The City Of Violence (Screen Daily Review)

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http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?st ... 733&r=true

The City Of Violence (Jjak-pae)

Lee Marshall in Venice 18 September 2006

Dir: Ryoo Seung-wan. S Kor. 2006. 93mins.

Action film-maker Ryoo Seong-wan takes a comparative step backwards from the psychological complexity of last year’s Crying Fist with The City Of Violence, his latest outing, which pegs a series of appetisingly choreographed fight sequences onto a threadbare script.

Co-produced by Korea’s main martial arts school, the film seems more interested in kung-fu than character – though it’s worth sticking around just for the long last-man-standing battle at the end, which, like the Liu-Thurman restaurant showdown in Kill Bill, or the hammer fight in Old Boy, could easily be extracted for a Best Film Fights compilation.

At home in South Korea it has notched up around 1.2m admissions so far, as compared to the more introspectively brutal Crying Fist, which came in at around 1.7m. Abroad, its loose story and lo-fi production values may prevent it from achieving kung-fu crossover a la Stephen Chow; DVD looks likely to be the format in which most Western fans of Korean and/or martial arts cinema will end up seeing this one.

Tae-soo (Jung Doo-hong), a tough but honest detective from Seoul, is called back to his hometown, Onsung, by the news that his childhood friend Wang-jae has been killed, apparently by a couple of teenage tearaways. At the funeral he meets up with two other friends from the same former band of schoolmates (whose halcyon days are evoked in a series of flashbacks): Suk-hwan – a violent but good-hearted hothead, played by the director – and the unctuous Pil-ho (Lee Beom-soo), once the brunt of the gang’s practical jokes, now getting his own back as a small-time mafia boss.

Tae-soo decides – though we’re not quite sure why – that there’s more to his friend’s murder than meets the eye, and opts to stay on in Onsung to get to the bottom of the mystery. The youth of this once-tranquil city are out of control, and they explode in a choreographed shopping mall fight sequence that involves break-dancers, then BMX bikers, then in-line skaters, then a vicious gang of hockey-wielding schoolgirls, then a whole baseball team in full kit, form battle ranks against Tae-soo and Suk-hwan.

The final sequence, a bravura piece of kung-fu choreography set in a traditional, pagoda-roofed Korean inn, must have absorbed a good slice of the film’s remarkably modest $2.4m budget.

The film’s main problem is that the mannered, tongue-in-cheek humour of these fight sequences, which are filmed in dynamic close-up and edited for speed, clashes more often than not with the more sombre tone of the investigation scenes that surround them. The script is structurally weak too, with flashbacks (such as a running theme involving a bottle of liquor with a pickled snake inside) often inserted in an apparently random order.

Of the actors, it’s Lee Beom-soo, the villain of the piece, who gives his character most depth, suggesting the resentment which fuels his thuggish smalltown tyranny and becoming almost likeable in his uncomplicated, sweaty amorality.

The catchy soundtrack mixes Korean rap and hip-hop in the youth-fight scenes with an updated spaghetti western theme that surges to a climax in the final fight to the death.

Production companies/backers
Filmmaker R&K Ltd
Seoul Action School

International sales/South Korean distribution
CJ Entertainment

US distribution
The Weinstein Company

Executive producer
Kim Ju-seong

Producers
Kang Hye-jeong
Ryoo Seung-wan
Jung Doo-hong

Screenplay
Ryoo Seung-wan
Kim Jeong-min
Lee Won-jae

Cinematography
Kim Young-cheul

Production design
Cho Wa-sung

Editor
Nam Na-young

Music
Bang Jun-suk

Main cast
Jung Doo-hong
Ryoo Seung-wan
Lee Beom-soo
Joeng Soe-kyong
An Kil-kang
Kim Seo-hyung