film, involving the current power struggles underway in North Korea. The viewer follows the story through Pyo’ perspective, and also through the perspective of the South Korean agent, who tests the patience of his superiors with what they view as rash actions based on gut instincts. As the twists in the story reveal themselves midway through, momentum develops and an elaborate chase ensues, giving the director an opportunity to work in the action scenes that he is famous for.
Over the past decade and a half, Ryoo and a few other directors have gone a long way towards establishing a particular identity for Korean action, as distinct from the fighting style seen in Hong Kong or Chinese cinema. The action is fast paced and dynamic but highly realistic, such that the audience feels the pain in every crunched bone. In the case of The Berlin File, the action has been expended in scale and slightly smoothed out. It is less gritty then The City of Violence, but just as impressive.
The Berlin File marks an interesting new stage in Ryoo’s career: a move into larger-scale and more internationally-oriented genre films. To a certain extent this reflects broader trends within Korean cinema, as distributors like CJ E&M target international audiences and some of Korea’s best directors shoot films in Hollywood with international casts. Whether or not Ryoo will continue in this direction remains to be seen, but it’s notable that this particularly ambitious effort on his part has been judged a success.
Darcy Paquet