Movies Reviews

Troubleshooter - New York Asian Film Festival Review

By Ron Wilkinson Jun 28, 2011, 13:31 GMT

Stuffed with action and hi-tech treachery. Much too complicated, but a lot of fun nevertheless.

Kang Tae-sik  (played by Sol Kyung-Gu from the hit “Public Enemy” series) is doing well as one of Korea’s top private eyes. He is a born-again Gene Hackman in “The Conversation.” He is born again techno and born again tough. He is almost the best fighter in the Eastern world.

In fact, there is only one man who might be better. However, a top politician has hired that man to enlist Kang Tae-sik’s aid in helping him win an election. Only, Kang does not know it. Yet.

So begins director Hyeok-jae Kwon’s roller coaster ride of a detective flick. This film is not brooding, seething Korean New Wave. This is a good old-fashioned cop movie. If it tries to move into Dirty Harry territory, or venture into Bogart sensibility it quickly swerves away, back to comfortable trendy TV style story telling.

Produced by Ryoo Seung-Wan, the film continues a stream of modern, splashy inner city themes. This film mines the inexhaustible wealth of corruption and misinformation saturating the modern political and media machine.

The hugely powerful media ruling class has framed the private from the first scene and has made him their instrument of extortion. The TV screens are the reality in this bustling city and the workers on the streets are “honest people” who take their orders from televised talking heads.

In the end it is up to the individual courage and honor of the common person to do what it takes to make things right, even if the life of his daughter is at stake.

This would be routine if it were not the fine sense of absurdity that the director and screenwriter inject into this formulaic romp into conspiracy. As in many modern Asian crime films, top corporate executives are involved.

Framed and on the run, Kang Tae-sik barges into a heavily guarded hotel room and kidnaps a corporate kingpin who is taping a press release about the current political scandal. While he is recording the heavily choreographed statements he is eating the finest food, punctuating his wisdom with respectful and appreciate munches on the stuffed sparrow.

In the end he is recovering from his trauma, allowed to live more because of his feckless stupidity than his wealth or power and he chows down, just as thoughtfully, on MacDonald’s.

The viewer must appreciate this humor or much of the value of this movie will be lost.

Kang Tae-sik’s daughter moves in and out of the screenplay. She is the ultimate pawn used against the smart and courageous private eye. The daughter is her father’s Achilles heel while at the same time being his brains and the anchor to reality.

He preaches to her about being good when she knows better that he about his failed marriage and his marginal adherence to society’s rules. His former partners on the po0lice force have gone their separate ways.

Some still adhere to the code and some have given up and gone on the payrolls of the rich corporations and the corrupt politicians. All will get their due by the end of the film.

The fighting is intense and there is some cinematography of genuine creativity. As in most cop/crime movies there are many car shots. Photography in such an enclosed space can get repetitive and boring especially in a film that has a thousand such scenes.

This film ginned up a revolving camera dolly outside the car that views the driver from different angles from just outside the windows. As the car moves, the camera rotates first most of the circle in one direction, then most of the circle in the other.

The result is not so much artistic as it is hilarious. This dizzying viewpoint takes us inside the mind of the driver. “This is getting much too complicated” he says, in the understatement of the year. The viewer can readily appreciate this. He or she was probably lost about halfway through the parade of murky secret videos.

These grainy security camera pictures disclose power plays that yell Gotcha. However, the next video trumps them twenty scenes later. These videos are countered by actual scenes of characters plotting and scheming, scenes that will become videos later unbeknownst to us.

As different characters throughout the movie echo the expression it becomes a standing joke that the audience shares intimately with the characters. Much too complicated, but a lot of fun nevertheless.

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Directed by: Hyeok-jae Kwon
Starring: Kyung-gu Sol, Jeong-jin Lee and Dal-su Oh
Release Date: New York Asian Film Festival--June 29, 2011
MPAA: Not Rated
Runtime: 99 minutes
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean
Color: Color